So, September flew by.  I think I blinked too long and ‘poof!’  it was gone.  However, looking back over my diary where I track a lot of my tasks, I am surprised to see I actually got stuff done! *Congratulatory Self-five*

One of the ways I was able to do more things, was by “deep scheduling” my social media, damn did that make a difference. 

I will be explaining what I mean by “deep scheduling” in an upcoming post.

Last Month’s Goals

01 – Write 9,000 words – DONE – Managed to write just over 9k this month! wohoo!

02 – Complete a short story for an Anthology – DONE– Yes!! I did it, damn it was hard.  Short story writing is difficult!  I am not built for short stories, I am definitely a long story writer.  I went over by 2k words and so had to do a lot of cutting. 

03 – Write 1 month’s content – DONE – Another success!  I do think it helped that a) my guest posters sent me their posts super early and b) since I only need to write for Friday’s and not Monday’s it was a lot easier getting all my posts written in a day or two. 

04 – Read 2 Books – DONE – I read Heartless by Marissa Meyer and Shadow City by Anna Mocikat.

05 – Complete 6 Tasks – DONE – These were house tasks for getting our home in order, specifically purging items, shifting furniture, selling items, sorting gardenetc.  We are nicely on track 🙂

06 – Social Media Plan – DONE – As I mentioned in my intro, I did Deep Scheduling and it made all the difference for me, and definitely helped me find more time to complete the other goals.

07 – Prep for Busy Season – DONE – I had specific tasks I wanted to complete to consider this goal reached and I managed it! 

Shockingly, I completed (all) my goals… AND had a week off.  Yes, if you get my newsletter or follow me on social media you’ll know that the last week in September was “Ari’s Rest Week”.

This Month’s Goals

01 – Finish Outlining The Blessed (book 1)

I started outlining it months ago, then for reasons known only to the voices in my head, I stopped.  I have the first 2 quarters and some of the end outlined brilliantly… it’s just that pesky middle.

02 – Brainstorm The Blessed (book 2)

I recently* announced how I wanted to start outlining full trilogies.  Rather than just outline a book, write it then have to spend time outlining the second book, I wanted to start completing all the outlines for my trilogies before the first book is even finished.

So, I need to start brain dumping and storming ideas for book 2 of The Blessed in order for me to carve out some time, sit on the floor and build my outline.

* I often use “recently” please note that I use this randomly and it can refer to anything from 2 hours ago to 2 years ago.  Just go with it 🙂

03 – Write Flash Fiction piece

Last year I was invited to participate in a Flash Fiction Advent Calender where a different writer supplies a piece of flash fiction on the specific theme, for their chosen day.

I have been asked to join this again and have accepted.  I haven’t been given my date yet, but will let you know when I know 🙂

04 – Write 1 month’s blog posts

I want to see if I can manage another month of fully written blog posts in just a day or two, to make sure the last time wasn’t a crazy fluke!

05 – Write Guest post

I was approached to write a guest post for StoryWars, so I want to get theis completed and over to them asap.

 

06 – Read 1 book

Okay, so I’ve reduced this to one book because I am beta reading for someone and ARC reading for someone else.  This can slow down my reading time as beta reading can take a while.

07 – Complete the required tasks

As per last month, we have a deadline of end of October to clear through a list of tasks so that our week off together will actually be a break.

 

08 – Set up a new sales platform

With Etsy making stupid changes that are worse for both buyers and sellers, I want to look into an additional selling platform so that I am not restricted by Etsy’s terrible policies and changes.