New Years Goals

Kim Watters here. Today I'm here to talk about NewYear's goals. You see, I don't make resolutions. They're too easy to break. For me, a goal makes me more accountable (at least in my own mind). I don't set lofty ones--or try not too--because they would be too easy to modify. So my goals for me this year are to sell two books to Love Inspired, go to the YMCA to work out twice a week, and get and stay more organized. I can't seem to function very well if things are messy and I can't find what I'm looking for. This past year has been extremely hard because I moved and things are still in boxes and bins in my garage, and nothing has been filed, it's just sitting in a banker's box. Now that the holidays are over, it's time to get everything in its place. A quality I hope to instill in my children!

In my writing, I use a lot of spreadsheets to keep track of my characters, my fictious towns, chapter scenes etc. With the click of a mouse, I can see what color my heroine's eyes are, or what shop is next to the candle store in town.

So, let's check back at the end of the year and see how I did. Will I be able to use my garage to park my car? Will I be able to find that receipt or owner's manual when I need it? Will I be dedicated enough to work out twice a week? And find time to get two books written? I'll let you know in December. Until then, what are your goals or resolutions for 2012? Inquiring minds want to know.

Organization: Gotta Love It.

Kim Watters here. After almost 19 years in the same house, I finally made the decision to move. Not an easy feat, but a necessary one. The house just wasn’t working out for our needs anymore. Do you have any idea how much stuff one can accumulate over that time period? Throw in a couple of kids and you’re looking at a mountain of stuff and a garage barely big enough to contain box after box of belongings I couldn’t part with; like the first had print my oldest child made in art when he was three, or my second child’s snippet of hair from her first haircut at a year old. And what do I do with all the old paperwork, royalty statements, contracts and such? Or the old costume jewelry I inherited from my grandmother? And-gasp-my book collection?

So many belongings, so little time to sort, and box, and label for storage. Because if I’m ever to find anything before I have a chance to unpack once I move into our newer, bigger home, I have to know where it is. You never know when you’ll have to glance through an old contract, or need to find a certain research book. I’ll be able to find it at moment’s notice and save time if I’m organized, right?

So how can you incorporate organizational skills into writing? Easily. Keep detailed spreadsheets for each manuscript. I do one for each character complete with a photograph of what they look like. One is for the all the character names, no matter how brief they appear, and how they relate to our main characters. I also keep track of local businesses and who owns them as they appear in the story and I keep a time line and an outline for each chapter along with page numbers and chapter lengths.

My newest release, Home Sweet Home, deals with renovating an old Victorian house, so I kept a chart on each room in the house and the progress of the renovations as they occurred. So each time I needed to refer back to something, it was easier to page through spreadsheets than the actual manuscript. I also created an ancestry line for my heroine to keep track of marriage, birth and death dates, which coincided with the building of the original house.

Since time is a premium for me, having everything I needed at my fingertips made me more productive with the minutes I had to write. I work full-time, have two elementary school kids and managed to write Home Sweet Home in under three months. Call me anal, but it works for me. It might just work for you, too.

Organization-A Necessary Evil

Kim Watters here. My son missed the bus the other morning. Okay, I know. It’s not the end of the world, but if I have to drive him to school, I’m going to be late for work. We never did find his YMCA card on our haste, but fortunately, they will let him into the after school center with just his name. Why didn’t I think of that before I sent him home from the bus stop to look for his card? Because I want to teach him responsibility. I’d asked him at least twice to make sure he had his card. But at what cost? My sanity? To top things off, it was a substitute bus driver who would definitely not wait at the bottom of our driveway so I could hustle my kid out the door and on his way.

So what’s a mom to do? I bundle my kid into the car and chase after the bus. That’s right. I’m going to catch the driver three stops away. It worked. I cut through the neighborhood and managed to wave frantically to the driver passing by on the main street, who probably thought I was some psycho lady. With him now in front of me as I turn onto the main street, I put on my lights hoping that I’ve managed to get through to him. It also helped that there were other parents at the next stop who told the driver to wait as I practically pushed my kid out the door.

He made it on the bus. I made it to work only a few minutes late. So where does that leave me? Determined to pass my pretty darned good organization skills on to my kids. If we’re organized, we save time, right? If everything is put back in its place we know where to find it when we’re looking for it. Like his house keys or YMCA card, his shoes, his schoolwork and a myriad of other possessions. Quite frankly, it’s exhausting trying to keep track of my own stuff as well as every other person in my family.

So how can you incorporate organizational skills into writing? Easily. How many times have you had to reread your manuscript to remember the neighbor’s husband’s name? Or what outfit our heroine was wearing last time we saw her? Or what type of stores lined your town’s main street?

I keep several detailed spreadsheets for each manuscript I write. One is for each character complete with a photograph of what they look like. One is for the all the character names, no matter how brief they appear, and how they relate to our main characters. I keep track of local businesses and who owns them as they appear in the story. I keep a time line and an outline for each chapter along with page numbers and chapter lengths.

My latest book which comes out in June dealt with renovating an old Victorian house so I kept a chart on each room in the house and the progress of the renovations as they occurred. So each time I needed to refer back to something, it was easier to page through spreadsheets than the actual manuscript. I also created an ancestry line for my heroine to keep track of marriage, birth and death dates, which coincided with the building of the original house.

Since time is a premium for me, having everything I needed at my fingertips made me more productive with the minutes I had to write. I work full-time, have two elementary school kids and managed to write the contracted book in under three months. Call me anal, but it works for me. It might just work for you, too.