Starbucks Experiment Day 2

Found an outlet, set up laptop, slurped down a peppermint hot chocolate (can’t make a habit of that one), I’m here until 7pm in an attempt to beat the traffic, and now am feeling really overwhelmed. In GTD, that means it’s time for a review of the project list. But I have a shitload of projects—even the writing-only breakdown feels huge—and I’m not sure what’s the best use of my time.

On the physical side, it’s not so hard. I’ve already picked out 4 projects that will probably last me the rest of the month and the fifth is technically all the projects I have in the kitchen. I am getting the dishwasher in January, so I need to get cracking on other items. But that’s all good because projects may not take as long as I’m giving them. I’m allotting a whole month to clean up emails and make it where I can actually turn on Outlook without freaking out (not how it is currently). It may only take two weekends. I probably need to move more off the Projects List to the Someday/Maybe List. What I else saw with this review is the Projects List is a lot longer than it needs to be because I a) storing things on it that belong on another list (oops, that goes on the Wish List) and b) I forgot to erase completed projects. I’m still learning. :p

Time for my own music selection, mp3 player ready. I will give the piped-in music points for not being Christmas songs. Also need to add a folder for fantasy inspirational music. OH, that’s how you get it to play a new folder, hit the play button! I’m sure this would be a lot more intuitive if I played with it more. Need to save up and get the car setup for it.

Yeah, I’m getting a lot of writing done. *Sigh. But school is out until January, so that means 7 days to squeeze writing time out of. I need to plan in order to accomplish the most out of it. Right. So this is me planning silently, by typing and pretending to have a conversation with you who are reading this much later. (For the record, I don’t claim to be sane. I just play nicely with others.)

So the full project list with a few of their sub-projects as well.

• Effigy Corset post (see blog folder for notes)


• Canterbury Murder Mystery Fundraiser
  
  1. Is there one to adapt?


• Thesis


• "The Hitchhiking Highwayman"


• 2008 AMF Educator's Guide
  
  1. Getting original art
  
  
  2. Add Wade's notes to Knights section.
  
  
  3. Write the Canterbury Cathedral section.


• "Underneath the Colored Lights"


• Letter to Mr. HandyPerson about bathtub


• Letter to BR Mayor about public transportation (article is in project folder in tickle file)


• Piper of Shadows Universe
  
  1. World building
  
  
  2. Character Clinics
  
  
  3. Create a Culture
  
  
  4. Create a Language
  
  
  5. Short story
     
     1. Start writing
     
     
     2. Start revising
     
     
     3. Finish revising


• Biker Mice From Mars: Evil Jack: For Worse


• Biker Mice From Mars: Wars Are Won: Turbo


• Zy's Novel
  
  1. Create a Language for Mealte
  
  
  2. Create a Culture for Mealte
  
  
  3. Create a Language for Bekth
  
  
  4. Create a Culture for Bekth: inspired by the Sicilians
  
  
  5. Create aliens
  
  
  6. Create worlds
  
  
  7. Character Clinics for the universe
  
  
  8. "Blue Man on the Porch"
     
     1. Finish revising
  
  
  9. Zy's vacation story


• Strix
  
  1. Character Clinics for the universe
  
  
  2. Short Story
     
     1. Start planning
  
  
  3. Webcomic


• Capt. Kate's universe
  
  1. Character Clinics for everyone in "Covenant"
  
  
  2. "Covenant of the Restless"
     
     1. Start planning
     
     
     2. Start revising
     
     
     3. Finish revising

Before anyone starts yelling at me for being crazy and biting off more than I can chew, this is the Writing List. I have a Story Ideas Folder for the “this name sounds interesting” or “this news article has potential,” you get the idea. The Writing List is the collection of writing projects that are much further along the process with plot concepts, characters, setting, scraps of dialogue, and possibly full scenes. I am not writing all this stuff at the same time. (Though sometimes, I think my brain really wants to.)

My initial idea was to spend the nights in Baton Rouge working on one project and the nights I get home early working on a different one. Now looking at the list and how many of them have sub-projects and seeing all the small ones I had forgotten about, I’m not sure that is a good idea any more.

Need to apply the how to prioritize criteria to this list, but until I can do that this will have to do. First deadline is on the Educators’ Guide. Shortest are the letters. I’ve decided to write my thesis stories in the Piper of Shadows universe (unless my thesis advisor just hates it), so I need to have a robust world ready to fall into. Hell, I want that even if I didn’t have the thesis riding on it. “BMFM: For Worse” is really occupy my headspace hard. Most of all I want to start crossing stuff off the list and move the projects to their final stages: submission and publication (hopefully).

Even with dividing things into their next physical, visible actions, I don’t think I should have more than two going at a time: one small and one large, replaced with another one once completed. I’ll probably get through all the small ones before I finish the large one but at least I will feel like I’ve gotten progress.

So tomorrow, I work on the next actions for the Letter to Mr. Handyperson and the Educators’ Guide. Now I have to break down what the next actions are, after I go home. It’s going home time.

It took 953 words, but I’m not feeling overwhelmed any more.