I remember when I was a baby writer in my early 20s, and I saw advice saying serious authors wrote for hours each day. So I aspired for that, because I wanted to be a serious writer. Wanna know what happened?

I was either pissed off because I kept being delayed or interrupted because of, well, life, or, I would burn myself out pushing myself to finish any long block of time I could find.

During this time, I was a single parent, working a full-time job, and finishing school. Was I setting healthy, realistic expectations for myself?

No. I most definitely was not.

Where Did I Start?

The period from my mid-20s to the end of my 30s wasn’t any better. I kept seeing what other writers I felt were successful were doing and tried to emulate them. Write early in the morning, late at night, only on the weekends, or never on the weekends, I tried everything. Nothing worked.

It wasn’t until I did Grad School the second time for my MBA that it clicked. When it came to writing my papers and case studies, I knew my time was at a premium and having been a project manager for several years at that point I had a better understanding of time management.

I scheduled time to write assignments and kept them sacred. I made sure I dedicated the rest of the time to taking care of my other responsibilities, work, my relationship , and our newborn. Who starts an MBA program with a two-month-old? This crazy bitch.

But it worked. I made the rest of my life flexible to shift priorities as needed, but my time to finish schoolwork was sacrosanct. In all those years, I finally mastered discipline.

So, when I decided to take my writing career seriously in the Fall of 2023, I was ready.

How did I build my schedule?

In the November of 2023 I had decided to leave the job I was at because it just was going away from project management and that didn’t align with where I wanted to go. So I decided to make a change. I was going to find a job that would fit the decision to take my writing seriously.

So first I outlined my time capacity. Where was I flexible, and where was there no room to budge? I knew that I wanted to prioritize my time with my family. I knew that I still needed a job to pay the bills.

I sat down with my wife and talked about my goals and we worked together to figure out what would work for our family. We decided that while it would be okay to take an hour a day to write, it could never be locked in. Toddlers really don’t take our schedules into account.

I knew that I needed something somewhat structured if I was going to build a strong routine. So after work and the weekends were not going to be feasible for what I wanted to accomplish. Getting up before everyone else to write was an option, but I am not a morning person. While I am sure I could get myself acclimated to that, I really didn’t want to. Which would dramatically drop the likelihood of success.

So, the only realistic option for my goals was during my lunch break during the week.

For this to be possible, I needed a remote job so I could easily slip into writing mode without having to find a quiet place in an office.

I spent the month of November and December job hunting and started my writing routine, an hour a day. Those first two months, sucked.

I’m glad I only focused on short stories during that time because it was a struggle to get the words to flow at that time of day. I can attest though, as I was consistent with showing up, my brain started to meet me where I was.

I found my current job, which is remote, in January of 2024 and have kept my writing time since. I have needed to be flexible, but I manage to have my lunch break between 11:00am to 1:00pm each day.

With this schedule I finished my first novel in six months and I would have finished my second in the same time, but I had a major project that dominated my time for the better part of three months. This, in fact, led me to change my production schedule for writing big projects, which will be the focus of next week’s post.

Advice for building your own schedule?

The best advice I can give a writer is to not listen to anyone telling them “this worked for me, it will work for you.” It’s not that they are lying, they just don’t understand the nuances of your life. Because we are actually special little snowflakes. The circumstances of our lives are never identical. Never, and I will die on that hill.

So, if you want to make a writing schedule for yourself, look at your life, really look at it. Take note of the things that are really important to you, besides writing. Don’t pit writing against them, work at it until they can coexist. This is important for two reasons. First, it is incredibly less stressful when you find balance. Second, you are more than an author. Show me an author who dedicates every waking moment to writing, and I will show you an author whose work becomes flat and lifeless.

Work-life balance is not just a corporate buzzword. It is real and if you disrespect it you will burn out. It is not a possibility; it is inevitable.

Closing

My mom used to say that if you don’t take time to take time to rest, your body will find the time for you. Typically, when it does, it takes a lot longer to recover. When creatives burn out, it is really hard to get that spark back, if it ever comes back.

Be kind to yourself when making a writing schedule. You want to build something that sustains you over something that produces volume. In the long run, I guarantee sustainable produces more work in your lifetime that is likely of better quality.

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Metrics are pieces of information that tell a story.

Examples of metrics we use every day are things like the gas gauge on your car, the balance ledger of your bank account, or how your doctor records your weight and vital signs at every visit.

Taken individually they don’t tell you much more than what was going on in that specific moment in time.

Put together and organized into a consumable format, they can tell you volumes.

You can see how much gas you are using over time, how much you are spending throughout the month and which weeks are heavier than others, and your doctor can even detect warning signs when there are fluctuations in weight or blood pressure.

Why Are Metrics Important?

This is why metrics can be so important, because not only can they tell you where you’ve been, they can also help identify where you may be going.

Now, in most cases metric data is most effective when used in conjunction with other information.

For example: let’s say you run a business and you are looking over the expense reports for the last three quarters and notice that there has been a gradual increase in the cost of supplies. It isn’t severe from quarter to quarter, but it is consistent growth.

That is concerning, but the overall percentage is within the allowable threshold, so no need to sound alarms, right?

Since you’re a leader, you also review sales reports each quarter. You look at the past three quarters as well and are happy to see consistent growth quarter over quarter. It isn’t as high as projections, also within acceptable thresholds.

Everything’s fine right?

Any questions tickling your brain right now?

If you’re wondering how the percentage of sales increases compares to the cost of supplies increasing, you’re on the right track.

Comparing the two different data sets the trend shows that the increase in supplies cost outpaces the increase in sales by 1%.

Is this the end of the world? Maybe not, but it is a problem. The company may still be in the black overall, but if the trend continues the impact to profits are going to compound.

This is just one reason why tracking metrics is important.

How do you determine what to track?

Now we’ve established that tracking metrics are important. That’s great, but that does no good if we don’t know what needs to be tracked. Right?

Where do we begin to figure that out?

As with a lot of things in Business, start with the Mission.

That is what guides the business to accomplish the Strategies in support of the Vision.

When reporting on the success of the company, you want to be able to clearly show whether or not you delivered on the mission. Anything that can measure progress there is a metric you want to track.

The next thing you can look at are your strategies, when the Strategies were written and documented they needed to have defined measures of success. Otherwise it is just a hope and as one of my other directors used to say, Hope is not a strategy.

Also for Green Lantern fans, Hope is nothing without the Will to act upon it.

Then if there are specific goals set for the quarter or year then of course you want to find metrics to track progress and success of those. These are typically things like sales goals, cost savings, and things like that. Typically in larger companies these are broken out by department.

How do you track them?

Here comes the fun part. In most companies, they have a resource or a whole team of resources who source, package, and deliver this data into reports that make it easy to consume. Sometimes they even make fancy dashboards with graphs.

If you’re reading this article, unfortunately you probably don’t have a team of people to do that for you.

This is where spending extra time in the beginning will save you hours of headache later on. When you identify what metrics to track determine how you are going to gather the metric data, store it, and format it into an easy way to consume it.

Now depending on what you’re tracking there may be software programs that can gather, store, and format certain sets of data. Now those cost money, which you would need to spend money to license or outright purchase..if that is even an option anymore. I swear everything is a subscription.

Anywho, if you’re like me and money is definitely an object, spreadsheets can be your friend. Yes, they can be intimidating. There are plenty of YouTube videos on how to set up sheets to consume data and then format it so you can understand it.

Come to think of it there are videos on how to interpret data. Again, only pick metrics that mean something to you and your business. Tracking a metric doesn’t do a damn bit of good if no one can make sense of it.

If you get stuck, find your neurodivergent virgo friend who loves Excel. Trust me, we exist. They can help you get set up.

How can tracking metrics help an author?

Now Authors…lucky for us who are self publishing, some of this is already set up for us. For example, most Social Media sites offer analytics that you can track metric data on your posts and interactions if you feel that is something you need to keep track of.

For those who sell their books on Amazon KDP or Barnes & Noble, they also have some analytics with regards to sales and such. I can’t speak for Ingram Spark or other services as I have not personally worked with them.

There are also Apps like Scrivener that will track things like word count and other metrics related to your writing. There are also apps related to Marketing like Mail Chimp that offer analytics.

When you are looking at software to use in your Writing Career I think a good criteria to include in your search is what kind of analytics the software will give you.

Another benefit of tracking metrics for Authors is it is easier to determine Return on Investment (ROI). With the wealth of metric data available to you, it will be easier to see if that $100 you spent on Facebook Ads actually moved the needle in terms of sales, and therefore profits.

With Metrics you can see not only how many people those ad reached, how many of those converted into interactions with the promoted post, but you can also look your sales from the launch of that ad to maybe a week after it ended to see how many sales you got.

Now can you guarantee that every one of those sales was from the ad? No, no you can’t.

But you can look at your historical sales data and take that average out of the increase and then be able to get the best estimate.

Closing

It may seem like a lot of work to set up and daunting when dealing with numbers, spreadsheets, and percentages, but setting up a system to track you metrics when you get started will save you headache later when you realize you have questions that you can’t answer right away. It will also help you plan for the future and set yourself up for success.

As with everything I share, all I ask is that you give it some consideration, take what works for you, and leave the rest behind. Next week we dive into more of a writing focus with the skill of building a writing schedule that actually works.

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For a deeper dive into Risk Analysis check out the Substack Article on this topic posted on July 1, 2026.

How can Project Management tools help writers?

The Work Breakdown Structure is a tool designed to take a large goal, like writing a novel, and breaking it down into smaller tasks that can be used to build a plan over time to accomplish your goal.

Writers can use this tool to not only identify tasks related to drafting and editing, but also research, world building, marketing, and publishing for self publishing authors.

I use this tool with each of my projects and it makes things so much less stressful and much more organized.

Risk Analysis is a part of the project planning process that I affectionately refer to as “What’s the Worst that Could Happen?”

Seriously, that is basically what it is. Sitting around and thinking about all the worst case scenarios and what could cause them.

Anxiety ridden worrywarts this is your moment.

In all seriousness though, Risk Analysis is one of the most important pieces of planning anyone can do in a project. It can mean the difference between a minor setback and catastrophic failure.

How so you ask?

Let’s dive in.

What is Risk Analysis?

When taking on a large investment like a project, the ideal is for it to be successful. An important part of that is knowing what lies ahead, especially if the road is dark and treacherous.

At this point, you won’t know what is definitely going to happen, otherwise it would be an issue, not a risk. More on that in a bit.

This exercise is meant to identify potential threats to the success of the project. This means anything and everything that could derail or block the path to completing the project on time, on budget, and at required quality levels.

How I handle this exercise in my projects is I bring all the stakeholders together for a workshop that lasts at least an hour and we brainstorm. There are no bad ideas at this point, everything gets captured because discussion on each item will happen after we have no more ideas to put on the board.

Now comes the analysis part where we score and prioritize the risks.

Scoring

I score risks by two categories, Probability and Impact.

Probability is the likelihood that a Risk will become an Issue. The difference here is a Risk is something that could happen, and Issue is something that has happened.

For example, there is a risk that it may flood in the Spring where I live in Texas. That risk becomes an Issue when large storms are forecasted to drops several inches of rain over a couple hours.

I score items as Low (1), Medium (2), or High (3).

Impact is how much an Issue from this Risk will impact the project in either Time, Cost, and/or Quality.

The template I use will then average out the scores to give me a Risk Rating.

Prioritization

This one trips people up sometimes. How I use it is to rank which Risks we are going to focus on taking action on first and so forth.

What do I mean here? How can we take action on something that hasn’t even happened yet?

With Risks there are four options we can take: Plan, Mitigate, Resolve, or Accept

• Plan: Build a plan of action to activate when the Risk becomes an Issue.

• Mitigate: Take action to lessen the impact if the Risk becomes an issue.

• Resolve: Outright solve the risk.

• Accept: Basically acknowledge the risk exists and there is nothing that can be done if it becomes an Issue.

If you have a project team then the project manager will assign an owner to each Risk. This person will be responsible for monitoring the risk and raising the alert if it is going to become an Issue. They will also work with the Project Manager to build any action, Mitigation, or Resolution plans.

Another format for this exercise is something referred to as a Pre-Mortem or Pre-Retrospective. It is just another way to approach the discussion that I have also found success with.

With this technique the team pretends that it is after launch day and they imagine all the things that had gone wrong with the launch. Then they reverse engineer what could have caused those problems by doing a Root Cause Analysis and use that to identify Risks.

How Will This Practice Help Authors?

Easy. Go to X, Threads, Substack, or any other forum where Writers talk about their horror stories when it comes to self-publishing or trad-publishing. Those are all issues that started off as risks.

Will doing a Risk Analysis prevent those things from happening? In most cases probably not, but in a few cases it might. What it will do is bring attention to those possibilities early so the author can either make plans to lessen the impact or make plans on how to handle it when it becomes an Issue.

For example, you are done with multiple rounds of edits and are ready to have Beta Readers. In your Risk Analysis you identified a risk of a Beta Reader leaking your manuscript and rated it as High.

In working through your draft you also built a vetting process to screen your Beta Readers and also invested in a service that will help add safeguards to lessen the possibility of this happening. You also made a plan on what actions you would take if it did leak.

Will this guarantee the manuscript won’t be leaked? No, there are no guarantees, but it will make sure you are better prepared and the damage of such an event is either lessened or your at least prepared to weather the storm of it.

Closing

When planning a project, it is always better to be cautious when it comes to the safety of your project and its success. Conducting a Risk Analysis and then taking action with what you identify will save so much chaos and headache down the line. I can vouch for this as it has saved me pain and ass chewings more times than I can count.

As with anything I share here, all I ask is that you give it consideration, take what works for you, and leave the rest. Next week we will straddle the line of the project and business management space a bit to talk. About metrics and how they can not only help your project but set you up to build a successful business for your writing career.

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Today we are jumping in with planning out the budget for the Curse Novella project I started on 6/15. Research is well underway and at the end of July we will check in with out Project Plan to see where we are.

This morning however we are going to build upon everything we did with the WBS and Network Diagram to estimate our spending for the duration of this project so I know how much I need to save over the next several months to be ready when it comes time to start paying for things.

If you have questions about this video or get stuck when working on building your own budgets feel free to drop a comment here or direct message me here on Substack or my other social media channels listed on my website.

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When you think about it, in this day and age, it all comes down to money. Like it or not, it is what makes the wheels turn.

For a Project, it is the lifeblood that keeps things moving forward to accomplish the desired outcome.

Now, one might ask, which comes first? Budget? Or Project?

It is a little bit of a chicken and egg scenario, but in this case, both can be true.

There are situations as a project manager where you are assigned a project where there is a goal and you are told that you have a maximum budget and there is no ability to exceed that. In that case, you identify the work, build the plan, and then calculate the budget to identify where cuts need to be made.

Other times, you are given a project proposal and asked to size the cost to determine if the project will move forward or not. In this scenario you would also need to determine the Return on Investment (ROI) and the Net Present Value (NPV) over time, typically 3-5 years. I will get into that in a later post.

Once the budget is locked in, it is the project manager’s responsibility to track the spending and report on whether the project is under budget (yay), on target (also yay), or over budget (bad and you now have to explain why).

How does a Budget get built?

Building a budget can actually be somewhat easy, if you’ve put the work in previous steps well.

Looking back to the WBS, remember how we identified the estimated time to complete each task, the resources needed, and identified the task owner?

Well, if we know who is working the task, what they cost per hour, and how many hours they are going to spend on it, then we know the labor cost.

Non-labor resources that the project is responsible for are also easy to factor if you have identified the cost. For example, if the project requires the use of a special tool or software the project manager would need to figure out if that is a fixed or variable cost.

Let’s pause here and dive into what those words mean. Fixed costs can be either a one time cost or a recurring cost that doesn’t change period to period. Things like rent, licenses, or payments for contracted work like character or cover art.

Variable costs are things that are not set and can vary from period to period. This can include utilities, labor, printing costs, editorial costs for manuscripts...

Wait what? Shouldn’t editing be fixed? Yeah it should, if you know the word count. When planning a budget if costs are dependent on numbers than can change during the project they should be estimated as a Variable Cost.

An example of a fixed cost would be a software offering a license good for the duration of the project. You pay once and use it as much as you need the entire time. If you decide to contract out for cover and/or character art, that could be considered a fixed cost.

A variable cost would be something like physical material, like camera film if you were making a movie or the wages for the resources doing the task work.

Once we have all these details then the Project Manager goes task by task and documents the estimated cost. Then each of those tasks get added up for each work package those tasks fall under, which is how you get a grand total for the project budget.

This will also help to know during the project to identify which Work packages or departments are running hot.

Once the numbers are confirmed then the project manager takes the results to the Project Sponsor for approval. When that happens, the project is ready to kick off.

How can building a budget help an author?

Now, I bet some of you might be wondering how this all applies to Authors. Perhaps Indie Authors can easily see the benefits considering they have to consider things like this with the costs coming out of their pocket.

This information is still important for Trad Authors, because from what I understand from reading articles and posts, your publisher may not have an awesome marketing and publicity budget for you.

That means promotional items like Character Art, Merchandise, Table Fees for Conventions, Promotional Displays, and Travel costs associated with Conventions or Book Tours will have to come out of your pocket. That’s not even counting if you want to hire a publicist for your book.

Planning out a budget before you start a book project can help you not only see the costs coming, but also give you an idea of how long you have to save money to cover those costs.

Another benefit, that I will have a dedicated post for, is data analysis. Seeing how much you are spending over time, project to project, can help you build long term strategies to save money when it comes in so you can get through the lean months.

When it comes to return on investment, don’t forget to pay yourself. This is a business, and as the author, you are also an employee. You deserve to be paid for what you do.

What I do is I give myself an hourly rate and when I track my word counts per day I also track how many hours I wrote for. So when I estimate the time to draft and edit a project, I put that in my budget before the project starts.

Now, I’m not getting paid upfront, but when I do start making money from my book, I know how much of that is owed to me.

That is something I do to have the data to see how I’m doing from a business perspective and I will be doing a post that dives deeper into that at a later time.

Closing

So when I started planning this post, I seriously questioned how much I would be able to put down that would be relevant to Traditional Authors.

I thought this would be an Indie heavy post. However, the more I thought about it and kept writing I saw that every author can benefit from building a budget.

Now I haven’t tracked my pre-production costs yet, but I think I might now. If you all would like a post that dives into that aspect let me know.

Next week we will wrap up this section on the Pre-Planning Phase of Project Management for Writers and Artists by talking about Risk Analysis. After that I’ll take a step back and talk more about how I built the systems and processes that allow me to run my Writing Career like a business.

With anything I share here all I ask is that you give it consideration, take what works for you, and leave the rest behind. My hope is that you find something in these posts that helps make your writing journey a little bit easier.

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One of the heaviest lifts in Project Management is building the plan and schedule for all of the work.

There are so many factors to consider in this phase as we started to see when we dove into Network Diagrams. There is the time it takes to complete a task, dependencies, and the availability of the resources that will complete the work.

In my corporate day job, I’m not the one doing the actual task work. It is my job to make the plan, manage the risks, make sure tasks are being completed on time, and take care of any roadblocks that prevent that.

In some cases, a project will have resources that are solely dedicated to a single project. All of the projects I lead depend on resources who are only able to allocate a certain percentage of their time to work on my project.

This is when availability is a big factor.

How does Project Scheduling Work?

Let’s say I want my project to kick off on a certain day and there are three tasks that have to finish before everyone else can start their work. If the resources responsible for those three tasks aren’t available for three weeks after the target start, then we have a problem.

In this situation I either need to find new resources to keep my desired timeline or I need to be flexible.

Every project in existence is subject to three constraints: Time, Quality, and Cost.

We want the project to complete as quickly as possible, with the best quality possible, for as little cost as possible.

It is impossible to get all three of these things. Full stop. Not possible.

If I wanted something delivered as fast as possible, then I have to sacrifice either quality of cost. If sacrifice cost then I can have the fastest delivery and best quality, but high spending.

If I want something to be the best quality then it will either take longer or cost more.

Something will always have to give.

How do you make a Project Plan?

With a WBS, a Network Diagram, a map of your resource availability, and an understanding of your constraints you can start building your project plan.

There are many ways to actually go about the process.

Some PMs will build a visual calendar in a tool like Figma and drop their task notes onto the timeline. Then they go back through and compare the timing to their resource map.

Others will identify where the highest time constraint resources are to schedule them first and then work down the list based on level of constraint.

Another option is to plot the critical path first then move forward with the rest.

There really isn’t one set way to go about it because by the time you’re done all the necessary checks and balances are finished.

Some companies have either a software or a department that manages watching the capacity usage of resources. For projects with dedicated resources it is easier for the Project Manager to keep sight on constraints.

When building a project plan the key items you want to track with it are task start and end dates, time spent on the task, progress on the task, who is assigned to the task, and any important notes.

When it comes to actually building the plan there are a lot of options. There are programs like Microsoft Project and Clarity, but those can get pricy. There are free tools like Wrike or if you want to use more of an agile or Kanban method there is Trello.

What does making a project plan do for an author?

I can’t speak for every author, but I can share what it has done for me. Having a project plan has definitely helped me not only stay on task, but kept me from spiraling when I felt overwhelmed by the sheer amount of work that needed to be done.

When I was prepping to launch my novella in 2025 there was so much that needed to be done: cover art, marketing, public relations, layout, creating the ebook, etc. Even with creating the project plan there were times I would have little freak out moments.

That is a major spot where having the plan made a difference because all I had to do was look at the plan and see that I was still on target and not behind. It also helped to see everything I had already accomplished.

Closing

For authors who plan on doing work beyond writing and editing their book, a project plan can at the very least give you somewhere to put all of the stuff that needs to be done in an organized location. That way it isn’t swirling around taking up real estate in your head.

If you want to see a project plan in action check out my walk through on my YouTube channel that will be posted Sunday 6/21 at 10am.

Next week I’ll be diving into building a budget and how that can help authors when planning their novels. Until then remember to consider well, take what works, and leave the rest.

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When I was a baby Project Manager my eyes glazed over the first time I heard the words “Network Diagram”. The 5 Day Boot Camp I took, while really amazing at teaching me enough to do the job competently, didn’t really go into the science of the job. It wasn’t until I took a PMP (Project Management Professional) Exam Prep course in my MBA program that I heard and got familiar with the term.

It wasn’t until I actually got my hands on it that I understood what it was and the power it had.

With this one tool I could identify bottlenecks, critical tasks, what the realistic timeline was, and where dependencies existed. It made building my actual plan so much easier. The first time I used it for a live project I am certain the 45-60 minutes I spent on it saved me 2-3 hours of headache down the line.

The Network Diagram is a graphical display of your project from beginning to end with all tasks in sequence. It sounds really simple and in some ways it is, but it can also get really complex in the best way.

How does it work?

Well, getting started with this tool is a lot easier if you have already done a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS). For this exercise we are only using the individual tasks, so anything that has “child” tasks is not used here.

Each task is labeled with the Estimated time to complete and days needed, I usually capture these items during the WBS session. There are also spaces for Early Start (ES), Early Finish (EF), Late Start (LS), and Late Finish (LF). These come into play in a little bit.

The next step is to lay all the tasks in order based on their dependencies and duration. For larger projects some project manager like to keep the tasks in lanes according to the area who owns the tasks. If you already know who will be assigned to these tasks you can also take into account their time and capacity constraints while doing this as well.

Once every task is lined up we start from the left. First we place a marker for the start of the project with the start date written on it. Then as we move to the right we mark the ES and EF fields.

How this works:

For example we have the task “Finalize Concept” marked as 10 hours over 5 days and it is the first task on the project. If the Project Start Date is 9/7/26 then the ES for “Finalize Concept” is the same date.

The EF for this task would be 5 days later on 9/11/26. With a Network Diagram and the Project Plan the Start Date of a task means it starts on that day and the Finish Date means it complete at the close of business of that date.

Now the next task dependent on “Finalize Concept” will not be able to start until 9/14/26 because the 11th is a Friday and I try to not work on weekends. Work-life balance is real y’all.

Let’s say you have a task “Complete Structure Workbook” with two dependencies. One task has an EF of 10/5 and the other with an EF of 10/7. What is the earliest “Complete Structure Workbook” can start?

If you answered 9/7, you’re correct. Even if the other task finished early on 9/4, if the second dependency still didn’t finish until 9/7 then “Complete Structure Workbook” can’t start any earlier than 9/8.

Once you work your way through all the tasks from left to right you will come to a marker set to the end for the Project Finish Date. Now if you have already been given a target date to finish and what you end with is a date later than the target, you already know you need to have a challenging conversation with the project sponsor and leadership.

But it’s best to finish the diagram because that will give you a better idea of what in the project is really causing the delay.

Now, you work from right to left. Starting at the finish date you fill in the LF and LS fields in that order. So the Late Finish of the Last Task will be the Project End Date. If that task is 4 days long the Late Start will be 4 days before the LF. You will continue through all the tasks until you get back to the Beginning.

Next, go back through each of the tasks and subtract the EF from the LF and write the resulting number on the task. For example, the EF date for the below image is 2/19/27 and the LF is 4/9/27. The resulting number is 53.

This is called Slack, an amount of days that task can shift its start date without impacting the project delivery date. This means that the task could start on 2/15/27 instead of 12/28/26 and the project would still deliver on the same End Date.

But what if the resulting number is 0?

That means a task is on what is considered the Critical Path. Any delays to those tasks will heavily impact delivering the project on time.

If your project end date is after your target date, it is the critical path tasks that you want to focus on trimming down.

Now if you do know the target end date you can always start at the end and just fill in the LF and LS fields first.

How Can This Help Me the Author?

Excellent question!

Especially since a lot of time the author is a one person show, it can really help show you how to stagger your tasks to meet your time constraints.

Also, seeing all the work laid out visually can help you see where you are stretching yourself too thin and maybe acting a little too ambitious. Remember, we want to build a sustainable business that puts value in consistency, value, and health over profit and mass production.

For Self Publishing Authors, when starting a new project and you already know when in the future you want to release your book this can help you work backwards to determine exactly when you need to start working on the project.

Closing

So I know this seems like a lot of work and you might be thinking that it seems like overkill. I can understand that. What I can say is that it has helped me keep on track with my goals and organize my writing projects so I don’t always feel like I’m so far behind. Also knowing this level of detail helps me adjust my plans for the future when it comes to my five year plan.

I will be posting a demonstration with my upcoming WIP on Sunday at 10am on my YouTube Channel. It posted late this last time, but I am committed to getting it out on time since I don’t have a 7 year old’s birthday party happening this weekend.

As always when it comes to what I share, I’m not trying to sell you anything. All I ask is that you read well, consider thoroughly, take what works for you, and leave the rest.

Next week we will get into Project Scheduling.

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I have worked in the project world for almost 16 years now in various roles, the last 7 of those as a Project Manager. It wasn’t until I got serious about my writing career that I saw the parallels in my day job and my passion.

One of the first connections I made was when it came to planning my first real attempt at a novel. I’ll admit, I was a tad kerfluffed. I think I’m at an age where I can make up words without guilt now.

I had never written a novel before. I had written screenplays and short stories, but nothing as massive as a novel. It was daunting and imposter syndrome came calling early. I honestly didn’t know where to begin and I felt like a dog in a busy intersection.

Then it clicked. My novel was a project.

So many things in our lives are projects and can be managed using the same principles. Novels are no different.

One thing I learned as a project manager was after getting the project charter and scope, one of the first things to do is gather your team to do a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS). It sounds fancy and a little jargony, but all it means is taking a big goal and breaking it down into chunks of work until they get to an actionable size.

It’s the business answer to the joke “How do you eat an elephant?”

One bite at a time. That’s what a WBS is, carving out the bites.

How It Works In A Project

Once you have your project team, you review the project goal and scope. Scope is basically what is included and not included in what your project is responsible for. For example, if you were planning the next moon mission building the shuttle, included. Planning the promotional tour after the astronauts get back, maybe not. That would be debatable.

Once everyone is aligned on the goal and scope the team then takes that goal and breaks it into major components. Sometimes it is broken into pieces of the goal and in others it is done by department. There really is no wrong way as long as everyone agrees and understands how it works.

These components are then broken down into smaller work packages needed for each component to be considered complete. These can be as granular as needed. Owners of each package are identified with an estimated time to complete given in hours and across how many days. This is important for budgeting and planning purposes.

Once all tasks are listed the next step is to identify dependencies, which are when tasks or entire work packages cannot start until other work completes. This becomes very important when planning begins with the network diagram, which we will go into next time.

How Exactly Does This Help Me Write A Damn Novel?

Preparing for a novel can be broken down into major components using a WBS in the same way. The goal is of course a published novel. The scope? Depends, but at least I think it would be…

JUST THAT NOVEL.

With that goal in mind, break down the components that would go into a finished book. What are some you can think of right off the bat?

Maybe Research, Pre-Planning (or minimal if you’re a Panster), Drafting, and Editing?

That’s a good start. What about after? We are treating this like a business right? I would think that Self-Publishers especially would have some more stuff to add here.

What about Marketing, Publication, Public Relations, Distribution, and Launch Day?

Authors going the trad route may think those don’t apply to them, but from what I have seen on Substack and TikTok the publishing houses aren’t always doling out big marketing and PR spend for debut novels. I think Launch Day events are also on the Author as well.

Will these listed out, now you break them down into work packages. For example, Pre-Planning could break down into tasks like Outlining, Characters, Plotting, etc. Drafting could be the various drafts you plan on doing.

When it comes to dependencies some are easy to identify at a high level like Pre-Planning typically needs to be done before you start Drafting. Some authors continue researching throughout, but there is usually a cutoff point where they decide it’s go time.

For me, I tend to keep my dependencies focused at the work package level or lower. That way I can account for those types of nuances.

Now, as authors, when it comes time to assign owners, in most cases, it’s going to be ourselves. Nature of the beast. BUT, this is where it is very important to be realistic in estimating the hours it will take to complete tasks and how many days we need to do it in. Too aggressive and we run the risk of burnout and missing targets, which can damage our morale. Too lenient and it could take twice as long to finish.

When estimating time like this I like to take the best case/worst case approach.

I estimate the fastest I can realistically finish and then the longest it could take to finish the task. Then I place my estimate somewhere in the middle.

Closing

Once I finish with the WBS I am ready to move onto the network diagram, which is a tool that will show me how long it will take me to complete the project from start to finish.

If you would like to watch me do a live WBS session for one of my upcoming projects I’m posting that video to my YouTube channel Sunday at 10am cst.

For those going through the traditional publishing route you may not need to break down when you get to publishing as that process is owned by your publisher. Things like Marketing, Public Relations, and Launch Day would still be good to plan for though.

Next week I’m diving into the network diagram and how it can save a lot of time and headache in your planning process.

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Here is one of my many hot takes…

All authors are project managers.

They may not know all the technical jargon or the fancy tools, but every author who has finished a piece is a project manager.

So…

What is Project Management?

Something that Writers can relate to, in Project Management there are two “camps” or methods there is Waterfall and there is Agile. Both have their very vocal champions and the benefits between the two are still often debated. But, like Plotters and Pantsers, they both deliver the same thing, a finished project.

Now, where things diverge from the Writer world is that there are instances where Agile does not work. Agile is primarily geared toward delivering working software that meets a need. This is something that Waterfall can do as well, and did for many years before Agile was introduced.

The prevailing perception in the industry is that Agile is typically better for developing software solutions. The reason for this is that Agile allows for changing course in a faster, efficient way that Waterfall doesn’t.

Waterfall, however, is more versatile when it comes to its application across industries. It gets its name from how the process is structured where one step leads to the next. When a project is opened the sponsor defines the scope, which then is the basis to identify the requirements for the solution being built. Once the requirements are documented, which can take days or even weeks, the sponsor signs off and they are baselined.

Baselined is project speak for locked in. Once this occurs any changes to the project must go through a strict change process and approved by the sponsor. It isn’t impossible, but it is cumbersome and is meant to be so. Construction, like houses, is done using Waterfall. You don’t changing the dimensions to a house to be easy if ground is already broken.

Where Agile differs is that the requirements are not locked in. Where Waterfall dictates how the software will work in the requirements, Agile instead captures what the sponsor or product owner wants to happen in features. The how of the solution is determined by the Developers as they begin building the code, which allows them freedom to iterate and innovate different solutions.

For example, a feature for a streaming service might say, ‘I want the user to see a list of top rated programs on the top of the menu when they first log in.’ That feature does not tell the developers how to build it, but the product owner can give criteria that is needed to be present like size, color, etc. before they will accept the work as complete.

One way that Agile prevents expensive rework is a constant feedback cycle in the form of a demonstration of code completed at the end of each two-week cycle or sprint. If they are off track they know right away as opposed to finishing and being told it’s completely wrong. The goal of this is that the developers receive this feedback to remain confident they are delivering value at a steady rate.

There are different flavors of Agile, I was trained in the SAFe Methodology as a Product Owner and Scrum Master.

How Does This Relate To Writing?

That’s a good question, because that was a lot of information and the parallels are not always obvious. I mean, it took me years before I made the connection. These methods are for building software and houses and stuff, I write books or scripts. They are totally different right?

I bring this back to Plotters and Pantsers.

Plotters, by definition, plan. At the furthest end of the spectrum, they plan every aspect of their book before typing ‘Chapter 1’. They build plot structure, character arcs, and map out each scene in the story. These are basically requirements. Only when the Plotter feels everything is in place do they baseline and start writing.

Plotters are basically using Waterfall.

Pansters are more along the lines of…Agile. They are more fluid and don’t have the same rigor as Plotters. Instead they may have a general idea or vibe of what kind of story they want to have. Whether that be a certain character type, cool line of dialogue (I did that one time), or a cool scene. These are like Features. As the Author you know what you want, but aren’t sure how to exactly get there until you get into the ‘code’.

JW Where Do You Fall?

Okay so I kept something back. While it’s not a third camp in the project world, something called WaGile does exist in some spaces where it makes sense or out of necessity. When it comes to writing I fall into that space.

I do all the work of a Plotter, mapping out plot points, structure work, character arcs, and plan out key scenes. I do not, however, map out every single scene. I do map out the scenes up to the inciting incident though, maybe the 1^st Plot Point, but never further.

The reason is as I write I go with the vibe of the story and I feel it needs to go somewhere else I do. However, unless I somehow make a monumental shift to the story, my plot points are locked in and remain so until I finish the story. For me, this holds the framework for the story that I work within so I have freedom to explore and improvise, but have guideposts to keep the story on track.

Closing

I really believe that using these concepts in my planning and execution of writing projects helped me stay focused and produce finished work on a consistent cadence. Using this method I was able to finish 2 novels, (2 drafts of the first and 1 of the second), 3 novellas (ranging from 16k to 25k words), and 4 short stories in a period of 26 months.

As always, I am not proclaiming my method as the gospel. With anything that I, or anyone for that matter, share with you: read well, consider thoroughly, take what works for you, and leave the rest. I am not here to sell you a method, just to share the tools I use in an effort to help you build your own practice.

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There are a lot of steps to start a business. I feel that the most important steps, after getting the idea for it, is to decide what kind of business they want to be.

But JW, they already know that right? I mean, they have the idea and know what they want to do. Right?

Not really.

One of the most important things a new business must do is determine what they want their identity to be, their brand. This is more than a logo or advertising. It is also the experience the business offers its customers.

Yesterday on X the above post got a LOT of people talking. For those of you who were around for its heyday, Blockbuster holds very different places in the hearts and minds of others. One trend you’ll see in the positive comments is a sense of nostalgia or missing something that can’t we can’t return to (in Welsh it’s called Hiraeth).

That experience they speak so fondly of, is the brand.

People may not always remember what you say, but they will always remember how you made them feel.

Even in the Corporate world, brands are not limited to businesses, people have a brand. When I first entered that life my first manager told me that I needed to focus on maintaining my brand and that was the best advice I ever got.

This is why for living artists and writers the “separate the art from the artist” position is so fragile. As much as we wish it wasn’t so, artists and writers are the brand. Our creations will always be a part of us and many will assume that the themes and messages in our work are what we hold.

That connection is not a one-way street. Our actions will also impact how others perceive our work.

A lot of things play into what makes up a business’s brand, but when forming a business three components are the starting point to build the foundation. The Vision Statement, Mission Statement, and Core Values are not only the bedrock for the brand, but also strategy and culture.

Vision, Mission, and Values: Why Do They Matter?

Now, there is no hard an fast rule on which one has to come first. They do feed each other to some degree. Most business start with an idea which usually comes with a vision of where the creator sees the company being in 5-10 years.

Visions change over the life of a business, especially ones that last more than five years as many times they need to evolve with the times and the changes in the market. What is certain is that the Vision will be what drives the business strategy.

For example, Amazon’s vision statement is: “To be Earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online.”

With that vision in mind, would it make sense for Amazon to build a strategy around opening brick and mortar stores?

Probably not.

A Vision Statement is where and who a company wants to be. A Mission Statement is what they will focus on to provide value to customers to get there.

While Vision does influence Strategy, in my experience, the Mission tends to have a greater role in business decisions.

Core Values, being the 3^rd component, is how the business acts along the way.

All of these lay the foundation for the business’s identity and brand.

How Can Having These Help Your Writing Career?

I’m throwing around terms like Identity and Brand and some of y’all might be thinking, “But it’s me, I know who I am. I don’t need to write it down.”

That is a good point and I thought the same…for a while. Then I did a scheduled audit of my social media presence and noticed something interesting…and concerning. While I posted consistently, I was not consistent in what I posted, shared, or commented on.

So I really took note of what I wanted people to feel when they interacted with my work. How did I want them to feel after they read my stories? Was what I put out on social media consistent with that desired experience?

While I wasn’t being terrible online, it wasn’t the feeling I wanted associated with my work. So I needed to really focus on what I wanted that to be.

The first thing I did was write my Vision for my Writing Career:

To create worlds that inspire others to make imagination reality and build a better society.

With that captured I worked on building my Mission Statement:

• Write stories that change worlds, even if it’s just for one person.

• Create worlds that inspire readers.

• Weave stories that create impact, not chase trends.

Finally I wrote my Core Values for what I create:

• There is always Hope.

• Injustice may be a fact of life, but it is our job to expose it.

• Light and Dark must exist together.

Having these three things written down have guided my decisions in the projects I select, content I share on social media, and even choices I make within my stories.

Closing

Do you have to write a Vision, Mission, Core Values if you’re serious about making writing a career?

No. There is no one way to treat your career like a business. Now, does it help?

I think so. It certainly helped give me focus and avoid distractions/derailments. There is also something to be said for being consistent in what you put out into the world for your brand. If you have it written down it is much easier to refer back to when you’re in doubt whether something you want to post or say would be in line with what experience you want your readers to have with you and your work.

As always with anything you see from me, I am not the end all be all. What works for me may not work exactly the same for you, or at all. I just ask that you read well, consider thoroughly, take what works for you, and leave the rest.

I’m not here to sell a method, just sharing tools that worked for me to help you build your own process to be successful.

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Now, if I came across that title, I’d be skeptical, and rightfully so.

Not many people would see MBA (Master of Business Administration) and jump to it having an impact on someone’s creativity, let alone teaching about it. In honesty, had I not lived it, I wouldn’t believe it.

I am starting this series to show how I made that connection, share what I have learned, what works for me, and hopefully help other writers and artists figure out ways to start treating their art like a business.

Let’s face it, if you want to make a living with your art, whether that be writing, painting, dance, etc., you will have to treat it like a business if you want to thrive. There really isn’t any getting past that.

So, how did getting an MBA help me? I think a little background is called for. Not a whole life story, but some flavor to add a foundation to what I’m going to do.

The Road So Far…

I think a lot of artists will agree that life as a creative, is hardly ever a straight line. It wasn’t for me. I went to the Savannah College of Art and Design for my first year of college. Loved it. Wish I could have finished. But limited funds and a baby on the way side tracked me.

I did finish my Bachelors in Studio Art from the University of the Incarnate Word in the second half of the 2000s. As much as I wanted to focus solely on my Art career, I was a single parent and had to think realistically.

I got a corporate job and moved into the project world with the intention of getting a good footing and eventually leaving to be a full time creative. Yeah, that was around 20 years ago and I’m still working on that.

10 years later, after a Masters in Communication Arts and several years as a legit project manager I resigned myself to the corporate life and went back to school again for Business degrees. I finished my MBA in 2022.

After leaving that first company I chose to focus on my writing career more and a TikTok video saying that to be successful as a creative I needed to treat it like a business made it all click.

So, How Exactly Did the MBA Help??

Let’s get down to it. My undergrad Art program focused a lot on learning and honing the craft of art. However, there was little formal instruction to prepare us to navigate the business side of an art career. I honestly feel like when I went through it, the instruction to prepare us for life as a working artist lacked the reality of that life.

That being said, I feel pretty confident that a lot of, if not most, artists have to work another job to sustain themselves. Of my classmates I kept in touch with from that program, maybe a quarter of them are still creating.

When I committed to my writing career at 42, I knew I needed structure and recognized my career as an accomplished project manager would help me create it. With a day job and family that included a rambunctious four-year-old, time was at a premium.

To treat my writing as a business I knew what I needed to do to get it off the ground. The first thing I did was organize.

I defined my vision for what I wanted my career to be, like I wrote an actual vision statement. Before living in the corporate world I thought those were just a collection of buzzwords to slap on a website to look professional.

But after all that time I understood that the Vision Statement captures into words where the company, or person, wants to be. It becomes the guiding star that all strategies and business decisions are measured against.

I wrote my Mission Statement and spent two months refining my strategy for the next five years. So what did this do for me really?

It gave me structure and direction. By knowing where I want to be in five years and my plan to get there, everything I do going forward will be in service to that goal. If something comes up that doesn’t move me closer to realizing that strategy, I don’t focus on it.

When your time is at a premium, knowing what doesn’t matter allows you to put your effort where it counts most.

I thought you said the MBA also helped with your creativity??

Yes, I did. Sometimes in order to get to the fun stuff, we have to build a foundation strong enough to explore on. Putting the structure I described above in place helped me to manage my day job, personal life, and my passion I want to be my career.

Strategic planning is critical to running a business because without it a business can survive and maybe even grow a little, but it won’t thrive.

With my strategy in hand, I knew that my writing needed more organization. One of the first things I did was create a backlog of work.

I can’t speak for other authors, but I had ideas for stories scattered through notebooks, random word documents, and post its around my desk. It was insane. Pure Chaos.

In building a production plan for how I wanted to work (I have a post about this later), I created a spreadsheet where I gathered every idea I could find where each one had a short title and a summary of what that idea was. This basically came to be whatever I wrote on that note it came from.

After I put them all into the spreadsheet I realized a couple things. First, there were a lot of great ideas I forgot about over the years because they were out of sight out of mind. Some I picked up to work right away.

Second, when I saw all the ideas listed a weight lifted off me because a fear I always had before was hitting a block where I wouldn’t be able to come up with a new idea. There were enough ideas in the backlog that I could write two novels a year and I might be able to finish them all in my lifetime.

That is assuming I never came up with another idea ever again and considering the 21 ideas I added since I started I don’t think I will any issues.

Recognizing these things gave me so much confidence, which translated into the energy I had to tackle projects.

With the structure I put in place and the production plan I built from it I was able to complete first drafts for two novels, three novellas, and four short stories in 26 months. Some of those have gone through multiple drafts as well. I’m actually going to start posting one of the novellas as a serial on this Substack in July.

In Closing….

All of this is a really high-level view of how I have used what I learned from my MBA and corporate career that helped me build a sustainable plan for my writing career.

I am in no way saying that if you do things my way you will be successful or that my methods are the best methods.

What I recommend you do when engaging with my content is to Read Well, Consider Thoroughly, Take what works for you, and Leave the rest.

I am not here to sell you a method, just to share the tools that I use to help you build your own process to be successful.

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