Planning v writing v living

My dears,

you may have noticed my absence over the past month or so.

This is due to the fact that, despite my many letters to complain about this, there are still only 24 hours in a day, and only 7 of those damn things in a week.

The trouble is, I decided in the middle of this year to make a concerted effort to do some serious writing. Writing that I would send out. Out into the wide world, my friends, instead of just self-publishing it here where the only person who decides if it’s worth publishing or not is the CEO of Blathering Industries, ie, me.

But I found that I just don’t have the time to do that and also write a blog post every week. This is because I’m trying to put a lot of effort into the non-blog writing, to actually research, and rewrite, in short, to reach a certain standard that, let’s face it, I just don’t reach when I begin a blog post 27 minutes before I’m supposed to be at a friend’s house for dinner. (and need to allow time to change out of my tracksuit pants.)

So I got all organised, like. I wrote myself a plan, like. A plan with specific goals and deadlines and all that. I was quite surprised at myself, I tell ya.

My plan lists specific tasks: for example: 2-3 specific pieces of writing with an action to “find suitable market and send out for publication” and I’ve picked out 1-2 call outs for a themed piece of writing, and listed those with the action “write up a draft idea for this call out.” Then, I’ve listed some overall goals to achieve in that time, eg: 1 piece accepted, and 1 new piece written. Keeping it very realistic is the key. At least, it’s the key to feeling like you’ve achieved something today, ie, a writing plan.

Anyway, a few months ago, I posted about the Inaugral June To August Plan.

Since then, I have moved seamlessly on to the August To November Plan, and I’ve just popped on today to let you know that, to my astonishment, this planning and goal setting has been going quite well. (Who knew that planning and goal-setting worked? Imagine how my life could have gone, if I’d known this earlier. I blame all that TV I wasn’t allowed to watch as a child.)

By quite well, I mean that since embarking on this new approach, I’ve had one piece of writing accepted and published on an online literary journal and a second piece accepted by a zine.

Of course, in that time, I’ve also had about 8 rejections, and of course, some of those were for the piece that has now been accepted into the zine. But we know that writers have to keep persisting don’t we?! Perhaps I should mention that one of those pieces had been sent off in various forms and been rejected, probably about 8 times over the past 8 years.

But that is where I’ve decided to make a serious try at writing – which requires less time spent on this blog.

I’ve never really prioritised writing before, and I’ve always been willing to give up, and find reasons not to write. While I wrote this blog regularly, from 2010 until the middle of this year, I did not send a single piece of writing off anywhere else.

So that’s why, while I’m trying hard to have a go at writing for something other than my own blog, this blog will only be sparsely updated. Never fear, dear reader. When I reach a point where I am earning gazillions from writing, I will have time to begin posting regularly here again. I like to keep my goals realistic though, so I have to tell you, I don’t see that happening in the December – February Plan.

Thanks to those few loyal regular readers who’ve joined in the blathering over the years. I have not been on the WordPress site for weeks now so I don’t know what you are all up to. I will make an attempt to catch up with your blogs. And maybe I’ll link here when my writing is published. I’m unsure, as that would mean reluctantly revealing my – currently anonymous – identity here. This dilemma about anonymity & the freedom that provides to tell stories that affect yourself and people close to you, must be a hurdle for all writers, that I have yet to feel comfortable about.

Anyway, in the meantime, stay tuned.

And keep writing.

Image: Unseen Studio on Unsplash