How to Write to a Schedule

Whether you've been writing for years, or whether you are just starting out, one of the most frustrating things is starting a project that you never finish, or taking so long to finish it that by the time you have, you just don't "feel" it anymore! If you know this feeling, don't despair! I am going to share my own method of creating and sticking to a writing schedule - one that works for me, and that may just work for you too!
If you're not a writer, the same system can be used for just about any project that can be measured and that has a target date!

First things first, keep it simple! My process works as follows: I need to know upfront what the requirements of my project are going to be - this is normally two things: How many words, and how long do I want to take on it? Once I have these base facts, I am able to set up my schedule relatively easily, using only an Excel spreadsheet! Let's use the example of 80000 words, and I want to finish the first draft in 4 months (due to time constraints). I then split the months into days by using an average of 30 days per month, so in this case: 4 x 30 = 120 days. Now I have my base figures of 80000 words in 120 days.

From there, I get my "daily average". None of this is rocket science, if that's what you were expecting, by the way! This is a really simple procedure and it works fantastically if you follow it through! So my daily average will be 80000 words / 120 days = 666 words per day - rounded off to 700 for simplicity's sake - and also because some of the Christian nuts might freak out. :)

The next step is setting up the Excel spreadsheet. I highlight and "border" 120 cells on the sheet, straight down on Column A. These represent my 120 days, and are numbered as such from 1 to 120. I then highlight and "border" 120 cells on Column B, alongside Column A. In the top cell I type in my required daily number (700) and in the cell immediately below I type in (1400) (double of Day 1). I then highlight both figures and using the "drag and duplicate" section in the lower right corner of the second cell, I drag the figures all the way down to 120. What this does is it "adds" 700 to each cell as you go down the column, starting from 700 in Row 1 and ending on 84000 in Row 120.

It will look something like this:

1 700
2 1400
3 2100 etc...

The final stage is to start writing! As each day passes, you change the cell colour of Column A (days) to RED, and depending how many words you've actually written, you change the cell colour of Column B (words) to GREEN. The goal here is to always keep your GREEN on par with your RED, and if you see the RED slipping away from you, you know you need to spend a bit of extra time catching up, whereas if your GREEN column is way ahead of the RED column, you know you are well on track for your target, and can even afford to take a short "holiday" from writing!

The end result if you follow this simple plan religiously, is that you will finish your 80000 word book in 4 months (or whatever target you have set for yourself), and if you don't, you have nobody to blame but yourself! But it is a great motivational tool, regardless, and if you are not using a system like this for yourself, I'm certain it's going to add a lot of value, so give it a try!

I wrote both my novels in this way, using the system above. You can check them out at Smashwords. :)