Saturday, September 3, 2016

My Writing Plan: Junior Year



AHHH, PEOPLES. SCHOOL IS STARTING VERY SOON. AHHHH. 

DID I MENTION, AHHHHHH? 

Yeah, thought so. 

Ahem. 

My Junior year is completely booked to the maximum for school. Not kidding. I have 8 full-time (non-elective) classes (not including athletics). I expect them to be rigorous and I will enjoy them, despite the work. But with all that school, where's writing going to fit in? I wasn't ready to throw the baby out with the bathwater, despite my messy novel. I'm continuing to finish the 1st draft, no matter how long it takes me. I started with a wonderful idea and I'm going to see it through to the very end. 

I came up with a few techniques to ensure that I get something written. 

1. The 100 Words writing technique. I created a google docs spreadsheet to track my progress over the course of 15 weeks. I plan to write 100 words a day. Even if I don't get all the words written every single day, it'll be good to try to make some progress. That in itself is success, in my view.
Anywho, this'll help set me up for a successful November... Which brings me to my next idea.

2. NaNoWriMo. I think we're all pretty familiar with this idea, so I'm just going to leave it at that.

3. Accountability. I have great writing friends and I've already asked them to help keep me accountable. School will be hard this year, but that doesn't excuse me from writing when I can. They're in this with me - to help me succeed.

4. School comes first. Sorry, guys... School is always going to come first for me. It's too important to neglect. I haven't lived with this schedule ever before, so this is going to be a test-run. I'm going to try my absolute best to be an author and a student at the same time. But I'm not going to let authoring dreams kill the student in me, because being a student is my full-time job right now.

5. Google drive. Because it saves everything by itself. I don't even have to remind. So on the night when I forget to remind it and shut down my computer, my writing won't disappear and crush my heart.

6. Free time is brainstorming time. If I'm in the car - on my way to cross country practice, most likely - and I have my homework done, the rest of that car-ride becomes fair-game for my novel. Not writing, but thinking about it and jotting things down.
Don't worry, people, I probably won't do this if I'm driving.

7. All-nighters are not going to happen. Now I'm not bashing people who pull of all nighters (actually, this is an admiration thing), I think they're amazing. But I can't run on no sleep. I've tried before. I end up with a killer migraine and I crash no matter where I am or what I'm doing. I seriously think that I've fallen asleep at a youthgroup thing before (like dozed off and then jerked awake, not full-out napping during games).

8. I'm becoming a hermit, aside from sports. I'm completely serious. I really doubt that I'll be doing youthgroup (which is honestly fine with me, because I'm an introvert and I don't really like my youthgroup). I've always been homeschooled, so this won't be that much different from years past. But this year I have an excuse to stay home, mauahahahaha.

9. Progress is important, but so is my sanity. Hey, if I go a month without writing, but manage to maintain school and sports and my mental state, I'll be pleased. I really reallyyyy want to write throughout this school year, but it's not the end of the world if it doesn't happen.

***

Another ramble-y post for y'all! I hope you enjoyed it!

Best wishes for this coming school year!

14 comments:

  1. LOVE this, Petra! I'll probably be stealing some of your ideas XD. You came up with some super awesome ones! I think NaNoWriMo will be the biggest motivator for me (for the rest of this year, anyways) *nods*.

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    1. Thank you so much, Savannah! It's great to hear that my posts sometimes might help people xD *ahem*

      And, yes, NaNoWriMo is a HUGE motivator for me when I have the time :)
      (We should be buddies... PLEASE???)

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    3. *has already added you as buddy* XD NANO IS GOING TO BE SO FUN!

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    4. OH I should probably tell you my username, shouldn't I? It's Savannah Grace *nods*.

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    5. YES!! I added you back on NaNo I think (hehe, when I finally got back on there)

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  2. "I'm becoming a hermit, aside from sports." Mwahaha, sounds like a plan. :P

    May your sanity stay with you, friend. <3

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  3. ughh I know. School is starting up for me as well--this year I just decided to set away half an hour each day to write in which I can *usually* write around 1k..unless it's a bad day. I just want to WRITE every day--no matter how many words it is.

    I'm a bit worried that I can't fit NaNoWriMo in my schedule tho. GAH. :P

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    1. Ohh, great goal! Half an hour is the perfect amount of writing time for the busy person ;)

      And, yes, definitely! Just making progress is something that'll be great for me. I totally understand about NaNo... Still not sure how that's going to work for me :P

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  4. UGH LIFE IS JUST CRAZY. You can do the thing! And we'll war together and keep each other encouraged. We can do the thing. <3

    // katie grace
    a writer's faith

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    1. AH YES IT IS. PURE CRAZINESS. AND YES, WE CAN DO THAT THING ♥

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  5. These are all such great points! Also LOVE NaNo for getting things done efficiently when already busy!

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    1. Thank you! And yes, NaNo is a huge motivation to be efficient with time management... And time management is something that I'm not great at :P

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