Novel Goals Schedule

This post bears a title that would invite the disdain of Professor Strunk (the original author of Elements of Style). What am I talking about? A schedule of intermediate goals in the writing of my book, a novel? Or is the post in reference to a litany of unusual scoring shots in hockey?

Okay, I decided that I needed to schedule some intermediate goals to track the progress of the creation of the novel. I used an assortment of already established facts, such as: It was started roughly in March (or roughly started), I think a year is a reasonable goal for completion, Stephen King in On Writing recommends a 6 week hiatus from even looking again at a manuscript once the first draft is complete, January 1st would be a good time to start the first rewrite, 6 weeks earlier is my birthday, the 1st draft is approximately 20% complete already, etc.

So, with no more boring further ado, here is the Schedule of Goals put boldly forth in front of God, Cisco servers and everybody (Location are where I expect the main action to be at that time, assuming that the characters don't decide to go off somewhere else instead):

15July07: St Louis

15Aug07: New Orleans

15Sep07: Panama

15Oct07: San Francisco

13Nov07: TBA

31Dec07: Break is over

01Jan08: First rewrite starts

15Feb08: First rewrite complete, manuscripts out to family and friends

23Feb08: Break is over, read entire book aloud to self (SK recommendation)

01Mar08: Final rewrite and polish begins

31Mar08: Novel is finished

01Apr08: Query letters hit the USPS and email servers. An auspicious date.


There it is, we'll see how well I track the timeline. The well worn joke is that I have never completed a project for myself on time - remodel the kitchen, build a new fenceline, put in an RV building, etc and finished it on the original timeline. SFF argues that they are never actually finished, strictly speaking.

The reason for the published timeline is a major reason this blog exists - to put it out there for anyone to see and put pressure on myself to perform. Its like talking smack before a basketball game or darts match - it puts on self applied pressure and raises the stakes somewhat. I'm not doing this to put bread on the table; every little bit of motivation helps.