Tag Archives: goals

Bell Bridge Books, Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, The Chalice War, Winds of the Forelands, Writing

Professional Wednesday: What Matters In Your Work? Part I

On Monday, I began what will be a series of posts on the things that matter to us, and the ways in which we can make them central to our lives. Not surprisingly, I think about this a great deal with respect to my writing. And I believe all of us, no matter where we are in our careers, can benefit from this sort of thinking.

As with the broader topic, I expect that the question “What matters?” will inform the next few Professional Wednesday posts. Today, I want to take on the question in its broadest sense.

At the start of each year, I spend some time mapping out the coming months, trying to make certain that I schedule my work for the year to come, the various projects I hope to complete, in a way that will maximize my productivity without setting myself up for failure by giving myself unrealistic deadlines or overly ambitious timetables for the completion of manuscripts. It’s a process I’ve written about a couple of times in the past month or so. (Find other posts here and here.)

Creating a work calendar for the year is about more than time management, though. It is also about prioritizing. It is about answering the question “What matters?”

We all have projects we care about and goals that stir our passions. For some, “what matters” is that novel we’ve been trying for years to finish. For others, “what matters” is finally getting that first professional sale, either of a book or a short story. And for others still, “what matters” may simply be finally making writing a daily or weekly habit — getting started on a road that may not reach its final destination this year, but that at least begins here and now.

Whatever your “what matters” might be, it should inform your planning for the coming year.

The Chalice War-Stone, by David B. CoeWhat matters to me? Professionally, for this coming year, a few things. I have a series debuting in February. I want to promote the hell out of it. I want to feel at the end of the release windows — the weeks immediately preceding and following the releases of the three books — that I have done all I could to make the series successful. I also have an old series that I want to re-release. I’ve been talking about doing this for several years now, and each year I have found other projects to take up my time and energy. But this series, Winds of the Forelands, is one about which I am passionate. This is the year I bring it out again. It matters to me. And I want to start something new, a series that will take me in a new direction, I have resisted starting it for a couple of years, I believe because I am intimidated by the magnitude of what I’m taking on. It’s time to get over my hesitation.

Jacket art for Bonds of Vengeance, book III in Winds of the Forelands, by David B. Coe (Jacket art by Romas Kukalis)What about you? I’m not merely asking what you wish to accomplish, though obviously that’s part of the equation. I’m asking as well what you care about. Sure, maybe you want to be published — or at least contracted — by year’s end. That’s a laudable goal. But what project will get you there? What story is burning brightest inside you? What work will bring you joy? What project is most likely to tap into your greatest creative passion? That ought to be part of the equation as well.

Our professional pursuits are not just about what ambitions we’ll realize. They’re also about what matters most to us as artists. Writing, like all acts of creation, is about more than sales and “success,” however we might define that word. Writing is an act of love. This business is too hard, too fickle, too cruel, to be approached solely as a bottom-line endeavor. Often, the truest satisfaction we can hope to draw from our work is the self-recognition of our own achievement. And ultimately, I would argue, our own pride and sense of accomplishment ought to be what matters most.

So as you begin 2023 — and I hope it is a year of accomplishment and satisfaction for all of you — ask yourself “What matters?” Because I guarantee you, if the work — the concept, the narrative, the characters, the settings — matters to you, that emotional connection to the project will show up in your writing. “What matters” is not just about warm and fuzzy feelings. Answering the question will point you toward the most powerful expression of your creative vision.

Keep writing.

Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, Thieftaker Chronicles

Professional Wednesday: A Ton of News, and Organizing My Time

Welcome to my new Wednesday blogging feature, Professional Wednesdays. As some of you may remember, back around Thanksgiving I asked you for advice on the future of my midweek posts. My Writing-Tip Wednesdays were well received throughout 2020, but by the end of the year I was struggling to come up with new advice topics. I became convinced that I couldn’t sustain that old format for another year without repeating myself.

What I suggested in that Thanksgiving week post was a new, related feature — Professional Wednesdays — that would combine a few disparate ideas: a professional journal discussing current projects and struggles and epiphanies; more generalized musings on the market, the craft, and others elements of creative life; a few advice posts, as I think of topics I failed to cover in 2020; and my responses to the storytelling components of books, movies, TV shows, and other artistic endeavors I encounter.

This catch-all idea for the blog received a lot of enthusiastic support from those of you who commented, and so here we are. In the coming months, I’ll be sharing with you all sorts of posts touching on professional issues, creativity, and “behind the scenes” looks at my own works-in-progress as they develop. I hope you enjoy this new approach to my Wednesday posts.

To start off 2021, I would like to share with you some news and how it relates to something I did on New Year’s Day — something I do every New Year’s Day.

Let’s start with the news. 2020 was a fairly quiet year for me professionally (no, THAT’S not news. Be patient…). I was pretty productive, especially given the circumstances, but the year was somewhat light on professional news. Until the very end of the year…

News item number 1: I have signed a contract for a pair of supernatural thrillers, the first of which I expect will be coming out late in 2021. The first book is written, but needs to be revised. The second book is in its conceptual phase. I expect to write it this spring. I am not ready to reveal who will be publishing the books except to say that it is a highly respected small press, a house I’ve wanted to work with for some time. Details to come as soon as the last of the “t”s and “i”s are crossed and dotted.

News item number 2: We have artwork for the Thieftaker novellas, and it now looks like the first of those novellas should be out sometime later this winter. And the artwork? It’s by Chris McGrath. Yep. The same Chris McGrath who did the artwork for all four of the original Thieftaker novels. It is magnificent.

News item number 3: Speaking of the original Thieftaker novels, we have gotten the rights reverted on the third and fourth Thieftakers, A Plunder of Souls and Dead Man’s Reach. These are books that came out after my editor debacle at Tor, and as a result neither book ever received the TLC and attention it deserved. Well, Lore Seekers Press has reissued the books, with the original artwork, in ebook format and (forthcoming very soon) in trade paperback. If you have yet to read these novels, this is the time to get them, before the new Thieftaker novellas come out. They are among my favorites of all the novels in any series I’ve ever written. Dead Man’s Reach in particular might well be the best crafted novel I’ve ever done. Check them out. (A word about the links to the books: ONLY the Kindle versions are the reissues. The physical books listed on Amazon right now, are the old ones from Tor. You want to wait for the new trade paperbacks.)

News Item number 4: I will be teaching an online class in epic fantasy AND serving as a main workshop faculty member for the Futurescapes Writing Workshop in March.

News Item number 5: Submissions are now closed for Derelict, the Zombies Need Brains anthology I am co-editing with Joshua Palmatier. We received 340 stories for about five open slots, and will be reading stories this month making our final choices for the anthology. Derelict should be out late in the spring or early this summer.

So, yes, I suddenly have a lot going on, and I am so excited. The thing is, though, all of this stuff is happening quickly. The revised first book in the new supernatural thriller series is due March 1. The completed manuscript of the second book is due June 1. The Thieftaker novellas still need some final polishing and proofing. That should happen this month. My talks for Futurescapes need to be ready by early March, and the Derelict submissions need to be read before the end of January.

Which is why I spent part of New Year’s Day with a calendar — a paper wall calendar, something I can hang by my desk and see every day — breaking down week-by-week, at times day-by-day, what I need to do and when in order to meet my various deadlines. As I mentioned earlier, this is something I do at the beginning of every year, although some years it’s more necessary than others. I view New Year’s as a time to organize myself and set goals that are attainable. That last is key. Setting goals and having ambitions is great, but only if we don’t set ourselves up for failure and disappointment. Setting too many goals can be overwhelming, especially if we’re unsure of how we’re going to meet them. By mapping out my time, breaking down my tasks into discreet tasks that I can fit into a work calendar, I convince myself that I can do all the things I want to AND I provide myself with a roadmap for success.

I recommend it.

I wish you all a successful and fulfilling 2021.

Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, Writing

Writing-Tip Wednesday: Taking Stock Halfway Through 2020

As of today, July 1, we are halfway done with 2020.

Yeah, I know. It seems like this year has lasted a decade. And it seems like this year has flown. Time is unnervingly elastic right now, at least from my perspective. I have been distracted all year long — that’s how it feels. I can hardly believe that six months ago I hadn’t heard of Covid-19. I haven’t been at my best for so long now, I’m not entirely sure anymore what “my best” really means.

That said, I look back on the first six months of the year, and I see that I did, in fact, accomplish something. Quite a lot, actually.

•I’ve edited an anthology, reading through literally dozens of stories, choosing (in consultation with Joshua Palmatier, my co-editor) the ones we would be including in the final collection, and then editing and copyediting those.

•I’ve written and revised a short story for said anthology.

•I’ve written, revised, and then revised again a lengthy non-fiction piece.

•I’ve revised and copyedited TIME’S ASSASSIN, the third Islevale novel, which will be out from Falstaff Books on or about July 7.

•I’ve written the first drafts of three Thieftaker novellas, totaling just over 100,000 words.

•I’ve put out five issues of my newsletter, and will be coming out with number six very soon (I tend to take January off).

•I’ve posted Monday Musings, Wednesday Writing Tips, and Friday Photos, every week for the first twenty six weeks of the year.

All in all, not bad.

I know that I’ve done all of these things, because I keep a day journal in which I jot down, among other things, all of my professional activities. And I keep that journal for just this reason. Even in the best of times, it is so, so easy to convince ourselves that we’re not doing anything, that we’re just spinning our wheels and wasting our time. This is especially true now, in a period of sustained social crisis unlike anything most of us have experienced in our lifetimes. Our tension and apprehension and sense of being overwhelmed consumes all else, making it too easy to gloss over our accomplishments, whatever they may be.

Keeping a day journal is easy. You can do it electronically, or physically. I do everything electronically these days, except this. Each year, I buy a Sierra Club Engagement Calendar, and I use it to keep tabs on myself, writing down each day’s highlights before going to bed. I recommend it. It may be just the thing to help you keep track of all you’re getting done, despite your conviction that you’re not getting anything done at all. More than that, it can be a source of motivation. On some days, I wind up working harder than I would otherwise, because I don’t want to face that blank space in the evening with nothing productive to jot down.

I also want to say, at this, the turn of the year, that 2020 is far from over. Whatever you have gotten done so far, you have six more months in which to accomplish old goals or set and get started on new ones. It’s tempting to give in to the negative impulse: “The year’s already half gone. What’s the use?” I choose instead to look at it from the other side. “I still have half the year left to do X, Y, and Z.”

So I plan to keep the newsletters coming, to write my three blog posts each and every week. I have a release next week that I intend to promote. I hope to be editing a new anthology by the end of the year. I intend to revise and put out those three Thieftaker novellas before the year is finished. I have more edits to get done on the nonfiction piece. I have a new idea for a major project — I’m researching it now. I would love to have the first novel in that project finished before the end of the year. I have gotten the rights back to the third and fourth Thieftaker novels; I want to edit those and get them reissued this year. And more…

So, yeah, it’s July 1. Wow.

Now, back to work.

Keep writing!

Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, Writing

Writing Tip-Wednesday: Reevaluating Goals in the Time of Covid-19

Each of us responds in his or her own way to stress and uncertainty and fear – and there is plenty of all three to go around right now. I have one friend who has been unbelievably productive during the past six weeks. And yes, I hate her just a little bit.

I believe strongly in setting professional goals for myself. Sometimes that means work goals – “I want to write book X by June 30th and book Y by September 30th, and then I want to write three short stories in October and November…” Sometimes it means what we might call achievement goals – “I want to see this book in print by the end of summer, and this book sold to a publisher by the same time, and this short story placed by the end of the year…”

I find that work goals keep me focused and productive. They are a tool I use to self-motivate. Once I write something down in my work calendar – “Work on new fantasy from January to April” – the end of April becomes, in my mind, a deadline. I treat it as such, even though in a technical sense no one may be waiting for the book at the end of that period.

Professional goals, obviously, are more fungible. They have to be, because we have limited control over the marketplace and our relationship with it. Even those who self-publish can’t fit every circumstance to their needs and desires. But still, having those sorts of goals can help with focus, with productivity, and also with that tendency many of us have to overwork our books and stories and thus delay sending them out. (See last week’s Writing-tip.)

As I have already written in this Wednesday feature, the pandemic, and the economic collapse that has come with it, are bad news for the publishing industry in general and new writers in particular. This is a scary time to be pursuing a career in any of the arts, writing included. This is, in my opinion, not a good time for strict adherence to achievement goals.

Work goals, on the other hand, might just be the secret to making the most of this time of social-distancing and Stay-At-Home orders. Each of us responds in his or her own way to stress and uncertainty and fear – and there is plenty of all three to go around right now. I have one friend who has been unbelievably productive during the past six weeks. And yes, I hate her just a little bit. I have another friend who has been unable to do any creative work at all. I probably fall somewhere in between – I’m too distracted to be as productive as usual, but I’m managing to get work done. I recently completed a 30,000-plus word novella, and I’m already nearly halfway through a second. Given how distracted I’ve been, I’m pleased.

My productivity has actually gone up in recent weeks, and I believe that’s because I have finally adjusted to this new reality, and so I’m no longer beating myself up for not writing as quickly as I usually do. I had considered revising my work goals for the year; instead, I abandoned them entirely in favor of work goals for the next couple of months. We are in uncharted territory at this point. No one really knows what the world is going to look like two weeks from now, much less two months, or six. And so for now my goals are to finish this second novella and then write the third. When that’s done, I’ll edit them and figure out what to do with the trilogy. And after that… Who knows? I’ll make those plans when the time comes.

At the same time, though, I am not ready to give up on goals altogether. True, I don’t quite know how I will market the novellas when they’re ready for distribution, but I still want to get them done, and I still want to feel productive. The truth is, I’m happier when I’m working. I feel better about myself and my career, and I genuinely enjoy creating. I seek a balance: I want to have goals that force me to work, that maybe push me to keep writing, even if not at my usual pace. At the same time, I have to be cognizant of the simple fact that I’m not at my best right now. This is a global crisis – medical, economic, political, social. It’s a frightening world we’re living in, and that has to take a toll.

If you’re one of those people who can work through this at your normal pace or even faster than usual, good for you. I hate you a little bit, too. For the rest of you who feel as I do – that you want to remain productive, but can’t quite work at your usual speed – find that balance I’m talking about. Maybe you usually write 1500 words a day, but currently feel you’re only at 75%. That’s 1100 words a day. That is still a decent pace. That will give you a novella in a month or so, a novel in three months. You’ll feel like you’re accomplishing something while also being realistic about our current situation.

The point is not to write quickly – the goal ought never to be solely about that. Now especially, the goal should be to find a pace and level of achievement that maintains both our standards for the work we produce and a feeling of professional and emotional health.

We really can’t ask for more than that.

Keep writing!

Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, LonTobyn Chronicle, Thieftaker Chronicles, Winds of the Forelands, Writing

Quick-Tip Tuesday: Mapping Out the New Year

What can I say? I have a bit of an OCD streak. Okay, maybe even more than “a bit.”

But setting work goals and making up a work schedule for a new year is not just about me being the writing equivalent of Felix Unger (kids, ask your parents). I find that mapping out my professional year improves my chances of meeting whatever goals I might have for the coming months.

I have always been one to make New Year’s Resolutions and to set goals for the coming year as one wall calendar gives way to the next. Probably it’s the same impulse that leads me to outline most of my books, and to organize my book and CD collections alphabetically by artist. What can I say? I have a bit of an OCD streak. Okay, maybe even more than “a bit.”

But setting work goals and making up a work schedule for a new year is not just about me being the writing equivalent of Felix Unger (kids, ask your parents). I find that mapping out my professional year improves my chances of meeting whatever goals I might have for the coming months. Because at the root of the exercise is the creation of self-imposed deadlines, which, as I’ve mentioned previously, I treat as immutable, just as I would a deadline given to me by an editor. If I keep my deadlines realistic, and I commit myself to meeting them, I should have a productive year. And as writers, we really can’t ask for more than that.

So, that said, here are my goals for 2017:

1. I have just sent off to my agent the first book in an as-yet-uncontracted new series. I love the book and look forward to writing the rest of the series. My next step in working on this project is to write a synopsis of book 1 (which will help my agent place the book with a publisher) and to write as well brief descriptions of books 2 and 3.

1.a.  Once I’ve completed those preliminary steps, I want to dive in and write the second book. The first book took me a while and I have a feeling this second one will, too. I would guess that I’ll be writing the first draft of Book 2 through the end of April.

2. The next thing I have in mind to do is write a new Thieftaker novella about Ethan Kaille’s early life. (For those who are fans of the Thieftaker books, I plan to write the story of the Ruby Blade mutiny, which led to Ethan’s imprisonment.) I believe I can get this done in about 6 weeks, which will take me to mid-June. Once this is complete, I will gather all the Thieftaker short stories, of which there are about 8, and release them as a collection. I hope to see that in print by the end of the year.

3. Around mid-June I will also begin work on another new project that I’m undertaking with a couple of friends. We’re not yet ready to talk about this publicly, but essentially I will be writing a new novel of approximately 90,000 words. I should be able to have that written by the end of the summer.

4. During the summer, I will also begin editing for reissue the five books of my Winds of the Forelands series (originally released 2002-2007). As with my LonTobyn books, which I re-released in 2016 as Author’s Edits of the original books, I will be polishing and tightening the prose of these books without changing any of the plotting or character work. Since I’ll be working on item 3 at the same time — interspersing writing days with editing days — this will take me past the end of the summer and probably well into the fall.

5. Finally, I will also leave room in my schedule for the unexpected: editing work on the new project, assuming that we place it with a publisher some time during the year; short stories that I might be asked to write for anthologies or the like; travel for family stuff, or for conventions.

Those tasks should take me through much of 2017. If I can get all of that done — and I believe I can, meeting all of my self-assigned deadlines — I’ll consider it a successful year.

What about you? What are your professional plans for the coming year?

Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, Writing

Quick-Tip Tuesday Looks at Goals and Realism

The writing profession throws plenty of trials our way; we shouldn’t pile on with unrealistic goals that we can’t possibly meet.

And the great thing about making writing a part of your regular routine is that you don’t have to set unreachable goals in order to accomplish great things.

It’s Quick-Tip Tuesday over at Magical Words, and I’ve got a new post up about setting realistic expectations for our work. Too often, aspiring writers undermine their confidence by setting goals for themselves that they can’t possibly meet. Read my take on this here. Enjoy the post, and keep writing.

Baen Books, Blogging, Case Files of Justis Fearsson, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, Tor Books, Writing

A New Year’s Post at Magical Words

I have a post up today at Magical Words — another in what I am calling the Unofficial Winter 2014-15 Spell Blind Blog Tour.  The post is called “Taking Stock and Taking Risks,” and it is about the closing of this year and some of my goals for 2015. You can find the post here. I hope you enjoy it, and I wish you all a wonderful New Year.