Publication means organisation
Or how a person with chronic illness and a tendency to forget things became a published author.
So now that I am having 14 of my short stories published over 3 anthologies and an ezine I thought I would share the things that I have found useful. To be a writer seems to mean being organised. Especially in the short story game. I have at least 6 things I am considering writing this month. Two of which I am super serious about. Thing is, I work full time, have chronic illness and a social life. Being organised is the only way I can manage all of that without burn out. It is all about being kind to yourself and I find these tools help as they reduce stress and help with my forgetfulness.
This website has lots of soundscapes that run from peaceful to motivating. You can adjust parts of it too. I personally find that their noise Black Hole with the Interference slider turned all the way down puts me in a softly focused mood. I don’t feel super motivated, but once I start I can just keep going. Best thing is that unlike music, it doesn’t resound in my head, meaning it doesn’t interfere with my thoughts whilst writing.
You use their search to find publishers looking for submissions. You can sort by response time, story length, genre. You then log your stories and where you have submitted them and it keeps track for you. It is really useful for exploring the market and seeing what response and acceptance rates are like.
I would not be able to keep track without this. I put on my spreadsheet all the publishers I would like to work with, what their usual word count and genre is. I highlight them if they are currently open to submissions. I check on this every 2 weeks to a month depending how busy I am with writing. You can just keep a list of favs on Submission Grinder though but I like to make notes.
This is a hand written list of all the publishers that are open for submissions with themes I want to write for. I put the details of what they want and the deadlines. I then use this to see which ones generate ideas.
When I have started to write a piece I put the deadline and a countdown in a coloured pen on my calendar. It is a month a page and they are A2 in size. It allows me to see just how long I have and where all my projects are. I update this with word counts. I like seeing everything in one place otherwise I get forgetful.
Every Monday after work I plan my week and write my tasks on the whiteboard. Goals of word count and deadline go on there. There is a satisfaction in crossing things off the board and then on Sunday I can see just how much I accomplished. If I don’t achieve something then I have to decide if that task is still worth pursuing.
I started small with goals. Putting one or three small things on the board. I worked out how long it took me to write 250 words and how much free time I had that week and would extrapolate my word counts from there.
So those are my tips. I know they might not work for everyone but they work for me and hopefully they’ll help.
