“2. I’ll be done when I’m done: Don’t set or worry about deadlines; finish and move on to the next task.”
Contributed to “Fail Better: Creations and the Classroom”
Submittable Blog
27 August 2018
[Original Submittable Blog post no longer available online.]
A list of commandments, a daily schedule, and poetry books contributed for a workshop about submitting.
I took a creative submitting class taught by Rachel Mindell at the University of Arizona Poetry Center. Mindell is a Tucson poet and also Senior Editor for Submittable’s Marketing Team. The other students and I contributed content for her wrap-up post about the class on the Submittable Blog. I contributed my writing goals and schedule for 2018. Looking at it a couple years later (it is now May 2020 while I’m backposting this post), I see I still haven’t completed the goals. They’re still on my to do list, though!
My contribution is reprinted below.
Work Schedule for 2018
COMMANDMENTS
- Work on one project at a time until finished.
- I’ll be done when I’m done: Don’t set or worry about deadlines; finish and move on to the next task.
- Finish a writing project (a short story, a handful of poems) first, then look for potential markets.
- Aim for 100 rejections.
- Prioritize writing and reading…
- …but completely give into those hours or days when I just want to rest, relax, watch TV, or do nothing or something else entirely.
- Radically decrease other activities and distractions
- number of TV shows I’m following and movies I watch (move to weekends)
- time spent browsing the web and social media
DAILY PROGRAM
- Mornings and afternoons
- Day job
- Evenings
- Workshops
- Write
- Read
- Exercise
- Weekends
- Chores
- Exercise
- TV & movies
- Write
- Read
INTRODUCTION TO POETRY
- In the Palm of Your Hand
- The Norton Introduction to Poetry
- The Making of a Poem: A Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms
- The Book of Forms
- A Poetry Handbook
- The Norton Anthology of Poetry
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