I call myself a plantser, meaning I outline in broad strokes like a planner and then make it up as I go along within those lines like a pantser. This has worked well for me. When I get a little lost I just drill down deeper and give myself more keywords to keep me on track.

My goal is to finish the first draft of Sexy Steampunk 2 by December 1st. Fellow writer Karla Doyle shared with me how she kept herself on track when she had a deadline for her last book. She would write every scene onto a post-it note and not leave her desk until that scene was done. So I went along and made this

This happened a week ago. Now I am here

You can see that I have only taken down 2 post-its. However for the second post-it I wrote nearly 6k from three different points of view. This tells me that I have to be more specific and not just transfer my plantser outline that says “have sex” or “Big Black Moment”;).

Still, I like this new process. It is visual and gives you a good idea as to where you are. It is very satisfying to tear down one of those notes, so I will probably continue doing this, just flesh it out a little bit more.

What about you? Do you keep track of progress through word count or do you have a visual component?

BTW, the notes look I’ve crumpled them up, but that is just the style the manufacturer made.