The Three Month Plan

I've decided I need a bit more regularity in my writing life (no fiber jokes, please). So yesterday, I came up with a three-month plan, intended to be repeated over and over. The details are intended to be mutable so I can form into to what actually works for me, but here's the idea:

Week 1: Revision of Old Stories
Week 2: Revision of Old Stories - Submit to magazines by end of this week
Week 3: Refresher on long project / plotting and outlining
Week 4: Refresher on long project / plotting and outlining
Week 5: Write long project
Week 6: Write long project
Week 7: Write long project
Week 8: Write long project
Week 9: Write long project
Week 10: Write long project
Week 11: Brainstorm new short story ideas
Week 12: Write new short stories
Week 13: Write new short stories

And... that's it. Rinse and repeat. Note that these tasks take into account weekdays only. Weekends are left free to work on whatever writing projects I feel like. That includes the audiobook versions that I had been talking about before, editing and commenting on other people's stuff, working on the anthology, etc.

I think six weeks at a time is just about right for working on a novel, at least at this point in my writing career. Any longer, and the ideas get stale. Plus, when I'm working on something long term, I get lots of little ideas that crowd up at the back of my mind, and have no outlet. If I know that after a six week period I can develop them, I'll be a lot happier.

This slots into my current plans pretty organically. By the way, writing the long project can turn into revising that same project if I wind up finishing. Still, I want to get the first draft completely done before I start on revisions--at least as long as I feel that I'm going in a good direction. If at any point I feel like I've completely fallen off track, that's the time to regroup, get the target in my sights again, and start over.