Planning Your Writing AND Your Life in 2019 – by Kitty Bucholtz
September 9, 2018 by Kitty Bucholtz in category It's Worth It by Kitty Bucholtz, Writing tagged as It's Worth It, Kitty Bucholtz, organization, time management
In July 2018, I interviewed bestselling author Susan May Warren on my podcast, WRITE NOW! Workshop Podcast, about her latest romantic suspense novel. We had a great time talking about all things writing, but we had to cut things short because there was so much to talk about! I brought her back in August to focus just on her classes and writing retreats and other tools for authors.
One of those tools has had me salivating ever since she told me about it. Susie May has been creating and tweaking and recreating and tweaking some more a personal planner to organize not just her writing life, but her whole entire life. And she’s offering it for sale to other writers. She calls it My Brilliant Writing Planner, and it’s available for pre-order now with a $20 discount through October 31, 2018.
Now, I have no skin in this game – Susie May doesn’t even know I’m writing this article yet – but you might know that I’ve been teaching time management courses for over ten years and I love a great planner! I’ve been using the ARC system from Staples for the last 21 months, and I really like it. But I have my time/calendar/planner in one ARC notebook, my writing notes in another ARC notebook, and other notes in other notebooks. Susie May’s planner puts a lot of that all together in one place.
Why? Well, when aren’t we thinking about our story and needing to jot down a few notes? Or in the middle of brainstorming and realizing we forgot to make some kind of plan for dinner? Or waking up in the morning trying to remember our new First Five (if you’ve taken my course) or other healthy habits we’re trying to incorporate into each day? Or wanting to capture a motivational or inspirational line to think about more later?
My Brilliant Writing Planner puts all of this together in one place!
Yes, that means it’s big. At 490 pages, this is not a little notebook you can shove in your purse. And maybe just the thought of having everything together in one place is both a relief and…a bit daunting. For me, my question before I buy almost anything is, “Am I really going to use it and get my money’s worth?” And I had to ask that question about this planner, no matter that a part of my brain really wanted it. (Magic bullet thinking, anyone?)
Looking over the great website for the planner, seeing examples of all the pages on the Samples page, and checking out the pages that Susie May had filled in for her life – that all helped me see how helpful this could be for me. But the real kicker was when I read that Susie May also created a course for this (over 7 hours of planning help!), showing us how she uses the Planner to “live with joy and get it all done.” The course is free when you pre-order the planner!
In one of the podcast interviews, she and I talked about how to schedule a writing life to be productive, but still enjoy our friends and family and a good night’s sleep. If I’ve learned anything from my recent collision with burnout, it’s that we can plan and time-manage ourselves into a breakdown. What I’m seeing as I look over the sample pages and read the text on the website is a tool created by a writer who knows the importance of prioritizing and saying no.
We can’t do everything. But a good planner – this one, or something else that works better for you – can help us to keep our priorities front-of-mind. For me, I think that’s a key to having both a productive work life and a peaceful personal life.
I bought the planner five minutes after I got the email announcing that it was available. 😀 And I’ve already started the course. I figure it might help me finish out 2018 with a bang, but mostly I want 2019 to be my best year ever – and that’s going to require both planning (duh) and some hard questions. What will I continue doing in the next year, and what will I give up for now? What are my greatest strengths and how can I use them better next year? How can I hold myself accountable for the new healthy habits I’m developing?
For me, My Brilliant Writing Planner and the course that goes with it are going to be my most important tools, so I wanted to make sure you knew about them, too. Bring on 2019! 😀
0 0 Read moreThe Power of a Restart – by Kitty Bucholtz
July 9, 2018 by Kitty Bucholtz in category It's Worth It by Kitty Bucholtz, Writing tagged as Goal Setting, Kitty Bucholtz, time management, Writing Goals, writing life
Since it’s early July, I’ve been thinking about and talking about and podcasting about hitting the Restart button. How have we been getting on with the writing goals we decided upon six months ago?
I know that I am way off from what I expected. Moving to another country will do that to you! So I’ve been thinking about how I want to adjust the year to finish with strong, achievable goals. I did a live broadcast presentation for the Yosemite Romance Writers in May, and decided to use the recording for a mid-year podcast. Here’s the link to the audio, and here’s the embedded video.
Right after I posted that episode, it occurred to me that it might be a good time for a personal goal review as well. When I started thinking about that for myself, I realized I had some changes to make in my life if I wanted to accomplish my new/biggest goal for the year – recovering from burnout.
Here is the link to the audio. And here is the video with my self-discovery. 😉
I’ve been getting a lot of feedback from people about the episodes where I’ve talked about my firsthand experience with burnout. (Here’s the embarrassingly honest look at my journey in audio and in video.) Now that I see how much it affects other people as well, I’m going to bring on more guests to talk about how to recover and how to avoid it. I hope my willingness to talk about both burnout and restarting helps others – you included! 😀
0 0 Read moreTime Management Secrets for Authors, OCC/RWA Online Class with Stacy Juba
April 23, 2018 by Linda McLaughlin in category Online Classes tagged as business, OCC/RWA Online Class, Online Class, Stacy Juba, time management, writingDo you find yourself wishing there were more hours in the day? I know I do, which is why I’ll be signing up for the next OCC/RWA Online Class!
About the Class:
Do you wish there was more than 24 hours in the day? If it seems like there is never enough time to write, promote your published books, and/or prepare submissions to editors and agents and learn the ropes of the business side of writing, then this workshop is for you. Author and editor Stacy Juba experienced the longest writer’s block of her life after a family health crisis. She went on a mission to resurrect her creativity and find the time and energy to manage her writing career. Thanks to her new strategies, Stacy created a successful editing business and launched an exciting new chick lit series, and considers her herself more productive than ever.
Over the course of the month, participating writers will take important steps to advance their careers while also reducing the stress in their lives. Whether you’re struggling to overcome writer’s block, beef up your book promotion, or get your writing career launched, this class will arm you with the skills to get to the next level. Participants will receive assignments and suggested tasks in a friendly, interactive format so that by the end of the course, they will be in a much more organized state of being.
About the Instructor:
Stacy Juba got engaged at Epcot Theme Park and spent part of her honeymoon at Disneyland Paris, where she ate a burger, went on fast rides, and threw up on the train ride to the hotel. In addition to working on her new Storybook Valley chick lit/sweet romance series, Stacy has written books about ice hockey, teen psychics, U.S. flag etiquette for kids, and determined women sleuths. She has had a novel ranked as #5 in the Nook Store and #30 on the Amazon Kindle Paid List. Stacy is also the founder of the Glass Slipper Sisters, a group of authors with Cinderella-themed romance novels. When she’s not visiting theme parks with her family, (avoiding rides that spin and exotic hamburgers) or writing about them, Stacy helps authors to strengthen their manuscripts through her Crossroads Editing Service and offers online workshops for writers.
Cost is $20.00 for OCC/RWA members and $30.00 for non-members. Sign up is a two-step process. Go to our website at http://occrwa.org/classes/may-online-class/ and click on the link to join the Yahoo Group. Then pay your fee via PayPal. If you don’t have a PayPal account, you can pay with a credit card. Once our treasurer has verified your payment, you’re request to join the Yahoo Group will be approved.
Linda McLaughlin
OCC/RWA Online Class Coordinator
Planning Your 2017 Calendar by Kitty Bucholtz
February 10, 2017 by Kitty Bucholtz in category It's Worth It by Kitty Bucholtz, Writing: It's a Business tagged as It's Worth It, Kitty Bucholtz, time management, Valentine's Day
It might seem in December when the new year is looking bright and shiny and empty that you can get everything done you ever imagined! But when you look back over the last year, you may realize that you are often overconfident about what you can do.
Being disappointed in yourself erodes your confidence for the next year, which erodes it for the following year, etc., and I want to help you keep that from happening. So this is what we’re going to do: go get a calendar. Any calendar will do, but one you like and can use easily will be the best one for you.
Starting in January, cross off every day that you know you won’t be able to work on your goals. For instance, if weekends are always for family, cross off all the Saturdays and all the Sundays from the year. Your 365 days just came down to 261 – poof! Just like that!
About how many days were you home sick last year? How many days were you taking care of someone else who was sick? Plan a few sick days into your calendar, subtracting them from the total days left but leaving them “available for use.” There is no point in feeling guilty about being sick, and we both know that a good rest will often get you back to work sooner and better than trying to work through it.
Now look at your list of the 5 to 10 goals you wrote down since last month. You can either plan forward or plan backward. To plan forward, look at each goal and figure out about how much you can accomplish per day on that goal. Then plot it out on your calendar to see what date that last day lands on. Put a sticky note on that date with the goal. The sticky note is so that when things come up, you can move the goal without scribbling all over your calendar.
Or if you already have a goal date in mind, you can plan backward. Say you want to finish the first draft of your next book by May 1. How many days do you have left on your calendar, the ones that are not crossed out, between now and May 1? And how many words do you expect your first draft to be – 50,000 words? 100,000 words? Take the word count and divide by the number of days. This is your daily writing goal.
Continue in this way, planning forward and/or backward for each goal, until you’ve plotted everything out on your calendar. Now look at each of the twelve months. Is it challenging but doable? Does it make you break out in a cold sweat? Do you need to move a few things around? Did you schedule in a little down time, “you” time?
Kitty Bucholtz
Kitty Bucholtz decided to combine her undergraduate degree in business, her years of experience in accounting and finance, and her graduate degree in creative writing to become a writer-turned-independent-publisher. Her superhero books for women and romantic comedies are available wherever ebooks are sold, as well as in print and audiobooks. Check out her new Valentine’s Day novella, My Bullheaded Superhero Valentine.
Compete with Yourself and Win by Kitty Bucholtz
February 10, 2016 by Kitty Bucholtz in category It's Worth It by Kitty Bucholtz tagged as Kitty Bucholtz, time management, writer's tips, Writing Goals
Everyone has a few personal tips and tricks to help them write more, and most people are willing to try something new to see if it helps. I’ve found a good number of people respond well to a healthy fun competition, but sometimes I start feeling bad if I compare myself to someone who always seems “ahead of me.”
Therefore, just in case it’s helpful to you, I wanted to let you know about a quick and easy writing competition you can have with yourself. (Compete with your friends if it doesn’t make anyone feel bad!)
Over ten years ago, I found this “Don’t Break the Chain Calendar” on the Writers Store website. In the description, it says that Jerry Seinfeld once said that he would write a big “X” on every day that he wrote new material…and so this calendar was eventually born.
It has 365 numbered squares on it so you can start any day of the year on square 1. The idea is to get the longest chain of X’s you can. I actually like to use gold stars that teachers put on school children’s homework. 😉 It’s fun to see the line of stars growing. Miss a day or three? Just go to the next appropriate square and start again. If you play the Settlers of Catan board game, it’s like getting the prize for building the longest road. Haha!
One of the nicest things about the Don’t Break the Chain Calendar is that Writers Store offers it as a free PDF download! (Check out the rest of the site – cool stuff!) You can also use a regular printed calendar, but you won’t be able to see as clearly how long your chain grows over time.
Cheap, easy, and motivational – just the kind of “write more” writer’s trick you needed, right? 🙂
Kitty Bucholtz decided to combine her undergraduate degree in business, her years of experience in accounting and finance, and her graduate degree in creative writing to become a writer-turned-independent-publisher. Her novels, Little Miss Lovesick, A Very Merry Superhero Wedding, and Unexpected Superhero are currently available on Amazon. The free short story “Superhero in Disguise” and the new short story “Welcome to Loon Lake” are available wherever ebooks are sold. You can find out about her courses on self-publishing, marketing, and time management for writers at her website Writer Entrepreneur Guides.
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