Days 584 to 605 - Lead on Edison!

I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.
- Thomas Edison


When I started this blog, my original goal was quite simple. I was going to write 1 million words in a year. Then I was going to spend a year editing, and then I was going to send out all the awesome work I had produced and within 5 years I was going to be making a living from my writing. 


Ha! Oh, I amuse myself. 


Life never works out exactly the way you had planned, and often that's for the best. Even changing my goal to 1 million words in two years wasn't the right move. Because I was writing books that I wanted to send out to agents and publishers, and feeling a little put out when I told myself to put off editing them until I had reached an arbitrary number.

And so, a new plan!

The first requisite for success is to develop the ability to focus and apply your mental and physical energies to the problem at hand - without growing weary.

The heart of my problem - writing constantly diluted the focus I was able to apply to any given project. So part of my new plan of action involves working on only two projects at a time (which may not seem like TRUE focus, but for me it is commendable restraint ^_^). At any given point I will be working on one writing project and one editing project. This means that...

We should remember that good fortune often happens when opportunity meets with preparation.

... when opportunities come knocking I'll have something to throw at them as I yell at them to get off my lawn. At present I see everywhere opportunities to submit my work, but none of it is ready yet. That's disheartening, and making myself feel bad is no way to run an evil scheme to take over the world through novels. 

Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is to try just one more time.

So here is my next idea - I will give myself the full 5 year time goal. I will track words written and time spent editing, as well as (knock wood) pieces published. That gives me a more rounded structure, and one which actually lets me start sending out stuff so I can start getting in those hundreds of rejection letters I'm planning on using to wallpaper the lounge room.

What is your writing plan?

Word count - 1,678

(And just one last one - I didn't realise how interesting Thomas Edison was until I started this blog post! “To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.”)