Read Around the Rainbow: Do you have a writing plan for next year?

Read Around the Rainbow is a blogging project featuring yours truly, A.L. Lester, Ofelia Gränd, Holly Day, K.L. Noone, Amy Spector, Addison Albright, Fiona Glass, Lilian Francis, and Ellie Thomas. Every month, we pick a topic and then we blog about it. Check the other blog posts by clicking the RAtR widget in the sidebar, or the links at the bottom of this post.

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The RAtR topic for December is Do you have a writing plan for next year?

I’m not the kind of writer who makes detailed writing plans. I know most other authors have detailed plans, for example series writers have the next installments planned out, or in general, authors who are more organized than I am (…it isn’t hard, I promise 😁). But I’m a hardcore pantser (something I’ve written about before, e.g. in last month’s RAtR post) and that applies to my entire writing career and not just my writing style.

Or maybe that’s not exactly true. There are a few exceptions, all of them tied to submission calls put out by my publisher. Towards the end of the year, they usually post a whole bunch of sub calls for the coming year, and I read through them and get inspired by some (or all). I write down the ones that caught my attention in my bujo and if inspiration strikes, I write a story and submit something that will fit. So for 2023, I’ve signed up for an in-house thing in December, and I’m also eyeing the Second Chances one and the Silver Foxes one on this list.

Not everything I write is for a submission call; sometimes inspiration strikes and I write and submit whatever it is, but that’s the pantser part of my writer personality. It’s mostly spur-of-the-moment inspiration, and it’s not planned. I let my inspiration take me wherever it wants to go, and I refuse to plan ahead.

But. Here’s the thing.

Photo by Alexa Williams on Unsplash

Since I started my Day Job almost two years ago, I’ve had a very hard time balancing a full-time job with life and a writing career. For the first time ever, I’ve missed a deadline and have been forced to pull out of a project I’d signed up for. My lovely publisher agreed to extend my deadline so I had time to finish my story (After Marcus), but I’m someone who hates being late so I felt awful. I still feel awful thinking of it now.

So my goal for 2023, my writing plan, is to try to find a work-life balance. I need to figure out a way to be able to both work full time and write. Maybe not the most exciting plan, but it’s paramount. If I can’t make it work, the alternative I see is that I quit writing, but that’s not really an alternative, is it?

So. Wish me luck. And if you have any insights, please tell me in the comments.

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Don’t forget to check out my fellow RatR authors to see what their writing plans for next year are.

Amy Spector :: Ellie Thomas :: A.L. Lester :: Holly Day :: Ofelia Gränd :: Addison Albright :: K.L. Noone