deadlines & accountability
writing things nobody is waiting for
So…it’s April?? Somehow? I’m filling my house with fresh flowers and opening my windows and enjoying this very brief time in LA when you don’t have to have heat OR AC on and can just kind of…be.
I loved launching Gradchanted into the world last month! I had a wonderful time at Godmothers in Montecito (did not spot Meghan OR Lilibet, sadly) but did get a truly wonderful GIGANTIC tote that I already know is going to be my bag of the summer.
But now the book is launched and I’m back at my desk. I’m writing my second middle grade book - aiming to turn it in at the end of the month. Which seems…soon? Considering it feels like I’m very much at the start of this book? Which is bad, because I’m 150 pages in. But! I might just have to cut the first 100 pages or so. It’s happened before - my editor is very good at figuring out what to lose and he’s always right. We cut a whole DAY (and about 100 pages) of Save the Date in the second draft and I’m so glad we did.
One thing I’ve started using to help me draft is WriteTrack. I just started using it but I really like it so far. It’s free, and the guy who invented it created it for his wife when she was doing NaNo.
I like it because it keeps me accountable - I want to see as many green squares as possible in a row - but also because it breaks things down. Whenever I write a book, I keep a schedule - the date, how many words I wrote that day, if I finished a chapter or not. And I will sometimes go back and look at old schedules when I’m starting something, and remember this is how it happens. Some words, every day, over months. And at the end of of it, there’s a book!
This does the same thing for my brain - it just helps me to see how much I need to do every day to get to the end. And if you write more, or less, the schedule adjusts. It takes writing out of the mystical and puts it into the quotidian. I know this might not work for some people - you might see all those word counts and get panicky - but I love it. It makes me feel like there’s a plan. Whether or not I can stick to it is another question - but hopes are high.
Another thing I’ve been doing for accountability is keeping a shared spreadsheet with other writer friends. And every day, we just log what we’ve done. And this has been SO helpful for me, it’s amazing. There are days when I write simply because I want to log something on the spreadsheet. There’s lots of encouragement and exclamation points from my author friends when you achieve something, and it’s been a very fun, unexpected tool.
And one that, I feel, is going to continue to be necessary because after I turn in my MG….I have no more books under contract.
!!!
This is the first time this has happened since 2009. Since the first Obama administration! I know some writers who don’t like selling a book until they’ve written a book. That is NOT ME. I love having books under contract. I love multiple-book contracts. I love being able to plot out (lol) the next few years of my life.
And I’ve also rarely written a whole book before selling it. Most of the time, it’s just Untitled Morgan Matson book. I’ll talk to my editor about the idea I’m most excited about, and then I go off and write. But I’m writing knowing someone is waiting for something. A book that already has a tentative pub date, and designers thinking about the cover, and a nascent marketing plan. It makes it feel really real, and gives me that deadline pressure that I need.
But I have set things up so that my next book is not going to have that! I’m going to attempt to write the whole book, solo, before selling it. It’s really scary, but it also feels like the right thing to do if I want to continue to grow as a writer, and try new things. I will keep you updated!
I’m also going to be at YallWest next month! If you’re in California, I hope I can see you there!
xoxo
MM
So excited to see where you go with your next projects!
I always feel very happy (and energized!) to get up to speed on all things MM!