Summer is HERE !
Or do I mean heatwave after heatwave (many thanks to the brain behind air conditioning)?
Anyhoudelidou…
Fellow writers, here’s the June 2020 writing news: I finished the first draft of a novel. I wrote a book! High five to me!
It’s very exciting and I’m proud to have persevered, but there’s work left to do, in order to have a polished, presentable, sale-able novel by the end of July, at the very latest.
I also want to start rough drafting another MG novel, a fantasy one (no surprise here, Fantasy is my favorite genre and the one have been writing in for… ever!). I want it to be a totally fun medieval fantasy novel, with some magic and romance and mystery. Ha, I can’t wait !!
However, fellow writers…
Finding writing motivation under the hot summer sun…
As stated at the beginning of this post, it’s summertime here in my little North-American francophone bubble.
And… you know…
Writing when it’s all sunny shiny near the ice-cream stand…
Writing when the sun has set at long last and you are talking away with a loved one, sipping wine…
You get the idea, dear fellow writers!
When Summer happens, anything goes. In our case, we’re not going on vacations (for pandemic reasons), so the day-to-day life will not change much.
Kiddo is so happy to go to daycare, after all those months confined with big kids.
Nevertheless, I need to re-think the writing routine and set more realistic goals.
Let’s get down with Summer Writing Goals!
Writing Goals for Summer 2020
Let’s talk about writing goals !
I want to :
- Have a clean, complete manuscript ready to be sent out in the world by the end of July 2020.
- Finish a first rough draft of the MG medieval fantasy
As you may know, I do approach writing as if it was my full-time job.
But since it’s the summer and I need to be realistic, here’s the plan:
- Work four days a week, 6 to 8 hours a day
- Downgrade to a minimum 2 evening writing session
To achieve those goals and make that schedule work, here are the tips & hacks I’ll be using:
- Waking up a half-hour before kiddo (which I do sometimes, but need to do every workday)
- Write a daily to-do list
- Write a daily writing goal list
- Get my butt out of the house for at least an hour every day (this is gonna be very, very hard since I’m in an « I should have bought a house deep in the woods » phase)
- Stop making excuses
This summer, I also want to take a big decision: going indie and self-published my books.
I’ll be honest here, it’s important to me to get my work recognize (validated?!?!?!) my the book industry.
The publishing world got hit hard with the pandemic in 2020. Not that it was going so wonderfully well before.
Since I’m in a little francophone publishing market, I have no choice, if I want my stories to be read at some point, to think about self-publishing.
That decision however is a big one. It involved a lot of tasks I’m reluctant to do and wearing a lot of professional « hats » that doesn’t fit with me, my personality, my abilities at all.
Nevertheless, I have my summer writing goals in my pocket, a complete novel to polish and a new writing project to play with.
Writers of the world, let’s get writin’ !
Until next time, thanks a billion for reading. I really appreciate it!
Marie Alice Writes & Reads 