September is officially crazy. For the next couple of weeks I'm working on a customer publisher project for Future in the day and catching up on my other projects at night.
These include finishing off a kid's non-fiction book, working up a new plot with Mark, writing another children's chapter-book for Penguin, coming up with a new 7000 word short story and getting the next BFS Journal off to print. It's an insane amount of work and if I thought about it too much I'm sure I'd start laughing hysterically or hit the bottle (Vimto of course).
The only way to keep on top of busy times like this is to break projects into smaller, manageable chunks. This week I've put aside Monday, Wednesday and Friday nights for the chapter-book with a target of 2,500 words a night. The goal is to write 7,500 words of the story by Saturday. Tonight's quota came quite easily so I'm feeling good about it all. Suddenly “Help. I've got to write 12,500 words in three weeks” becomes “I've got to write 2,500 words on Wednesday evening”. Much easier.
Of course, I may not sound so zen on Saturday morning if it all goes hideously wrong but hey, you've got to have a plan, right?
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