It’s been a tough week for getting things done—jet lag, a houseguest, pressing deadlines with clients, and my house being in a general state of post-travel disarray all seemed to conspire against me, making it difficult for me to be as productive as I like. But it was what it was, and despite the less-than-ideal working conditions, I did make headway on a bunch of work.
Here’s how I did with my goals:
- Continue sharing the promotional content I’ve created for Doable and crossing items off my launch plan execution list – YES
- Complete the Hacking Guide for Doable bundle (to be designed in InDesign) by end of week – YES
- Write 2 blogs for author community – behind-the-scenes of Doable – WROTE ONE
- Email more women about doing Doable Interview – YES
- Schedule phone call with my agent to discuss plan for book – EMAILED HER BUT IT HASN’T BEEN SCHEDULED YET
- Write outline of my talk for Beyond Words Live Google Hangout (scheduled for Jan 28) – BEGAN THIS
- Start going through my binder and making list (index cards?) of my major theme – YES
As you’ll see from my weekly time tracker, DOABLE took a front seat, which makes sense considering the book comes out in exactly one week. If you want to know how each day broke down, here’s this week’s Writing Project Log [CLICK TO TAKE A CLOSER LOOK]:
WHAT NEEDS TO HAPPEN NEXT ON THE WIP
After sharing my “revelation” about my work-in-progress in last week’s blog post, I heard from many readers offering words of support and suggestions for memoirs to explore as potential structure models, which was helpful. Thank you!
While I feel very positive about this book—what I hope for it, what I believe it could be—and I have a deep sense of knowing that it will come to fruition in the best possible way, I admit to feeling a little daunted by the work in front of me. Since November I had been writing away with a plan to figure out how to use what I’d written later, but over the past few weeks, I’ve realized this approach isn’t a match for what I know is my best way to tackle a project.
I’m an organizer. A planner. A scheduler. An outliner.
So back to the daunting part.
I’m daunted because I’m abundantly clear on what needs to happen to transform the jumble of ideas and thoughts and dreams and words in my head into a sellable book. Before I begin drafting in earnest, I have to:
- Figure out my succinct, clear “mission” for the book
- Create a working outline that is broken down by chapter / theme and includes the key elements I want to include in each chapter (to learn more about how I outline, watch my video here)
- Come up with a solid working title and subtitle
This is how I write. This is how I’ve approached all of my other books, and though my WIP is in a different genre and writing style than the books I’ve previously penned, I think I’m doing myself a disservice to not stick with the approach that I know is successful for me.
So, this is what I plan to do. To get started, this week I’ve created 4 different documents in Evernote—Key Points to Include, Main Themes, Title Brainstorming Words, and Ideas for Titles—and I’ve started to fill them out. And my plan is to continue doing this, no matter how difficult, how murky, until I have all of the above. And then I will begin writing.
DOABLE LAUNCH
The launch period for Doable has felt incredibly long, mostly because it was. So I am more than ready to get over this hump and have the book finally and formally available. And while of course I’ll continue marketing and promoting the book post-launch, the pressure of driving pre-sales will be over and I hope to find a rhythm for outreach, guest posts, and other marketing initiatives that feels steady, even, and sustainable.
* WRITING GOALS FOR THE COMING WEEK *
- Continue sharing the promotional content I’ve created for Doable and crossing items off my launch plan execution list
- Write 2 more blogs for author community – behind-the-scenes of Doable
- Finish writing my outline of my talk for Beyond Words Live Google Hangout (scheduled for Jan 28)
- Continue filling out my lists of main themes, key points, and title brainstorm words for the WIP
- Read / skim some of the other “competitive titles” and sample structural books on my list