writing plans | Suzanne Rogerson Fantasy Author

I would like to wish everyone a very happy new year. I hope 2020 is a fruitful and productive year for us all.

Before I lay out my quarterly plan, here’s a quick look back at 2019. The year was one of my quietest yet on the blogging front. But I did have the excuse of having written and published the final book in my Silent Sea Chronicles trilogy and also publishing the box set. I also released the audiobook of Visions of Zarua and went to visit the Czech edition of the book in a few bookshops in Prague. I also had three blog tours over the space of five months and a number of author events.

In 2019 reading and blogging took a back seat and with the schedule I’ve set myself in 2020 it looks like it will be more of the same. I have some exciting stories on the go and I’m really looking forward to continuing my self publishing journey. I even plan to finally get my newsletter up and running soon. So here is my quarterly plan…

January 2020

Plan the remaining chapters of my WIP.
Draft the dual timeline story for my WIP.
Read and develop novella linking to current WIP, which will be offered as a reader magnet for my newsletter.
Enter Visions of Zarua into audiobook competition.
Set up Newsletter

February 2020

Complete the final draft of WIP including the dual timeline story.
Complete novella and give to newsletter subscribers.
Work on the next chapters of my portal novel.
Read an old completed novel and determine if it can be rewritten. Write out a full novel plan.

March 2020

Prepare the WIP for beta readers.
Publish novella in ebook format.
Read my second novel written years ago to determine if it’s worth re-writing and complete a novel plan for it.
Continue work on portal novel and start drafting up a plan.

Misc. tasks to slot in when time allows

Work on short story ideas for the book I plan to publish in the future.

Consider whether to work on a how to guide for kindle publishing as I’ve had several requests to do so.

Work on the website look and create a landing page for the newsletter.

Research ways to earn money from home using the skills I’ve learnt writing, editing, publishing and helping with my husband’s business.

Reading for the year

My Goodreads challenge of 2019 was 35 books but I only managed to read about 22.

I am being very careful this year and only going for 15 books. Hopefully I can smash this target and I would love to start reviewing books on my blog again though I won’t add that to the to do list just yet!

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I have lots of plans for 2019 but the biggest and most important has to be completing the Silence Sea Chronicles trilogy and publishing book 3!

For the next few months I will focus purely on this trilogy, which will consist of:

Reading and making notes on The Lost Sentinel – book 1
Reading and making notes on The Sentinel’s Reign – book 2
Reading the draft of The Sentinel’s Alliance – book 3
Completing the draft of book 3 as per my outline and notes.
When the draft is completed and ready for my beta readers I want to focus on the map of the Silent Sea. At some point I plan to commission someone to produce a map but I’ve decided it’s more important to finish the books first.

Any advice you can give about map making would be gratefully received!

Once the book is edited etc, there will be all the usual jobs involved in publishing a new book.

Future writing plans in 2019

I like to set out some of my goals for the year, even though I know I probably won’t have time for everything. It feels good to have a record and I love to tick things off a list!

Write the prequel to Silent Sea Chronicles
Release all four books in the Silence Sea Chronicles as a box set
Republish all my paperbacks with ISBN’s and through a publisher Waterstones recognises.
Approach indie bookshops as well.
Keep trying to get my books into the libraries.
Read ‘Writing Short Stories to promote your novel’ by Rayne Hall and action what I learn.
Re-read the 72k partly written novel I am desperate to finish and actually finish it!
Outline and draft the novella prequel to the above novel using the techniques I’ve learnt from Couch to 50k and Take off your pants – See below.

Other writing related plans

Reviews

Review Couch to 50K by Rachel Tonks Hill once I have used the technique and discuss if it helped my writing.

Review Take off your pants by Libbie Hawker once I’ve used the outlining techniques for some novel ideas. (By the way I chose this as my favourite writer’s guide of 2018 in this post.)

Review ‘Writing Short Stories to promote your novels’ by Rayne Hall, as previously mentioned.

Embrace my self publishing journey by

Contacting more reviewers
Organising a blog tour for the release of book 3
Buy KDP Rocket and use it to help with my book categories, keywords, ads etc.
Work on getting audiobooks produced for all my books.
Create a landing page on my website
Decide if I’m ready to set up a mailing list / newsletter
Go to writing events including Winchester and Gollancz scifi / fantasy.

Non writing plans for 2019

Find a way to get more sleep.
Fit in some exercise as often as possible.
Get out with the family more.
Read what I feel like reading without pressure as per my reading goals posted here.
Fall in love with my garden again
Be more adventurous cooking

That’s about all I can think of for now. I like to review my goals every quarter or mid-year, so it will be interesting to see how far I get with this list. As I stated at the start, the most important thing is working on book 3. Anything else will be a bonus!

Happy new year to you all and good luck with your own goals whatever they might be.

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