Hey everyone, and welcome back! You are listening to Oh Draft! Podcast. I am Maggie Ann Martin, the author of two young adult novels, To Be Honest and The Big F. Now. If you are new to tuning in to the podcast, this is episode 4 of my journey to write a book in 45 days, which I know sounds wild but trust me! There's a method to my madness and if you have started from episode one, you're getting a little glimpse behind the scenes at what that method is.
Today, I'm really excited to talk about timelines, goals, and setting deadlines to make sure that you're meeting that 45-day goal. I've been teasing in previous episodes that I was going to release my schedule of how I'm going to write a book and 45 days and I'm happy to say officially, so you can all hold me accountable, I'm officially writing a book and 45 days starting on Monday, January 25th, and then I will finish up by March 11th.
My plan for these episodes where I'm actually drafting the book is for each episode I'm going to cover a 10,000 word chunk of drafting that I have done. I am writing a thousand words every weekday and then 2,000 words every weekend day.
(If you see any movement back here that's just my dog. I'd give this disclaimer every time for people watching on YouTube, but she's a Chihuahua and she loves to burrow. So if you see any movement back here, that is my Chihuahua Millie. She just likes to be a part of the videos. So there she is today.)
As I was saying, writing a book in 45 days... Obviously a really important part of this process is figuring out how to set your goals. In our first episode we did character development. We have worked through with setting development. We have worked through your outline and now it's time to actually get prepared to draft this book and set up realistic expectations for yourself, which I'm going to help you do today.
My first piece of advice is to use a website called Pacemaker. Pacemaker.press is the website and this website is really intuitive and helpful. Not only for drafting novels, but if you're working on a dissertation or you need to get a Blog written in a certain amount of time, this will help you set manageable deadlines and writing goals along the way so that you don't have to calculate the math on your own. Which I know is super helpful for me because math is definitely not my strong suit.
So the first step for setting timelines and goals is to go to Pacemaker.press and then you can create a free account and create a plan. On your free account you can have up to two timeline trackers going at the same time. If you want to invest and get a paid account you can have more than two running at a time. But since I'm just using it for this project right now, I'm keeping my free account.
Like I mentioned earlier I have picked my start and end date. So my start date is January 25th and my end date is March 11th for a 45-day total. So once you hit that Create a Plan button, you can select what time frame you want to do it within and then you can choose how many words you want as your start goal. I put 60,000 words because for a young adult novel that's at least kind of the baseline that you want to try and hit. They can be anywhere from there to 80,000 but I at least want to in this first draft hit 60,000 because I tend to draft shorter and then go back in and revise and add more. So I at least want to hit that 60,000 goal.
One of the cool things about being on Pacemaker is you can choose if you want to keep your pace steady or if you want to randomize how much you're writing on certain days. You can really customize what your pace is going to be. For me, I chose a steady pace but I selected the "Do More" button for the weekends because I know I will have a lot more time to dedicate to writing on the weekends. Another fun fact about me, I also work a full-time 40-hour a week job and so writing is not my full-time job. So I have to be really really disciplined in my goal setting and timelines that I set because I obviously don't have all the time during the week to just dedicate to writing a book.
Again this really really helps me stay on track because stay motivated and stay focused on that aspect. So I clicked that "Do More" button for weekends. Also, you can select if you want your plan to adjust based on the word count or work that you put in each day, but I've chosen that I want to keep my plan the same and I want to track against how I'm doing it against my original goals.
For me it always encourages me more if I can see that I am exceeding the goals that I've set for myself. It encourages me to keep exceeding versus if it adjusts accordingly. I don't know. I feel like I am motivated by seeing if I'm doing better than I anticipated I would be doing.
Then I also chose to put a cumulative number, you know that word count in at the end of each day. Either you can put in your cumulative word count or you can put in how many words you wrote that day. Since I'm tracking for a novel and I want it to reach a certain word count I'm going to put that cumulative number in but if you are really interested in "Hey, I actually wrote like 2,000 words today, but I deleted 500 of them because it didn't quite fit," you could put that number in even though that's not like what the total word count of your novel is at the time. So if you're more interested in how many words you're actually writing versus how long your piece is you can track that way.
Then I hit "Save Plan" and then you'll see that it's going to pop up this really nice graph that shows you over time like how long it's going to take you to write that certain amount of words- how much you should be reaching on each day for each plot point that you can see. You can always go back in and adjust. This is not concrete or set in stone. So if you change your mind on how you want to set your goals, or if you have something that comes up on a day that you need to completely block out writing, you can remove that day and it will add it into the rest of the day's to account for those missing words.
I highly, highly, highly recommend this tool, Pacemaker.press. It is a lifesaver and it is absolutely what I use and completely completely recommend. Because, you could do this on your own. You could plot out how long it's going to take you on your own but I think it's so nice that it's a free program and it saves you a ton of time and it's really intuitive. I can't speak highly enough for this tool.
So now you've got your Pacemaker setup and you know how many words you want to write in a day. The way that mine shook out I have a goal of 1,035 words on the weekdays and 2,069 words on the weekends to write to reach that 60,000 in 45 days. Like I mentioned before, my full-time job isn't writing and so I have a 40 hour a week job that I also need to account for my schedule. So I really have to be disciplined during this time to make sure that A. I'm still rocking it at my day job because I take that very seriously and I love my job, and B. because I don't have all the unlimited time during the day to really languish in my drafts and really brainstorm and think. That's why I've done all this preparation in the beginning with outlining and character development and setting development so that when I actually get to drafting I'm ready to go and I'm ready to crank out those words every single day.
I know I promised each time that I have resources that you all will be able to download and while this one is not as much like a comprehensive worksheet as my other ones, I do have a sample schedule for you all to take a look at. I think for me it's really important to time block what I'm going to be doing in a day so that I can get up in the morning and visually see what's on my schedule.
I obviously have a calendar for my day job that I look at every day, but I don't schedule out, typically, everything else that I'm doing in my day. So when I'm on this tight of a deadline, I really need that transparency with myself to say, "Okay. I am going to block off this chunk of time for writing, this chunk of time for reading. This is my free time where I can binge some Netflix. This is when I'm doing dinner prep and when I'm walking the dog..." And so if you go to my resources, which you can find on my website. You'll need to go to MaggieAnnMartin.com/ohdraftpod and that's Anne without an "e," and once you're there there's a sign up box for my newsletter. You'll enter your information, sign up for that newsletter and then you will get an email immediately that says confirm your subscription to Maggie Ann Martin. You need to confirm that subscription in order to get the email with the resources. If you don't confirm your subscription to Maggie Ann Martin, you will not get that email with the link.
Based on email spamming laws and privacy laws my email provider that I use makes sure that if you're signing up for a newsletter that you really want to be signed up. So you need to do that in order to get access to those.
You'll find on there I have my schedule for the next 45 days included and it looks aggressive. But I think because of the period of time that we're in right now with the Pandemic and based on, you know, not really being able to go out and do anything social, I think now is kind of a perfect time to try and be aggressive on a timeline like this because I'm not trying to balance my social life right now. You'll see on there I have a complete eight hours every day blocked out for work. And then I have time blocked out for meals, walking the dog, and then I have the time blocked out for writing and reading.
This isn't going to be the same for everyone; some people really thrive on just writing a ton on the weekends. Usually when I'm not on a 45 day deadline that is when I get my writing done. I don't usually try to write during the weekdays. But since I'm on a time crunch that I've obviously set for myself, I put some time into my everyday that I'm going to write. An easy way that you all can use this is make a copy of my schedule that I have in there and then go in and rearrange the blocks so that it fits for you. If you have school or if you're working at certain times go in and switch things around to make it work for you. If you are more of an early riser or you stay up late and are a night owl you can adjust accordingly.
You'll see there that I've blocked out 15 hours a week to write. That doesn't mean that I completely have to stick to that, things come up, things change, schedules change, but I at least want to try and get 15 hours of writing in a week so that I can hit this self-imposed deadline. I don't know if anyone on here is like me and likes to have a planner. On YouTube I'm showing my planner. It's from Talking Out of Turn and I think this is like the most fun goal-setting planner that I have ever owned and so I'm going to leave a link to that. I mean it's a little late in the year, but they're great.
I have been really trying to plan out my weeks on my planner as well as in that Excel spreadsheet that I showed you. One way that I am doing this on my physical planner to get my word counts in is I'm using these stickers that were created by Mandi Lynn here on YouTube. Mandy is an indie author who also has a product called the Book Launch Planner. And so this is technically part of her Book Launch Planner merch and it just is a really cute little sticker that says word count. I'm going to use this and put this everyday in my planner for the goals of word count that I want and then at the end of the day I'll write how many words I actually wrote. I'll leave a link to Mandy below as well because I think her content is amazing. If you want stickers like that, she also has stickers for editing which I do have is well. She has stickers for if you want to schedule out when you're posting on different social media. With her Book Launch Planner she's really kind of thought of everything.
I think for me being able to track both online virtually with Pacemaker and then also in my physical planner, it's two touch points, two reminders to myself of my goals and what I want to accomplish on that day. Which for me just makes it stick more in my brain versus if I was just looking at one place. I know it might be overkill for some of you to have stickers in your physical planner and being on Pacemaker, but for me, it's very helpful.
Obviously I've given you a ton of tools that you are responsible for checking in on, but something that is also super helpful is having an accountability buddy. This is someone that could be on this 45-day writing challenge with you that you're checking in with, this could just be your friend that you're like, "Hey, please bug me every day and asked me how many words I've written because if I don't have someone checking in I'm going to like fall off track." It's really helpful to have an outside person that is keeping up with you so that you can't fall into making excuses of why you couldn't draft or just not meeting your goals at all.
I know for me it's helpful if I let someone else know, "Hey, this is what I'm doing. Please keep me accountable to this." That is pretty much the reason why I started this podcast because I want you all to keep me accountable as well.
Another thing that is super important when you're setting these kinds of aggressive deadlines is you have to be realistic with yourself. There are some days that you are just not going to reach that word count goal and that is okay. Sometimes you're not in the right headspace to write, sometimes something happens with your family that takes precedent. Sometimes you have to, like for me, if you're working your day job and you are just completely drained from what you've worked on during the day and you just can't bring yourself to get the words out. That is totally fine. Just know that that's going to happen and figure out: "Okay, what is my plan if I miss a writing day?" or "what is my plan if I don't hit my writing goal for a day? How am I going to make up for it later down the road?" Am I going to write more on the weekends? Am I going to swap out one of my free time spaces that I have on my calendar for more writing time?
Just know that it will happen. You will get off track and that's okay. As long as you have your plan to get you back on track.
Another tip that if you'd listen to any interviews or read any interviews with me that I bring up is that I like having like Reese's Peanut Butter Cup minis close by so if I say "Hey, if I can get 500 words written in the next hour I can eat a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup mini" or something like that... Which is kind of dumb but also keeps me motivated. Like I'm rewarding myself with a little snack to keep me going. So if that's helpful to you, figure out different ways that you can reward yourself.
I know some people do like "if I can write for the next hour, I can take a five-minute break and look at Instagram and then come back or look at Tik Tok and then come back." And that's your motivation. Totally totally up to you what it is. For me, it's usually chocolate and peanut butter.
Well, those are really my tips for staying on track and having good time management and expectations set ahead of time. I hope that this was helpful to you. If you'd like to download my sample schedule you can go to my website MaggieAnnMartin.com/ohdraftpod and subscribe to my newsletter. Once you subscribe, you'll get an email with the link to download that resource. As a reminder, all of my resources for my past episodes live on there as well. So we have a character development guide on there a setting development guide and an outline guide and those are going to be my big resources that I reference back to when I'm actually drafting the book in the next 45 days. So it'll be helpful at least for you to take a look at those so you can kind of understand what I'm talking about when I'm doing my what I'm calling "podcast diary" during each 10,000 word chunk that I write.
The next episode that you hear from me will be after I've written the first 10,000 words of my draft. So it probably will not come out as quickly as these first ones have but I will be doing behind-the-scenes content over on my Instagram and on my Twitter. I'm @maggersann on both of those platforms if you'd like to follow along.
I hope that there are a few of you that are going to join me on this journey. You don't need to start on Monday the 25th. That's really quick. But let me know on Twitter or Instagram or in the comments here on YouTube if you are going to take the challenge and try and write a book and 45 days because I would love to be your accountability buddy if you guys will be mine, too.
Thank you so much for listening. The next time I talk to you. I will be 10,000 words deep into a new draft, which is so exciting. I love the prospect of starting something new and having something new to return to every day. You'll hear that excitement is my next in my next episode. Thank you for listening to Oh Draft! podcast with Maggie Ann Martin and I will see you next time. Goodbye.