Hm. I almost hate to break KD’s combo.
Anyway, my dear friends, I’m going to let you in on a secret. Our December release? It’s mine.
Shhh. Don’t tell anyone.
(Yes, we have our releases planned out a year, year and a half in advance. That gives us time to do the editing, re-writing, marketing, etc., needed to make sure we’re putting out good books. And that’s before we let Siri at them.)
This gives me a very strict deadline for finishing up all my work, so a book changes from “I’ll get around to editing this some day” to “It has to be ready to go and in Siri’s hands by August.”
Deadlines! Very productive.
I’m making good progress, but every now and then I have a little bit of a panic attack. August! I’ll never make it!
This is where breaking down things into manageable goals is a lovely thing. Sure, to have an entire book edited, rewritten where necessary, commission some cover art, put together a marketing plan…that’s a lot to do! But today, all I have to do is make sure my characters are consistent, make sense in context and don’t try to take over scenes that aren’t theirs. Much more manageable. Not too bad, all things considered.
Tomorrow I’ll have a different goal, and everything shall go along, and then, in August, I’ll look back and wonder how it all got done.
But it is nice to be actively working with an end goal in mind, and a date for said end goal. Who knows how long it would have taken me to finish this up without that deadline? So, panic attacks aside, in this case, the deadline is a very good thing.