So, I’ve been on a planning kick lately, showing the intimate details of how I prepare myself for a big project, like a book. I’m going to be honest, the way I prep myself changes each time, and this go around, I might have gone a little crazy with notes and etc.
But here’s a bit of my rationale. I’m working with a series. While I have limited myself to five books for Ria’s BLOOD PHOENIX saga, I do have a slew of other characters, books, and stories within this world, so I need to start keeping track of little things that will connect and manifest throughout.
Now, this is a little wild for planning purposes, but I thought it was so much fun to peg down each of my characters by personality type, so here’s my list:
One of the interesting things I discovered from doing this is that Ria’s personality, although remaining the same amongst most of her previous lives, did change on a few. Even with reincarnation, culture and genetics played a role in how they behaved. Since Ria’s past lives impact Ria’s present quite dramatically, I hope can keep them separated enough to do them justice.
Another interesting note about personality types is that even with the same four-letter determinations, their personalities are not precisely the same. For instance, Ria, Mark, Colista, and Layla have the same categorization—INFP, but each of their descriptors are different: the Spunky Kid, the Lost Soul, the Waif, and the Nurturer, which comes not from the Myers-Briggs model but from the character archetypes of heroes, heroines, and villains, although honestly, none of these four are villains in the slightest.
But INFP clearly fits all four: poetic, kind, and altruistic people, always eager to help a good cause. They are the most idealistic, have strong personal values, seek order and peace, are creative, non-directive, and reserved with people.
Anyways, I could devolve into a rambling about personalities and the types of how each connects, but I’m not going to do that. I merely wanted to share how assigning base personality types helped me differentiate characters and keep them true to their original dispositions, even as they evolve as people.
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So, I want to know what kind of categorization, notes, and tools do you use to develop and/or maintain your characters? Let me know in the comments below.
So, if you’ve had a chance to peek at my writing journal, you’ll know that I’ve recently invested more time on plotting elements of my novels and stories via plot embryos, the hero’s journey, and the three-act structure.
I have been a long-time pantser doing little planning other than major scenes that I knew I wanted somewhere relative to each other in a general arc, which is basically saying that I bullshitted my way through most of my writing.
Well, the last novel I wrote, THE GIRL WITH THE GLOWING HAIR, flowed out of me so much faster with a general guide for each of my chapters. I also developed them with a chart and the five-idea method from Rachael Stephen.
This worked so well that I implemented the plot embryos for my shorter works to gauge a general structure.
Then the year ended, and it was time to start my new BLOOD PHOENIX novel, INFERNO. And man, the embryo was a nice start, but I needed more to power through as many words as I really wanted to get through this year (~112,000 words), so I tried my hand at a three-act structure, and here’s what I came up with.
How I plotted BLOOD PHOENIX: INFERNO (some spoilers but no biggies).
Here is where I used the traditional Harmon’s Plot Embryo, below is a comparison of the my use of the tool. The blue bits are major spoilers.
After I let that marinate for a little while, I created a list of all the plot points I could think of for each act, not worrying about an order. Like this:
This is when I used the three-act structure in a stricter sense, putting those on my list into the act where they belong. At the bottom, I had notes that came from looking at the story arc again and again.
Finally, I made the project its own notebook, listing each act’s plot points down the side before shifting them into appropriate chapters with other details to help me not get stuck between, which is where I typically struggle the most with writer’s block.
So far, this method has allowed me to hammer out 16,000 words last month and another 4,000 this last week with the #100daychallenge or #100dayproject.
But this little book I’ve slapped together has some extras that help me remember character motivations, keep secondary threads going, plan out the past to understand how it affects the present, and after the halfway mark, I’ve started gathering notes for a Broken World guide after requests from readers to explain all of the connections and cross-overs and research that builds the series.
And that’s the process I’ve been using. I’ve found quite a spike in my productivity since I started plotting more and writing more consistently.
I hope you’ve found this helpful, and if you have any suggestions for plotting or writing research, leave them in the comments below so that I can add them to my list!
Also, join me on Instagram or my personal page as I document my journey writing 500 words a day for 100 days!
So, I’m trying something new. Well, mostly new. I’ve tried a quarterly review before and found them less than helpful, but I knew I needed to review the last three months in order to make all of that shit I’ve tracked mean something.
If you’d like to see my process more fully, watch me plan here:
Here’s my simplified attempt:
-What I overestimated
-What I underestimated
-My vision
-My current pain points
It was easy for me to break these categories down. I’ve always overestimated what I can accomplish, most notably my ability to multitask. This is a cycle I go through again and again. As an undergrad, I learned that multi-tasking isn’t actually a thing. We can only focus on one thing at a time in truth, so having Bob’s Burgers or Bones playing in the background is not just noise. It’s distracting me from getting my shit done.
I also learned that I’ve underestimated my ability to write and write consistently. This year, one of my main goals is to write every day. You know, minus a day or two given life happens. First, it was two-hundred-and-fifty words a day, which was hard for the first month. Come month two, my average increased daily. For March, I doubled it to five-hundred words a day. And guess what, the last two months made that rather easy. Most of the time, I reached six-hundred words or more. And man, did I learn something about practice and doing something every day consistently. Creativity became much easier to tap into with regular use.
Next, I wanted to compare my current vision for my life and business with my vision at the beginning of the year, which was to grow my business, publish more, and improve my environment at home. This is where my word for April came from: realign. The major note within this is to simplify. Creativity always meant big and elaborate projects to me, but the more I’ve tried to accomplish this, the more I fell flat on my face. In recent years, I’ve noticed that the simpler a project, the better it came out because I could focus on the important bits rather than juggling all of these ideas at once. I plan to remember and implement this for the next quarter—and year. Actually, this helped quite a bit with my last project through Transmundane Press, and it meant a successful and fully-funded Kickstarter campaign!
Here’s hoping it brings me continued success.
These categories created my current pain points, which center on money, time, and focus. Honestly, the biggest pain point was taxes. Boy, do I loathe them, but I hope the struggle this year will mean that next year will be easier. Overall, these points generated my next quarter’s goals: research marketing and advertising to start small and expand, limiting distractions, power blocking—which changed my weeks when it came to posting blogs for the press—and keeping a balance sheet as the year goes rather than fumbling at the end of year for my taxes.
Pretty simple, again, my overarching vision for this year and my life.
The list was helpful, but it spurred a letter-like list of notes to myself to reflect on why these things happened and real advice to keep me on track. If you can’t read my handwriting, it pretty much says what I have here with a little stronger language aimed at myself. Aka, do better damn it.
So, here’s my next ninety days’ goals and project plans. I’ve had to include a “leftovers” section due to my procrastination issues, but with the semester ending, and two other projects ending along with it, I should be able to tackle these before the summer.
What are your goals this quarter? Did you get everything you wanted done last quarter? Tell me about them in the comments below!
I wanted to share a flip through of my writing notebook.
If you’d like to watch my flip through instead, check out the video below:
So, I got this notebook for five dollars–well, my mom bought the notebook (thanks mom!)–and decided to keep writing spreads and notes in one place rather than throughout years of bullet journals.
First is my year’s projects at a glance:
Right now, I have all coral sticky notes for 2019. And already, I can tell you I’m behind on January in two places, but I should catch up with one by the end of the month.
This is the awesome thing about sticky notes, I can replace, adjust, and remove, etc., as I need. And I use this spread for that purpose–to visually revise after the year has started.
I got these next two spreads from Rachael Stephen‘s YouTube channel: The Harmon’s Plot Embryo and the Tragic Embryo. I find both of these helpful when brainstorming and the first stages of plotting. The tragic structure works better for short stories for me. I like happy-ish endings for novels and series, but I prefer to leave readers devastated at the end of something short.
Next, I begin the three-act structure notes from well-storied. I’ve only begun plotting and planning instead of a hundred percent pantsing since this has made it dramatically improved my speed in drafting and edited. Granted, I miss things in my outlines and have to shift for those pantsing moments.
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The next few spreads came from Boho Berry–a bullet journal YouTube personality–when she did her first round of NaNoWriMo. There’s probably some typos in here because, honestly, I take notes when I’m exhausted, and I copied them word for word. I’m all right with it.
These help for both planning and breaking through writer’s block, especially when I pair them with the Dungeons & Dragons alignments. Again, more typos with neutral. I know. I get tired. I’m not fixing it. We’ll all survive, right?
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I got another personality breakdown from Rachael Stephen since seeing them presented differently can jar ideas free.
My planning style hasn’t changed much over the course of 2018, and I don’t see much need for changing the majority of it at the moment. Although, I am excited to see if any of my projects require new additions to my monthlies and weekly spreads. If you’d like to see me talk through the process and watch me mark up my journal with pen and markers, please check out my companion video.
I do still plan to include artwork at the front of each month, even though I didn’t have time for November and December’s coloring pages. But, since my mom is buying me a color printer for Christmas, I’m going to make it easier on myself—and give myself more options—and print art that I like for my bullet journal, which I got between filming and posting, so here’s what I have for my January cover art. This is a piece by Jacquelin Deleon, which I printed on sticker paper and stuck in my journal. She shows off a lot of her beautiful art on YouTube. Check her out.
First, I have my monthly calendar. This is to record holidays and birthdays and other important dates should I need them. Often, it remains pretty blank, like it is here, but December was full with five birthdays, the holiday season, and finals. But I also like the new addition of a word or phrase for the month. This month, it’s brave creativity. I chose this to remind myself not only to write and create, but to take chances and not miss out on opportunities.
Next is my master tasks list and monthly breakdown. Along the left, I have all of the projects I’m working on for January, pulled from my quarterly goals and plan. Within the boxes—business, author, and school/home—I give those actions that have specific dates their spot so that I can plan out the rest. Part of these are pulled from my editorial calendar on the next page, but only those posts that I need to draft for my own blog. I also decided to add my word count goals on each Sunday in my Author section to keep an additional reminder that I should be writing.
Finally, I’ve drawn out my editorial calendar. Notice, three calendars in a row. Seems redundant, but they all serve a different purpose. Hence, why I can’t use a regular planner. Too crowded. And talking about crowded, see how full this beast is? It’s going to stay that way for a while, too, as my business partner and I push to grow our business, which means more publications, more authors, and more marketing.
I used to keep track of all the videos and Instagram posts I wanted to complete as well, but I never got around to them. They took up too much time and space in my journal, so I nixed them this go around. Although one of my goals is to post more on Instagram, I don’t think this calendar is the right place for me to plan that out. I haven’t figured out what to include for this goal—or several of my others—but when I do, I promise to share.
I will be creating more plan with me blogs and videos for those who want to write more, read more, create more, self-publish, market plan, and the like.
How do you plan out your projects and busy lives? Leave me your ideas, tips and tricks, or questions below!
I’ve finally done it. I’ve finally set up for my next year in my bullet journal. Y’all, I’ve been working on this since early November, trying to decide what I did right and where I went wrong in 2018, and what was purely out of my control that I could create allowances for next year.
And if you’d rather hear me talk about my process and watch me speed through writing in my journal, feel free to jump over to YouTube instead.
So first, I have my Level 10 Life. I do this every year, and I like to gauge how my work has filtered out into the different parts of my life. I love making circles with my moxedori stencil. Filling in circles makes me happier than checking off boxes for some reason. You can see, I’ve been pretty consistent trying to raise each of the areas in my life.
And I use the stencil again on my next spread, making circles for my project trackers. I’ve split them between my writing goals and my editing goals for the year.
They’re lofty, but so were last year’s. Here’s a photo of what I accomplished.
I’ve got three of the projects plotted out already and will fill in the AIR progress in my 2018 bullet journal and the rest of CONDUITS, which is scheduled for January.
Next, I have my overall goals for 2019.
As you can see, those circles from the last page only take up a little bit of my overall yearly goals, but like the visualization of my creative works broken down that way. Writing and editing is the fun part of running a publishing press, but I have a lot of goals that require more grueling research and administrative tasks, which fill out the rest of this page.
On the second page, I’ve listed my personal goals, like learning how to composite art for graphic design and cover creation, which have been goals of mine for a long time. I’m getting better. I also have some nice fitness goals, which I’m super excited about. I’ve just gotten my husband a power tower for his birthday, and he’s teaching me how to do assisted pull ups at the moment. Man, my back is sore from that, but I can’t wait to do a full pull up on my own. I’m also looking forward to pushing myself through a 5k—and I’m almost there—which I never thought I’d say with genuine enthusiasm. Seriously, had you asked me seven years ago when I first started lifting those heavy-ass five-pound weights, if I’d ever enjoy running, I’d have laughed in your face. Spittle and all. But now…the change is interesting.
For the next couple of spreads, I’ve set up the pages to outline and brainstorm my writing projects for the year. I have the novels in their own traveler’s notebooks, which I can crack open and share if anyone’s interested in seeing the whole project planning process for writing, editing, publishing, and marketing, let me know. I’d be happy to share.
I even have two pages for next year’s shorts, so I can plan or drop notes as I think of them.
Finally, I have a spot for some online courses that my husband as been advising me to make. We’ll see how this goes. I have some fun ideas for it to span amongst all of the writing levels I encounter now (remedial writing to polished creative writing).
Okay, yes, I’m a dork, but I feel that planning out at least five years in advance for my business keeps me more on the ball. (And you should really see my writing plan, which is scheduled out to 2031. Yes. Really.)
It takes me a long time to plan these out, and I have boards and sheets, and LOTS of color coding that goes into the lists here, which are quite bare and minimal, even though it doesn’t seem like it.
Here, I’m listing my personal and author blog plan. Again, I have a lot of other paper that got me here, and a year-long plan of marketing set up in its own traveler’s notebook.
Next, I have really simple set-ups for books I plan to read this year. I only have eleven, which used to be what I would read in a couple weeks, but now, I read so much for both of my jobs that it’s impossible to read for pleasure a lot of the time. Or maybe I just feel guilty for not being productive. I don’t know.
And beside it, I have a minimal spread for my yearly word count tracker. I plan to list my goal verses actual word count, and keeping a running total.
Then, I have a brainstorm spread for my website and book rebrands. I launched a new site last year with my new logo and need to add a LOT to it. I also plan to give my press website a revamp, but not an overhaul like my author site.
Now, I’m into quarter planning before my January set-up. I used these pages last year and found them helpful—when I remembered to fill them out. After I got sick, it just seemed like another task that took time I could be spending catching up. Now that I am, it will be useful to keep me on track.
Here are my stats and sales pages along with my future log. I track a lot of sites and online presence since I’ve made my mom a website and built her a store as well. She designs and crafts stained glass pieces, and her beautiful work made it easy to build an attractive site. Surely, this isn’t a shameless plug to get you to look at her work. No. I wouldn’t do that for my mom… (here’s the link).
Finally, I have my quarter one goals and project plans to set-up for the months ahead.
You can see that the same projects pop up a lot, and this is how I really break down the steps and keep myself accountable. Motivation has little to do with it sometimes. It’s planning well and sticking the nose to the grindstone. And that’s what I’m off to do!
I will be creating more plan with me blogs and videos for those who want to write more, read more, create more, self-publish, market plan, and the like.
How do you plan out your projects and busy busy lives? Leave me your ideas, tips and tricks, or questions below!
I’m doing it again. Trying to write a complete project in a month. But this go around, my word-count goal is so much smaller than my last four attempts at a measly 20k.
Yes, I just put measly before 20k, but on average I aim for 40-50k in a NaNoWriMo session, and I’ve only hit that goal twice.
Finally, I’m getting to work with my LOVING RED characters again. This one will be a prequel, outlining both Kaia’s background with Dev—the bear and ex—and the circus incident with the Scarlet Queen, whose just appeared in Ria’s world. I am so excited to continue this story thread. If you don’t know anything about the LOVING RED gang, their storyline jumpstarted with Facebook roleplaying…which is why many of my characters have their own profile pages.
Anyways, I don’t so much want to talk about their story (but I’ve done that here, here, and here if you want to know more). Instead, I wanted to set y’all up for the NaNoWriMo advice and exercises I’m going to be throwing at you over the next few months.
Now is the time for planning…even though I may have outlined this story at the end of last year, it’s nice to review and remind myself what the hell I’ll be doing.
Originally, I used Harmon’s Plot Embryo to develop my ideas and create more symmetry in my stories. I tend to lean toward the cliff-hanger and don’t want to be a one-trick pony. My notes on that below, and an excellent YouTube post I took these notes from.
From this process, I teased out the major plot points and decided on an alternating point of view. Like in LOVING RED, I will use first person for Dev—as he is the character I created and played in roleplaying, and third person for Kaia, who was played by a close friend.
That let me create my current outline, which I’ll sneak peek right here.
For the rest of this month, I will be reading this over, working through details as best as I can, and will probably start the opening scene(s) before July hits. Yes, I know that’s cheating, but I’m doing this to get my first draft down, not to win anything. Besides, I play by my own rules!
And that’s it for now. I’m set up, finishing another story, hopefully giving myself a week break in between, and jumping in to this novelette.
Are you using the summer to complete some writing goals? Do you participate in NaNoWriMo? Let me know what you’re working on, what your goals are, how you plan to meet them, and if you want to hear about keeping on track, catching up, and adapting to real life as you craft.
I know a lot of people are writing about their years and their plans right now, but I want to reflect on the difference between crashing into 2017 and peacefully stepping into 2018.
Last year, I wasn’t prepared for the type of growth I would have in my business and all of the little things I didn’t know how to do at the time. It’s good that I’m a quick learner, because the transition could have been disastrous.
Don’t get me wrong, I barely held on and still sport some road rash from it, but ambition has a way of whittling down the fluff of dreams—something I desperately need with my wild imagination and grandiose ideas.
This year, however, I got a relatively easy transition, watching Futurama with my husband and a little bubbly. My projects were complete, planned, and simply waiting for a few finishing touches. I didn’t have to scramble.
Boy, was that nice.
I must admit that this has inflated my inner dreamer, and she’s bursting with far too many new ideas—new circles—that will need closed or popped.
So, in echo of last year, when I wrote about how I think and plan and process, I’d like to give you a glimpse of my next year, literally.
Let me know what your plans are for 2018, how this year compares to last, and what system you use to keep on track!
Summer is a time for big, creative goals. I focus on creation and new habits as the rest of the year is devoted to editing and publishing and grading…
So. here’s what I’m currently focusing on and how I’m keeping myself on track.
One of my favorite things about summer is that I don’t have a second job to get in my way of working out, which means I can up my workouts from two or three times a week to five or six. The problem is…I’m home all day…with all of that food I buy each week…
That’s why I implemented two spreads, my 21 Day Challenge, which incorporates four exercises I actually enjoy doing, and a longer plan for my workouts in hopes of creating variety and mixing up my normal heavy-lifting workouts with cardio programs and light weights.
I also have a special spread for July Camp NaNoWrioMo and my four major writing projects for the year. I’m actually working on the same project I started for last year’s NaNoWriMo, which got put on the back burner for the After the Happily Ever After anthology.
I’m excited to dig into each of these again, my snarky YA paranormal detective, Boden’s journey home, a fire story about Ria’s father, and the prequel to Loving Red. The last three are short, so I’m hoping I can tackle each one with enough vigor to get their first drafts complete, or near-complete. You can join my cabin, Transmundane Team, or simply wish me luck. I know I’ll need it.
Finally, I’ve updated my quarterly goals to be more beneficial to me as a whole rather than simply working towards a better business. Sometimes, I forget other things exist outside of publishing, and I really need to focus on family, my home, and personal development with a bit more cohesion than I have been.
And in case you were wondering what planning for the next three months looks like. Here’s a quick peek.
How do you plan? Set goals? Stay productive? Share your process and hopes with me. I’d love to cheer you on!
Want to see my entire set up? Check out my plan with me on YouTube.
Sorry for the duplicate post, but the links didn’t work in the email. So, round two, let’s try this again.
I’ve been slowly integrating some planning elements into my blog posts. You’ve seen my bullet journal(s) for my projects and some of my doodles, but I don’t think I’ve revealed just how deeply obsessed I am with my bullet journal.
I am equally as obsessed with watching how others utilize their planners and journals, aka my YouTube history is littered with plan with me videos.
I’ve finally filmed my own, and here are my highlights.
First, this my month at a glance. On one side, I have my appointments and dates—as you can see, I don’t have a ton of them, but it’s nice to have a place to jot them down when they do come up and to see when birthdays are and if I have a promo (something I try to do every month to some degree). I might also use it for delivery dates to track packages as we need to open our gate for deliveries. It’s the first time I’m using this in my bullet journal, so we’ll see how it works.
At the top is a small section for future appointments that I can take with me when I plan my next month.
Down the right side of the page, I have a habit tracker. I smashed these together because I didn’t want to waste a lot of space for either of these spreads. I’d used the bigger habit tracker when I first started bullet journaling over a year ago, and I put my spin on it for a few months before it became too much. I’d forget to look at it and fill it out, and quite frankly, it wasn’t making me feel guilty enough for not getting things done that I needed to—especially self-care items.
This version hits some of the same things that my creativity calendar does and my weekly spread does, but I wanted the overall representation of how I’ve improved and if I’m staying on track. Now that I’ve gotten a handle on my social media schedule, I hope this will remind me that I am actually getting shit done.
On the left is my Week Of…spread that I got from Boho Berry and Lisa Jacobs. I tweaked it a little to fit my overall aesthetic and put my major goals down the left, and my weeks on the right. Each holds tasks that I need to complete in order to achieve project goals. I’ve found this really helpful, even when I don’t cross everything off. (Let’s be honest, not many sane people like to pile to-do’s on themselves like I do).
At the bottom of the spread, I listed my main monthly goals. I used to have a full page spread for this, but I noticed a lot of repetition in my Week Of spread and my goals spread, so I smashed them together to test it out. I’m hoping that this means I can cross more off and, once again, not overload myself, which often leads to less productivity.
I’ve posted about this next one in passing before. This is my creativity calendar. I plan out when I need to post what and where it needs shared. If you think it looks full now, wait until I put my #WritingCommunityChallenge posts in there for Instagram and facebook. Fun times.
Next, I have a page for my mood mandala. It’s not much to look at now, so here’s a picture of this month so far, so you can see what it’ll look like.
This next spread is also new to me, it’s simply to track one line a day of my life, diary style. I’ve found this helpful in my dailies, but when I mark major notes, it’s nice to have them in one place.
The last monthly spread I have is new as well. Essentially, I hope to track my husband’s moods with more intent to look for patterns with his bipolar and undiagnosed PTSD. I show off my community challenge spread and my weekly in my YouTube Plan With Me companion.
Let me know if you have questions about bullet journaling, planning, and the writing/publishing process. Or personal shit, I answer those sometimes, too.
At the top is a small section for future appointments that I can take with me when I plan my next month.
