The Creativity Project: Finishing Strong
Even with half of my plans going sideways this quarter, I still want to finish with my head held high.
“The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry” -Robert Burns
To say that this quarter went sideways is an understatement. Writer’s block and realizing that I’m writing my books in the wrong order took a toll on my plans. And I wasn’t looking forward to my quarterly wrap up.
So I did what any good writer would do: I pulled out my notebook and did the math on how the quarter was going by the numbers. And then did a full day of writing to try to pad the numbers a bit because there’s still half a week left in the quarter.
And the numbers weren’t as terrible as I thought.
My goal of drafting and typing up my novels, if you break it down into pure numbers, is 120 handwritten pages or more to draft a novel (with me still leaving in notes of scenes that aren’t completed in my head) and 80 thousand words typed to be a completed novel for my genre. This quarter I wrote 142 pages and 70 thousand words.
Close enough in my book.
That doesn’t include the fact that sending my book to beta readers and doing all of those edits was not actually in my plans for the quarter, but I did that too.
I didn’t plot out book four in this series, but I replotted books two and three and made the series stronger as a whole.
I’m counting the quarter as a win, even if it went off the rails. Because old me would have thrown in the towel in August when the writer’s block hit. But that doesn’t get my goals done.
I feel like I actually rallied and finished my quarter strong. I’m ready to reset my kanban board and prep my goals for quarter four.
How did your quarter three treat you? Did you have to change directions mid-quarter or did it go as you planned it? Let me know!
