How To Build a Writing Life Six Weeks At A Time

Join me for the last six weeks of summer to reach your writing goals.

Inspired by a note from

Jennifer Lauck

who is writing an entire novel this summer with her ten-week-challenge, I noticed that we have six weeks left of summer. In this post, I share with you how I’m lining up my writing goals with these six weeks. If you’re a writer, I invite you to join me—share your goals, check in, tell me how it’s going and what you’re working on. If you’re not writing anything, grab a cup of coffee and enjoy this glimpse into how I build a writing life—which is helpful (I hope!) for anyone with a creative goal.

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In Saskatchewan, it’s the time of year when talk turns to winter. Post July 20th, the quiet chatter becomes, “Oh, summer feels like it’s going fast.”

or, “Doesn’t feel like we have long left. Summer’s closing up.”

But I grew up in the UK, and this week has that energetic feel of beginnings. Summer is starting for lots of school kids in England, they only take a six week break.

Six weeks.

So. Perfect.

Because six weeks is how I operate. A book called The Twelve-Week-Year for Writers inspired me with it’s clarity and shape, and from it I’ve distilled a pattern that works for me. To sum it up, you plan the next twelve weeks and achieve those goals. It’s a brilliant and simple system that currently works for me, but I’ve had to adapt it because trying to think twelve weeks ahead is like jumping off a cliff into the dark.

The only way I can organise the chaos of my ADHD brain is to artificially create order. But it has to be a manageable order.

Six weeks is it.

The first thing I do when I create any sort of writing schedule is a Cognitive Load Dump. That’s a fancy way of saying: I write down everything in my head on paper.

I split that into four groups. And fill them in a random messy way with Every. Single. Thought. If you want to try this, you can use your own groups!

I talk about this more and run a full exercise for the writers I work with at The Novelry in my monthly Flow Sessions. But for now, for you, just know that I drop everything onto a page.

I’ve been known to use hearts.

Then I look at the calendar. I pull out everything from my Cognitive Load Dump, and start to think about how long each of those tasks might take and when I’d like them to be done.

As this is piece about my writing for the Six Weeks left of summer, these are some of what I’m going to need to input (to give you the idea—I’m at an editorial phase so it’s messy and complicated. Jennifer Luack is writing a first draft and if that’s where you’re at, gathering words is going to be a good aim, so setting a weekly wordcount might work for you):

Here’s some of the things from the Writing section of my Cognitive Load Dump.

• Finish Stonehouse’s section.

• Look at structure of the last section.

• Rewrite Cass in that last section.

• Consider the question in the next draft of Cass’s motivation. Change? Big Change?

• WRITE OUT new chapter outline and synopsis

Then I line up the dates by week, which (magic sometimes happens EVEN when calendaring) line up beautifully with August in my Google Calendar.

WEEK ONE

WEEK TWO

WEEK THREE

(You get the idea).

What I see immediately is that I could probably Rewrite Cass’s Section by the end of Week One (as I have a few days this week, too). It starts to look like this:

As I’m doing this part, I realise two things.

1. I’ve been wildly optimistic as to what I can manage over the time I have considering I have four kids and it’s SUMMER.

2. That this really helps me relax into what’s possible and actually get to the page. I ease off the pressure. I can see what’s coming. This exercise, which takes about thirty minutes frees up a lot of space in my mind.

I’ll evaluate this once a week to see if I’m on track. I’ll assess—did I get that done? What do I need to move forward?

Tell me! Are you writing something? What? What can you realistically and successfully achieve in six weeks? Now, break that down to what’s possible THIS week! Let me know so I can help you stay accountable!

Could this work for your Substack or your novel?

How can we help each other for these next six weeks of summer? Look at how Jennifer has set this up and join her for these last six weeks, too!

And please share this with a writer who might find it helpful.

xoxo

Alice

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If you’re new here, my name is Alice Kuipers and I’m a writer, mother and dog-owner transplanted twenty years ago to the Canadian prairies from England. I’ve published fourteen books in 36 countries and my writing has been described as: “For storytellers and story lovers,” by Kirkus Reviews; ‘Gorgeous, heart-ripping, important,” by VOYA; and “Intense and wonderful” by Bif Naked.

Join me for a coffee break—press pause with me and enjoy Little Life Lists and Short Death Stories, with glimpses of how to build a writing life on here.

Xoxo

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