IWSG: Scheduling

HAPPY NEW YEAR Everyone!!

Do you feel like you are living in the future? It occurs to me that  we are now living in  "the future" that so many movies were set that I watched as a kid. Or at least young person. Not 2018 necessarily, but we are entering the era. I'm thinking of the movie Soylent Green, the first post-apocalyptic story I was exposed to. It aired April 19, 1973, a futuristic crime mystery, and depicted life in New York City in 2022 where overpopulation and the Green House effect has led to overpopulation and starvation. I was eleven years old, and very likely saw this movie at the Drive In Theater.

Not that I'm eager to live in any of the post- or pre-apocalypse worlds that consumed my reading or viewing time in my younger years. Or any that I have written myself recently. I can't even imagine a STAR WARS type future though.

We have already passed the 2015 date of the still popular BACK TO THE FUTURE II setting. I don't know about you, but I'm highly disappointed that flying cars are not an every day purchase. Time, and the years, do not seem to be flying by for me; its more like its standing still. Technology seems to have reached the same point as Hollywood: consistently remaking the same merchandise, calling it "improved" without stepping too far away from developments within the last 20 years. Before we know it, it will be 2089 and no closer to colonization of planets within our solar system than we were at the 1990 release of TOTAL RECALL.

One of the more realistic events I'd like to see in my near future involves publication. Lots of it! To obtain that, of course, I need to write and submit more. There's a unique idea for January's Insecure Writers Support Group post. Right?!?

Not only is this my first post for 2018, but its also the first Wednesday of the month and time for the Insecure Writers Support Group. This month's question is appropriate for the New Year, and actually got me seriously thinking about my writing schedule as well as goals for 2018.

What steps have you taken or plan to take to put a schedule in place for your writing and publishing?

I've very good at making and keeping a work schedule. Its how I get paid. Scheduling writing time though, nah. I only disappoint myself when I fail. Now, if I had a literary agent, a publisher that has given me a deadline, then you bet I can write to their schedule.

For many years I've not put any pressure on myself to stick to any kind of writing or blogging schedule. I'm determined to change that in 2018. Not with "resolutions" but with goals, just as Michelle Wallace suggests in the Dec 2017 IWSG Newsletter:

So when you sit down to plan for next year, instead of making writing resolutions, why not create a few specific, attainable, and measurable goals?

I've thought long and hard (through many long, boring hours of driving) about some reasonable writing goals for myself for this year, and this is what I came up with:

 - write three new horror short stories to submit to random anthologies between August and December
 - FINISH, edit, and submit three of the incomplete short stories in My Documents
 - rewrite chapter 1 of my novel NOT HER MOTHER'S FATE
 - revise and submit query and synopsis for FATE
 - write and schedule six book review posts

And yes, reviewing the above list, I'm already feeling anxious about how I'm to accomplish all that. I do have a plan, a sort of writing schedule. Writing on the road is not easy for me; I mostly "camp in my car" and it uncomfortable to juggle a computer in the car or even at road stops (never know what the environment will be like). But I should be home every weekend, and at least one week (up to nine days) each month. Weekends are good for blog posts (and comments), and that solid week is excellent for actual writing - including revision.

The incentive to stick to this schedule - lax as it is? Well, I do love being published! And starting 2018 with a publication is an awesome ego boost.

My short story LAUGHING AT BUTTERFLIES, an Urban Fantasy, is scheduled to publish on January 8 in issue 744 of the ezine Bewildering Stories.

Bewildering Stories

offers a home and an audience

to speculative writing.

All genres are welcome

in prose, poetry, drama and non-fiction.

Thank you all for stopping by today. I'm looking forward to reading everyone's 2018 goals and scheduling triumphs. This month the IWSG crew is announcing the winners of 2017 Anthology contest. Be sure to stop by Ninja Captain Alex J Cavanuagh and his co-horts: Tyrean Martinson, Ellen the Cynical Sailor, Megan Morgan, Jennifer Lane and Rachna Chhabria.