Having a Plan

Looking over my rather ambitious goals in the area of writing, I know I am going to have to have a concrete plan in order to succeed. By now I should have at least started compiling a list of places to submit, drafted an outline of a picture book story, and written approximately 9600 more words than I have managed to commit to paper. I don't include all my blogging in my word counts, just the one-offs. That seems fair for my ROW80 check-ins.


So. A plan is in order. It's great to have goals, but to accomplish them you need objectives (what Gretchen Rubin would call 'resolutions'). Here are mine for the next week:

• I've borrowed The Children's Writer's and Illustrator's Market Guide from the library. On Sunday afternoon I will sit down with it and identify 12-24 markets that might be suitable for my work.
• Draft an outline for the picture book idea I had today. I'll do that tomorrow before I forget about it.
• Write one piece for the next installment of my church's take-home paper for parents.
• Continue working on my short story (750 words a day until it's done).

Last year one of the tools I used to track my writing progress (and to find out about writing contests, etc.) was The Working Writer's Daily Planner. Small Beer Press wasn't going to publish it this year, but did release it this month through lulu.com, both in print and e-book versions. I've just purchased the e-book edition, so hopefully I'll find it as useful as I did in print form.

What are your writing plans for the next week? How do you stay on task and eliminate distractions? What's your best resource for finding out about writing markets and contests?