The Journal, Saturday, October 26

In today’s Journal

* Quote of the Day
* Yesterday
* Today
* Of Interest
* The Numbers

Quote of the Day

“Always believe in courage, virtue and honor, that good always triumphs over evil, that true love never dies — because those are things worth believing in.” Hub in the film, Secondhand Lions
***

Yesterday, despite my best intentions, I didn’t even return to my WIP to figure out what to do with it. I let too many other things get in the way.

I did take a good 2-mile hike, so there’s that.

Today and for the next couple of days, I’m going to consider my future as a writer, publisher, and IP licensor. I know more or less where I want to be when, but I’m not sure how to get there.

Here, almost at the end of what amounts to a long hiatus, it seems the perfect time to take a page out of DWS’ and Kris Rusch’s book, do some research and formulate a few plans. When I emerge from that process, I can begin implementing them.

Just thinking out loud here in case it might be helpful for your own planning process…

For my immediate, personal future as a writer, I need to figure out two things:

* how to climb back on Heinlein’s Rules, and

* how to restructure and make the most of my personal time.

Part of the former, I’m sure, will be a return to my tried-and-true daily word-count goal. That goal will be my number one priority, and it will propel me forward again.

As part of the latter, I’ll consider (for one thing) whether writing this Journal almost every day is the best use of my time. From what I can tell, I have only a few dedicated readers, and one of those is a mentoring student. So maybe a weekly or monthly Journal would do just as well.

For another, I might rethink my writing, socializing with family and friends, and sleeping schedule again. The early-morning thing worked well while it did. Recently, not so much.

On a larger, longer-range scale for the future of our business, we’ll make plans for one, two, five and ten years out. Those will include setting deadlines for writing and publishing new works, setting goals for attending certain events and for licensing old and new works, and setting milestones for developing the business overall.

* The publishing deadlines will include specific and realistic goals for a number of short stories, collections, novels and series.

* The licensing goals will include specific things we can do Now with my IP and what I call my “inner IP” (characters, settings, and worlds from previous stories), as well as things we can plan for and set up in the future. Like attending Dean’s Master Business Class in 2020 and attending the Licensing Expo as a licensor in 2021 or 2022.

* As one example of a milestone for the business overall, I want to “need” to set up a full “C” corporation for the licensing business (StoneThread Publishing) within 5 years.

Note that all of these are goals, things that are within our power to achieve, not dreams.

Over the next few months, I’ll also be setting up a shared world for others to write in. (I already have a great idea for that, and it has nothing to do with Wes Crowley or, for that matter, with Dean’s Shared Worlds Class, which I’m enrolled in for the next 9 months or so.) I hope to have the “bible” set up for it by January 1.

So that’s a quick overview of the plans and goals we’ll be setting up over the next few days. Plus whatever we come up with as we’re planning the stuff above.

How about you?
***

Glad I typed most of this yesterday BEFORE I did something stupid. A knife slipped and left a deep gash across the fist knuckle of the index finger of my left hand.

So I’m enjoying all sorts of new adventures (grin), including typing with one finger. So I’ll definitely be away for about a week while my hand heals. Good timing on all the planning stuff, I guess.

Talk with you again soon.

Of Interest

See “Without This Blog Streak…” at https://www.deanwesleysmith.com/once-again-the-power-of-a-streak/. Very good post.

See “Moving Around” at https://prowriterswriting.com/moving-around.

The Numbers

Fiction words today…………………… 0
Nonfiction words today…………… 710

Total fiction words for the month……… 3237
Total fiction words for the year………… 383468
Total nonfiction words for the month… 15290
Total nonfiction words for the year…… 277980
Total words for the year (fiction and this blog)…… 662566

Calendar Year 2019 Novels to Date…………………… 7
Calendar Year 2019 Novellas to Date……………… 1
Calendar Year 2019 Short Stories to Date… 2
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………………………………… 43
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)………………………………… 8
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)………………… 195
Short story collections……………………………………………… 31