There’s that Douglas Adams project management quote about loving deadlines. Especially the noise they make as they whoosh by. With less than two weeks to go before my Christmas short story book was due for release, I decided I wanted to cram in an extra story. You can imagine how this went down with my extremely patient editor. Equally, you can imagine how it went down with my partner when mentioned the extra editing cost.
But I was determined. I’d had an idea and I wanted it to feature.
Knuckle down
It got me to think about one thing that writers do particularly badly – project management. Given it’s a part of my actual day job, I ought to be able to deal with the intricacies of pulling together a bunch of work-streams and producing a product with consummate ease.
My next novel is due out in 2018. I’m trapped in the endless cycle of and rewrites with no push to knuckle down and accept that there must be an end point. To change this, I’ve decided to apply all that I do in real life to my authorly world.
A project manager knows they need to first work out what the customer wants. In this case, a well-written novel with a decent/credible plot, free of typos and crammed with conflict, a satisfying ending, and they want it all wrapped up with a lovely cover.
Each one of these ‘outputs’ has a work process.
I’ll address the stages over the coming days in my ‘Project Management for Authors’ blog series. Sign up to my mailing list now and hear about it first.
Five Gold Rings
sprinkles the festive season with darkness and light. If you fancy a huge handful of tales that will get you through the yo-ho-ho, this is the one for you. There’s also a sneak peak of ‘The Toast of Brighton’. It’s an Amazon-only release and available 1 December.