Author Journey (January 18, 2021)
Having targets is one thing, but failing to have a plan on how to hit those targets is just asking for trouble. So this week, I took a step back and worked out how I’m going to get where I want to be!
January 18, 2021
On January 1, I published a post about my Goals for 2021 and have been merrily pushing on, doing exactly what I had been doing prior to that. Then, we got the news that Ontario was going into a lockdown because of the increase in positive results since the Christmas break… who could have possibly seen that coming? Anyhow, here we are. I’m still working from home (which is awesome, I can keep doing that forever) and now my son is doing school virtually. That makes it hard for me to work, which just pushes it into the nights when I do my other work…
With all this going on, I was wondering just how I’m going to make sure I hit my targets, which I believed would be easier to hit than the monster set of goals I set on 2020. It was then that I realised that I didn’t have an actual plan. Was I just waiting until I accidentally hit my goals? It certainly seemed that way. I recently decided to try to add in a NaNoWriMo style word target, but that was only looking at one side of the problem.
So, I decided to take stock of what I’m doing right now and work out how best to fit everything else in. That was when I saw just how much I have going on every week. Since January 1, I have published twenty-three posts in seventeen days, but that’s not the total picture, there have been another ten posts on Ecchi Hunter. My weekly blogging schedule is thirteen posts a week… and I want to find time to write and edit on top of that.
The thing is, I don’t want to stop or slow down, but I also want to write more fiction. I’ve been trying to find a balance for a long time now and it seems to almost impossible. I’m sure the current global situation is not helping me, but I just have to work around that. So, I have my reviews for Harukana Receive, KonoSuba, Goblin Slayer, and Record of Grancrest War, which will continue as normal. Once they have finished, I may or may not add some more shows to look into. We’ll have to see closer to the time.
I’ve started reviewing The Quintessential Quintuplets, The Promised Neverland, and Dr Stone, and will also finish those. It may be that I don’t try to do seven shows a week, although it’s really hard, especially when we have such an amazing lineup this season. I really need to find some more time. Why has no one developed the Bofuri technology I asked for last year?
This week I did lots of blogging, some planning, some editing, and no new writing… again. One of the first decisions I’m making based on trying to complete my goals is putting my new story on hold until I have completely edited the Black Death trilogy. I think that by completing a project, it will free up time and give me a renewed push to complete the others. I certainly have a lot of ideas on how I want to move forward, I just need to create a plan.
I know it all sounds very business-like, but that’s what I do in the day job. Figured I might as well bring some of those skills into my personal projects and one day, turn that into my day job. One day maybe. So for the time being, nothing is going to change here. I may end up reducing the number of posts per week, but it may continue. There are lots of factors and I don’t control all of them. All I know is, I really want to write more fiction and keep on blogging.
At the moment, I don’t have a full plan, but I’m getting there… maybe… I don’t know!
