Week 36/2022: My writing plan

Week of 5 September 2022

My writing plan

Last week I promised that if I hadn’t made a plan to get writing again by the end of this week, I’d get up at 6.00 every morning to write for 30 minutes.

I made the plan.

It actually isn’t that far off getting up at 6.00 every morning to write for 30 minutes, but there are a few other things involved too.

First, I initiated the emails for the Australian Writers Centre’s Creative Writing Bootcamp (thing 17), which I had signed up for during one of their sales last year (after I’d told myself “no more online courses”).

This is a program that’s designed to help you develop a regular writing habit with 30 days worth of prompts, tips and tasks. You can do it at your own pace or you can set it up to deliver an email every day for 30 days to prompt you to do the work. Considering I’d had it sitting there since (um) November, I didn’t think working through it at my own pace had been particularly successful. I decided if I waited for the perfect 30-day window when I had nothing else on, it would never come, so there’s no better time to start than now.

The first email will arrive on Monday (though I already know what it’s going to get me to do and I’ve started thinking about that).

Even though this is a creative writing program, I’m not going to do creative writing. Rather, I’m going to use these writing sessions to work through some of the exercises in Patti Miller’s Writing True Stories book that we used as the text for the Life Writing course I did last year. I’ve been putting this off, so it’s past time to get back into it.

The plan also involves making time to listen to at least two writing podcasts each week, revisiting my old writing blog and deciding whether I need to restart that, and working my way through The Little Red Writing Book, which I’ve had sitting on my shelf for years.

It’s coming together.

22 for 2022 update

The only thing on my list I paid any attention to this week was reading (thing 21). I’ve completed 11 out of the 20 challenges from the Dymocks Reading Challenge. Possibly I need to start finding books that meet the brief rather than reading books and hoping they’ll ft. Not that it really matters. The point of a reading challenge is to read more, right? Not necessarily getting through a set list, no matter how flexible it is. Though it is an opportunity to read genres I don’t normally read.

Like fiction.

Ha.

Having said that I’m just checking the #booktok list on the Dymocks website to see if I haven’t accidentally read something off that list and can tick it off.

I haven’t, but I own four of those books, and have already read three of them, one of which I was thinking of reading again. So maybe it’s time to do that. And read the one I haven’t read.

22 for 2022 summary

• Things completed to date: 8 (8, 10, 11, 13, 18, 19, 20, 22)
• Things completed this week: –
• Things I worked on this week: 1: (21)
• Things in progress: 4 (1, 5, 12, 21)
• Things not started: 2 (14, 17)
• Things that are parked until the end of September: 6 (2, 3, 4, 6, 15, 16)
• Things I’m not going to do: 2 (7, 9)

What do I want to do next week?

Next week I’m putting the writing plan into action. In particular, I’m going to

• Follow the first seven days of the Writing Bootcamp
• Listen to two writing podcasts
• Work on exercises from The Little Red Writing Book for at least five days.

Weekly summary

What was the best thing about this week?

The absolute best thing was going to see Kramstable performing in his drama class’s play that they’ve been preparing and rehearsing all year. The drama school he’s been going to since he was five normally runs up to about age 17 but they also offer a class for older students, which Kramstable was invited to join this year. This class works for most of the year on putting together and performing a full-length production in a theatre venue.

It was a wonderful show and I’m super proud of him!

Another pretty cool thing this week was opening up The Hobart Magazine and seeing one of the photos from my Hobart Street Corners project published in their “Get Featured” section.

What did I learn this week?

I learned that peregrine falcons have nodules in their nostrils that act as a baffel to break up the stream of air coming in so they don’t blow their brains out through their ears when they do these massive dive bombs from great heights.

What I’m reading this week

• The Wardrobe Girl by Jennifer Smart
• The Boardwalk Bookshop by Susan Mallery
• A Wedding at Sandy Cove by Bella Osborne
• The Little Red Writing Book by Mark Tredinnick

Habit tracker

I’ve cut back on the habits I track and am going to add in my new (planned) writing habits next week.

• Went for a walk in the morning (Goal = 5): 6
• Controlled breathing (Goal = 7): 0
• Finished work by 5.30 (Goal = 5): 5
• Went for a walk or did other physical activity in the afternoon (Goal = 5): 6
• Shut my computer down before 9.30 (Goal = 6): 7)