I organize my work into three categories:

  • tasks things I can do in one sitting.
  • goals Projects that range from roughly 3 months to 1 year.
  • small-batch projects little projects that a) make progress towards a goal, and b) once completed, provide new opportunities to pivot.

Every three weeks for my novel, I focus heavily on a few small-batch projects, projects focused on specific details of my character’s life, and then funnel these projects into a manuscript. My coach reads it. We talk. I get feedback. I learn. And I pivot, chasing a few new small projects and fresh details of my character’s life. The three-week repeating cycle has done wonders for my progress.

This is the opposite of what I did all of 2019. I attacked my novel from one angle, trying to plan the whole thing out from the top, down. What happened was I never got started. I wanted it to be right and perfect before I started. I wanted it all planned out.

Right now, I have no grand plan for where this novel is going. And becuase of that, with feedback, I’m flexible and able to pivot often. This allows me to tackle the novel from so many angles. Manuscript to manuscript, I just focus on gathering character experiences one day at a time, and I’ll find out where that gets me in due time. One 3 week sprint at a time.