2021 Planning

Thursday, December 31, 2020 at 11:14am

The thought occurred to me that, perhaps the lesson I should take away from 2020 was that I shouldn’t bother to make a plan. I had a plan in February of last year, one which had been completely upended within a month’s time. Subsequent plans came to be upended multiple times over as well. The temptation is strong to simply embrace the inevitability of insanity and roll with it.

However, I also know from other modes of my life that the value of having a plan is not entirely in the realization of its execution. Even though I accomplished very different things in 2020 from what I had planned, those things were successful because that plan existed. So, even if my plan for 2021 is ultimately blown up and rearranged, I help ensure that those disruptions are minimal, and that I wind up with something good on the other side. Merely having a plan helps.

I want to go through three stages in 2021:

• Stage 1: Writing
  • Edit Intersection Thirteen to completion
  • Publish Intersection Thirteen in February/March
  • Edit Chronicles of Ytria to completion (in progress)
• Stage 2: Reading
  • Ursula K Le Guin
    • The Eye of the Heron, Changing Planes, Annals of the Western Shore (Gifts, Voices, Powers), Orsinia
  • China Miéville
    • This Census Taker, The Last Days of New Paris
  • Arkady and Boris Strugatsky
    • The Snail on the Slope, Monday Starts on Saturday, The Inhabited Island, Lame Fate
  • Serdar Yegulalp
    • Welcome to the Fold, Always Outnumbered Never Outgunned, The Fall of the Hammer
• Stage 3: Writing
  • Edit The Demented to completion
  • Finish Blind Lead and edit to completion
  • Write four to five more Voyage Redux stories and edit to completion
  • Prepare Voyage Redux for 2022 release
  • Prepare 2022 editions of Voyage Embarkation and Voyage Expanded Material

I feel as though stage one will be roughly January through March, stage two April through September, and stage three October through December. Again, all of this could change. The plan exists to guide my decision-making and provide structure. The most interesting thing for me will be to see if this plan will change as much as the last one did.

Categories: Writing

Tags: Intersection Thirteen Chronicles of Ytria Voyage Redux