For Book In A Week I’m doing something I needed to do while I was pregnant but didn’t have the brain cells to spare: updating my business plan. What projects to do in what order, and who I’ll be stalking. Like Giselle, for instance.
Giselle is the lovely woman at RT who answered my email questions about advertising and now I’m on her mailing list. Which means every month I get an email about upcoming issue themes and where to pitch ideas for articles to fit in with them. This month I got the email, read it, and said to myself, “I’ve written articles for lots of other people, why not Romantic Times? I should pitch.”
To show how nebulous impulse translates to business plan, this means my impulse (why not write an article for RT) appears in my business plan as “brainstorm, develop and pitch idea every month after Giselle’s email until they say yes.” Or until Giselle takes me off her mailing list, which she might do if my ideas are bad enough and she gets tired of me stalking her with pitches a blind man wouldn’t swing at.
I have other impulses; appear in a Secrets anthology, work with Kate Duffy on a project. No, I don’t want to leave EC. I love EC. I’m happy at EC. But I’m not under exclusive contract, which means I’m free to follow these creative impulses. So in my business plan I’m including writing and submitting novellas for Red Sage and Brava respectively. The bulk of my plan has to do with EC projects, but it’s good to be creatively satisfied. I’ll get creative satisfaction from doing slightly different projects. And that goes back to feeding the muse. I don’t want my work to become stale. My business plan includes my goal of a certain level of income, but it’s not all about money. It’s also important to me to be happy in my work and to stretch myself.
One of the reasons I said yes to the Romancing The Blog column was because I knew it would stretch me. Writing a column is different from writing long fiction pieces. Think of it as cross-training for writers. Cross-training works different muscles in different ways so you don’t exclusively use one set and develop an injury from overuse. My plan includes some creative cross-training.
So that’s what I’ve been working on all week, in addition to the Great House Saga. I’ve made tremendous progress and I’m excited about the work ahead.
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