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Rabbit Rabbit Rabbit
Jan. 2nd, 2024 09:02 amWelcome to 2024! It's not a surprise that I'm still playing catch-up, I'm sure.
I still haven't moved into this year's Bullet Journal, so that's a project for the rest of the week. I'm trying to be more intentional with the flow of it so I have more incentive to review; I'd like to take just a few minutes each day (and maybe an hour each week) reviewing and planning. This year I'm trying something called a "time funnel", where I basically have a few goals for the year broken up into "phases" by season, month, and week. A BuJo artist on YouTube turned me on to the idea and it just clicked for me.
This year's "Passion Project" will be the Jackalope Serial Company. By this time next year, I'd like to revive it so there's regular weekly posts. If I have to skip a week or two, that's fine -- but it won't be because I don't have anything in the hopper, or because I've bailed on a story halfway through. I'm sticking to my promise of not posting anything that hasn't been completed, because it's one of the things I can't stand when it happens to me as a member of the audience and I really don't want it to happen to someone else.
So, how do I get from here -- where I'm not writing on a regular basis and the thought of it gives me anxiety hives -- to being able to confidently post 2,000 words per week? That's where the time funnel comes in. I can break the vision up into four "phases" that build on one another. So in Winter 2024 (now), it's all about building a writing system that gives me the best shot of success. By the end of March, my goal is to have written and edited at least one 20,000 word story I can release through June.
While I'm releasing Story #1, Spring 2024 will be iterating my creative system to smooth out the kinks AND learning how to solicit (and take) feedback from my audience. Another YouTuber spoke about how 1,000 "true fans" could sustain a writer if they were careful with the contract they had with them, and that feels right to me. If 1,000 people paid $2 per episode and I released 48 episodes per year, that would be $96,000/year. I'm sure taxes would really take a chunk out of that AND it would be a few years before I could hope to make that figure reliably, but what if I could? It's a job I could do from anywhere, and I wouldn't be subject to "salary bands" that companies use to lower your pay moving to a cheaper part of the country.
It'll likely be several years before I could do that -- if ever. By the end of June, I hope to have Story #2 locked and loaded for release through September; lessons from a second run of my story system AND feedback from my audience about what worked in Story #1; and hopefully the beginnings of a small community of fans that I've carefully cultivated.
Summer 2023 (July - September) will hopefully be the final "stress test" for my writing system. I want to make sure that whatever system I've developed is adaptable, fun, and as stress-free as possible. I won't be able to keep the system if it brings me anxiety, so working out those kinks and finding ways to make it a more-or-less permanent part of my life will be the thing there.
As you might have guessed, there's still some kinks to be worked out there. >.> But that's the general plan for the year; I'd also like to fill in 24 "smaller" goals through the year to keep building progress elsewhere. We'll see how all of that turns out this week.
I still haven't moved into this year's Bullet Journal, so that's a project for the rest of the week. I'm trying to be more intentional with the flow of it so I have more incentive to review; I'd like to take just a few minutes each day (and maybe an hour each week) reviewing and planning. This year I'm trying something called a "time funnel", where I basically have a few goals for the year broken up into "phases" by season, month, and week. A BuJo artist on YouTube turned me on to the idea and it just clicked for me.
This year's "Passion Project" will be the Jackalope Serial Company. By this time next year, I'd like to revive it so there's regular weekly posts. If I have to skip a week or two, that's fine -- but it won't be because I don't have anything in the hopper, or because I've bailed on a story halfway through. I'm sticking to my promise of not posting anything that hasn't been completed, because it's one of the things I can't stand when it happens to me as a member of the audience and I really don't want it to happen to someone else.
So, how do I get from here -- where I'm not writing on a regular basis and the thought of it gives me anxiety hives -- to being able to confidently post 2,000 words per week? That's where the time funnel comes in. I can break the vision up into four "phases" that build on one another. So in Winter 2024 (now), it's all about building a writing system that gives me the best shot of success. By the end of March, my goal is to have written and edited at least one 20,000 word story I can release through June.
While I'm releasing Story #1, Spring 2024 will be iterating my creative system to smooth out the kinks AND learning how to solicit (and take) feedback from my audience. Another YouTuber spoke about how 1,000 "true fans" could sustain a writer if they were careful with the contract they had with them, and that feels right to me. If 1,000 people paid $2 per episode and I released 48 episodes per year, that would be $96,000/year. I'm sure taxes would really take a chunk out of that AND it would be a few years before I could hope to make that figure reliably, but what if I could? It's a job I could do from anywhere, and I wouldn't be subject to "salary bands" that companies use to lower your pay moving to a cheaper part of the country.
It'll likely be several years before I could do that -- if ever. By the end of June, I hope to have Story #2 locked and loaded for release through September; lessons from a second run of my story system AND feedback from my audience about what worked in Story #1; and hopefully the beginnings of a small community of fans that I've carefully cultivated.
Summer 2023 (July - September) will hopefully be the final "stress test" for my writing system. I want to make sure that whatever system I've developed is adaptable, fun, and as stress-free as possible. I won't be able to keep the system if it brings me anxiety, so working out those kinks and finding ways to make it a more-or-less permanent part of my life will be the thing there.
As you might have guessed, there's still some kinks to be worked out there. >.> But that's the general plan for the year; I'd also like to fill in 24 "smaller" goals through the year to keep building progress elsewhere. We'll see how all of that turns out this week.
