but first, plan to succeed

This is it. Day one of my writing “staycation.” I’ve made a goal of writing 3,000 words per day over the next twenty days. As there is little hope of a vacation in the near future, I’ve selfishly requested this time off from work to finally knock out book one of a young adult fiction series I’ve had in my head. There just isn’t enough time or energy left in a day to get real, meaningful work done on projects outside of the day job, so to get this thing off the ground I needed some clear-cut time and parameters.

Preparation

I’ve done everything I could think of to eliminate distractions beforehand because I know my tendency to procrastinate through organizing. The house is clean, sheets are washed, kitchen cabinets are organized, my car is detailed, meal planning and grocery shopping for the duration of my time off is taken care of. I ought to have created a more detailed editorial calendar, but am going to see how it goes just reaching a daily word count goal to start. Getting the ball rolling is half the battle.

INFJ-ness

I had a week chock full of social engagements, so hopefully that stores up some extrovert time to keep me from being lonely for a little while. Although, the mere idea of being gone for three weeks has me, upon waking to my first day off, missing some people already. I have to include some margin to go out and be amongst people periodically. I could easily be a hermit for three weeks, but I’m not sure that would be a good thing.

Accountability and motivation

Now that I’ve told people that I’ve taken this time off to write the first draft of my first novel, it’s public; there’s social pressure now. This is good, as self-imposed deadlines and goals don’t carry much weight in my world. I’m a little afraid of what that says about me. Does that mean I don’t respect myself enough to be my own boss?

I’m driven, but I’m also sort of okay with letting myself down, so I need external circumstances keeping me motivated. I desperately want the work ethic I apply outwardly to kick in for my own projects. This is why I needed a set amount of focused time. This time needed to be a little bit uncomfortable (I feel guilty about taking this time off work, for myself), it needed to be public (so I don’t chicken out), it needed to be a solid chunk of uninterrupted focus time (twenty days with no other plans), and it needed to have clear-cut goals (a first draft of about 60,000 words by April 21st).

Focus

The temptation to avoid is the perpetual “but first…”. I’m going to write 3,000 words, but first, coffee. But first, shower. But first, that blog post. But first, I need that perfect inspiring-but-not-distracting playlist. But first, I’ll make a batch of scones. But first, which essential oils are good for focus and concentration?  No, V! Get your ass in that desk chair and move those fingers!

But speaking of asses in chairs, there should be some planned time for getting outside and moving. I plan to start my days with writing a few hundred words before the sun comes up, then taking my dog Marty for a brisk walk. Then perhaps some yoga and cardio in the afternoons. An undisciplined body makes for a foggy mind working at less than optimal capacity. And goodness knows I crave some fresh air and sunshine. Having the plan for the day written down and scheduled keeps little things like “but first that second cup of coffee” from derailing a day’s productivity. How easily one can fritter away a day with “but firsts.”

Goals

In addition to using Forest–an app in which you plant a virtual tree and if you do anything else on your phone for a set amount to time that tree dies–I found an app that will help me keep track of my word count goal. To finish a 60,000 word first draft by April 21st, I need to be writing about 3,000 words per day. That’s about double what I do on any given day of morning pages, so this should not be as daunting as it sounds (emphasis on “should,” but I know me and I need some wiggle room for such goals).

Having the skeleton of a cohesive manuscript is more important than word count, but in order to make concrete progress, I need to have concrete goals. So there’s a widget on my phone’s home screen that will track my daily and overall word count progress. Meanwhile, I have to focus for set chunks of time without going near my phone, or my tree will die. (Coincidentally, with the word count tracker, you earn guavas for some reason when you reach your goals, so in being productive these next two weeks I will also be producing a myriad of virtual vegetation.)

I have never successfully completed a NaNoWriMo, and I want this time to be different. I’m hoping that April will prove to be more productive, as the day job and holidays will not be part of the equation. I have to plan not to fail. Not failing, at the moment, means showing up every day and writing.

Backup

We should almost never rely on our brain for storage. I’ve already written what I thought would be the opening scene of the book, but the other day I had another idea of how I’d like the story to begin. But, like a dummy, I didn’t write it down. Now I’ve completely forgotten.  It always seems so obvious at the time that you think there’s no way you’ll forget something so basic, but writers should always write down their ideas, no matter how trivial or obvious they seem at the time…because like a vivid dream, it can very easily disappear, the memory of it gone forever.

It would really suck to do all this planning and work only to have it disappear like a fart in the wind, so I need to make a habit of saving my work in more than one place–not only on a flash drive, but also on a cloud, such as Google Docs.  I’m also a fan of Evernote as a catch-all for organizing thoughts and digital clutter.

Do it!

I’ve taken the first important steps of planning the time, then getting up early and getting my fingers typing. Now I have to write about three times what I’ve just written here in meaningful content to reach today’s goal.

Then I need to do that nineteen more times.

Coffee’s made. Let’s do this thing.