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Stick to a writing plan
Charlotte Booth • 18 October 2022
Create a writing plan to stay on track
I am a planner. In all aspects of my life. Whilst I can be spontaneous for fun, if I want a project to be successful then I have to plan. For some this seems like a lot of work upfront, especially for a writing project. Many would would rather be getting their teeth stuck into the actual fun part of writing.
However, I have found that with a strong plan, any writing project, whether a 100,000-word book or a 600-word blog remains fun, on track and delivered on time.
Although there are many aspects to a successful writing plan, here are the first four steps you should take to ensure a successful finished piece of writing.
Writing a book, article or a report, is all about planning – well it’s not but it makes it a LOT easier. And this means knowing the time-scale.
Whatever the piece of writing you have been asked to do, you need to know the deadline.
When is the piece of writing due?
If you have not been commissioned to write the content, and are choosing to do it, then identify when you would like to have it completed. Treat this like a real deadline.
Step 2 - Length of the written piece
Before starting a writing project you need a rough idea of how long the piece will be. Is it to be a 600-word blog, a 40,000-word book, a series of 280 character tweets or a 10-page report?
Take this word/page count and the deadline date and work out how much you need to write a week/day to reach the deadline. Also consider you may need to factor in time for research, whether book reading or interviewing people as well as time to proofread and edit the finished piece.
Step 3 - Identify your limitations
The worst thing you can do is leave the writing until the day before the deadline, especially if you have no idea of your writing speed and capabilities.
So, time yourself, and identify how long it takes you to write 500 or 1000 words.
From this you can work out how many hours a week it will take you to reach the minimum word count required to hit the deadline.
Step 4 - Diarise the time
If writing a book, or it is now your role to write weekly blogs for your business, the best way of ensuring it gets done and not pushed to the bottom of the to-do list is to diarise it.
If you have one hour spare a week to write, make sure you put it in the diary and treat it like any other meeting or appointment. That way you can be sure to meet your writing deadline without having to pull an all-nighter the day before.
For more help with embarking on a writing project, especially for long-form (2,000 words or more) contact me and we can have a chat, via email
or zoom.
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