Planning Your Writing Year

Annual resolutions and plans have a disconcerting way of dissolving partway through the year.

At the start of 2021, I resolved not to write a book in the year. Get the Word Out released in November of 2020, and I intended to spend 2021 promoting and supporting it.

Nevertheless, 33 Ways Not to Screw Up Your Business Emails appeared in September. It was not in my plans for the year, but I’m happy to have written it. (Thanks to Melissa Wilson for inviting me to do it!)

That’s the thing about plans. We need them until we abandon them.

Plans are like outlines. From my Nonfiction Author Survey: only 6% of the published authors surveyed wrote a book that matched their initial outline exactly.

As writers, we need both the Muse and the Scribe (the creative and the focused/disciplined parts of ourselves). Planning definitely belongs to the Scribe. It’s necessary, but not sufficient.

The planning paradox

The plotter/pantser dilemma applies to more than fiction.

If you’re not familiar, in the world of fiction:

• Plotters are people who plan out everything before writing
• Pantsers, in contrast, see where the writing takes them. (They write ‘by the seat of their pants.’)