Accountability Deadlines for Still Water

A close friend has been talking through my revisions with me on the Ocooch Mountains: Still Water novel.

I had come to realize that not having deadlines was hindering me. It was so easy to say ‘hey, I don’t feel good today, I’ll just play Guild Wars instead’ instead of buckling down and working on revisions.

SO.

We worked out some reasonable deadlines with a hopeful publication date of June 15th.

Here’s a layout:

We gave me about a week for each chapter’s revisions, which I feel is reasonable since have between three and five scenes each. April 15th is the due date for that.

Then I have time for her to reread and review and for to fix any problems before May 1st.

Proof reading is due by June 1st – I’ll get into contact with the few friends willing to do this.

Then it’s formatting in Vellum, completing the cover, doing all the keywords and finicky things Amazon needs to put an ebook up. I intend to go Kindle Unlimited since that’s where I read most of my books.

The release date will (crossing fingers!) be June 15th. There will be no pre-order; if a preorder is late Amazon has real repercussions for being late.

Reading my chart, the top section is my scene by scene breakdown:

You can see me checking off scenes as I work on them, then the outline plans for book two, and then the word count for drafting book two.

And here is the bottom:

The week by week breakdown on what chapters have to be done by what date.

Then, a scene by scene outline of Murky Water is due by May 15th for my friend to look over.

If all goes well, drafting on book two starts June 1st or around then. I’d expect to finish sometime in November.

So.

I have a plan.

Now I just need to do it, right? I work well with deadlines, so I’m hoping this gets it done!