Episode 015 | 5 Essential Systems for Writers
The Rookie Writer Show - A podcast by H. Dair Brown, The Rookie Writer Show Host
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Whether you’re…
* a pantser or a planner, * prefer a messy desk or one that is always photo-ready, * prefer digital files or the old fashioned kind, * write your drafts using a pen and paper, dictation, a typewriter, a word processor, or a computer…
…you need the following five systems to make your writing career happen.
1 TIME/WORK MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS – If you’ve been listening to the show, you’ve heard me encourage you to find time for your writing by getting very intentional about your schedule and tasks. Now that you’ve freed some hours up for writing work, think about how you’re going to use them. Set up clear, reasonable goals for your work and do your best to stick with them. Depending on how you’re wired, you might choose a deadline and then work backwards to figure out how much you need to do every working day between now and then to achieve it. Or you might just enjoy watching the words stack up, appreciate the practice of creating some number of words every day. Either way, track those wordcounts! Some people like to get really meta about it and try out different times of day and writing conditions to see what helps them produce the most work. Others are just squeezing it in when they can and don’t have the luxury of tweaking their times and locations. Whatever motivates you to get the words down is the best approach for you. Remember, though, that if you want to put your work out into the world, there’s more to it than just (just! ha!) writing your story. David Mamet suggests you do one thing for your art every day and one day for your business. Depending on what stage you’re in, you might be tempted to spend all of your time working on your art by focusing on taking classes or revising your “work in progress” (or WIP). However, try to remember to mix in a little of the business end of writing, even at the beginning. Quick and simple things can add up. Spend a few minutes reading up on industry trends. Jot down a contest or agent you’d like to submit your work to in the future. Network on a facebook group for writers of your genre. The best way to ensure that you regularly write and attend to your writing business is to have a time/work management system of some kind. There are more options than ever for helping you track your time and work. I’ve used both physical planners and electronic ones and have liked both. I will never tell you there is one perfect way to keep up with your schedule. I can urge you to try different methods until you settle on one that works for you at this stage of your life.
2 IDEA & RESEARCH MANAGEMENT SYSTEM – Ideas and valuable research details will often come to you at odd, inconvenient times. To make sure you have access to them when you need them, it’s helpful to have a system that both catches your ideas quickly/easily and stashes them long term. If you’re truly old school, even the proverbial cocktail napkin can work. However, it all hinges on whether you have an effective way to keep track of all of them. You can do better. If you lean more analog, consider following the example of Anne Lamott, who shared in her beloved writing book