Saturday, March 17, 2018

The Planner

I have a confession. I'm not a planner. I have many author friends who apparently have all these fancy gadgets and books with stickers and they plan.

I never did. I've tried it. Back in the days when I was an office professional, everyone else in my office had calendars on their desks. They wrote things down. Really. Me...I sort of winged it. In January, when we received our new calendars, I went through and entered everyone's birthdate. Annnnd, that was it.

I knew when all the other stuff was happening because, well, I knew. In my head. I just never figured out how to manage dates. One of my coworkers knew every date for every surgery/hospitalization/doctor's appt. of everyone--even mine. I have no idea unless there's something else I can attach it to, like one of my children's birthdays.

And then something happened to my inner date keeper. It died. Between meds and health issues, there are times I have trouble keeping track of hours, let alone days. So now I'm working on establishing a calendar.

Back when I was a new writer, I wrote a book, sent it off to my editor, and if the publisher wanted it, then my editor took care of the schedule. It was great. I wrote. Editors and publishers managed all that other stuff.

Now, I'm republishing my own stuff and I have all these schedules and responsibilities to track. Cover? Check. Edit/Revision? Check. Front matter/back matter/etc.? Check. Release date? Check. PR? Not so much a check...

It wasn't too bad for one or two books, but I have twenty. And a new calendar. It isn't much to look at, but I have releases listed through July 1st. I suppose that's something. As long as I don't misplace it. In the meantime, I feel like I've accomplished something on the order of climbing Mt. Everest, because I really, really don't do calendars.

We'll see how this goes.

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