How I'm Planning for My Best Writing Year Ever

The first thing I had to do to make 2020 my best writing year ever was to attend my last few physical therapy appointments and diligently do the follow-up exercises needed to fully recover from my November 11th knee replacement surgery.

So far, so good.

For the first couple of months, I spent most of my down time reading. I knocked off nearly twenty novels, mostly thrillers, and a couple of nonfiction books as well. That felt pretty good, especially when combined with cups of dark roast coffee or hot chocolate.

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However, the lollygagging had to come to an end because I have big writing plans for 2020. All my priority writing To Dos involve finishing my unfinished projects.
 
That’s why my guiding word for 2020 is FINISH!

Because I’m a veteran procrastinator, I often seek inspiration from others to get down to work and do what I said I was going to do. Most often, I read blog posts for encouragement and for new ideas on how to approach work.

I have my favorites:

Zen Habits. I recommend the January 17th post titled You Absolutely Can Tackle the Big Things You’ve Been Avoiding.

Writing and Wellness Blog. January 6, 2020 post is How to Think Differently About Your New Year’s Writing Goals.

You’ll find more here at the Blood-Red Pencil. Shonell Bacon’s post from 2016 is helpful. 3 Steps to Reinvigorating Your Writing.

Consider dipping into the original Depth Year post on Raptitude (as well as the Depth Year group on Facebook). There’s a lot of wisdom in the advice to resist the shiny new project when we could go deeper into the work we’ve already started.

My process begins with a compilation of the short stories and novels in various stages of completion. From there, I’ll select one at a time and write down every task that needs to be done, then stick with it until it’s ready for submission or self-publishing.

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My first project is a short story that I wish to submit to mystery magazines. I’m in the editing phase, during which I review my critique group comments and make necessary changes. I will not move on to the next project until I FINISH this one and have sent the story to the first magazine on my list.

Pat (Patricia) Stoltey is the author of four novels published by Five Star/Cengage: two amateur sleuth, one thriller that was a finalist for a Colorado Book Award in 2015, and the historical mystery Wishing Caswell Dead (December 20, 2017), a finalist for the 2018 Colorado Book Awards. This novel is also now available in a large print edition. Her short story, “Good Work for a Girl,” appears in the Five Star Anthology, The Spoilt Quilt and Other Frontier Stories: Pioneering Women of the West released in November 2019.

Pat lives in Northern Colorado with her husband Bill, Scottish Terrier Sassy (aka Doggity), and brown tabby Katie (aka Kitty Cat).

You can learn more about Pat at her website/blog, on Facebook, and Twitter. She was recently interviewed for the Colorado Sun’s SunLit feature that you can find at the Colorado Sun website.