For a busy witch writer with a lot of ideas, project planning is a must. When I began writing my book a few months ago, it was very difficult not to get distracted by ideas for other projects. In fact, I have several abandoned drafts for other books languishing in my google documents because I got distracted before.
Bullet journaling came to my rescue. In the bullet journaling planner system you have a few pages set aside called a future log, where you can jot down your goals for future months.
One if my witch author idols, Charles Leland, prescribes forethought and planning to strengthen the will. In addition to keeping my planner, I check it every night and make a declaration of purpose the night before to complete my plansthe next day. A little bit of magic inspired by the Italian witches who had iron trained wills to make things so.
Anytime I have ideas for a different witchcraft book I plan out when I will write the short rough draft, when I will expand it to a full length first draft, when to illustrate it, and when to polish it. By separating the process and allowing for other deadline based projects in between, I have gotten farther in my dream to write a book than ever before. My future log currently has five book ideas in it! I guess I am booked for the next year.
Today I am working on a chapter for a traditional witchcraft anthology. It feels a little wrong to interrupt my manuscript when it is so close to finished, but this is one of those deadline things. In fact if it weren’t for my bullet journal, I might have forgotten I was invited to contribute this witch anthology. (I will let you all know more details when I can!)
I am surprised how much easier writing has gotten for me since I really dug into writing a book. The article is about half written and I just need to do some reading and site visit research in preparation to finish.