One shock admission and one business plan

It doesn’t happen often (indeed I can’t remember a time before now when it has) but I have finally been able to use a skill I’ve learnt during my day job for my writing. Part of my working role is to look at business plans, a job that it is pretty uninteresting as it stands, and sometimes ignored completely. But it narrows one’s focus on the jobs ahead. At the moment I’m juggling two projects at once, so I decided it was time to have a business plan for my writing. Sitting down last night, I mapped out all I needed to do for The Secret War though my editor will no doubt add more things to the list!) and the various milestones for the current book, The Burning Sands of Time. Yeah, it sounds pretty organised, perhaps too organised, but it did result in another surprise. While I was away at the weekend, sitting in the car on the long drive down to Bournemouth, my imagination start running wild and I inevitably came up with an idea for another novel (thankfully I had my lap-top with me and Sarah was driving, so I had chance to jot it all down). The book is called Smith, and is set ten years into the future. I’m not going to fill this blog entry with a plot summary, needless to say it will be different than The Secret War and The Burning Sands of Time. And short as well. I wanted to write something that is half the length of my usual stuff, say between 200 - 250 pages long. Smith is going to be a near-future thriller set in a morally and socially decaying Britain on the cusp of great upheaval, and as such requires little research. It will also be written in a different style to my usual one, and has got me excited about the prospect of getting it all down on paper. So much so I had a stab at Chapter 2 last night, and typed out a 1,000 good words in less than half-an-hour - a record for me! I even managed a one page preview which will be published on the website in the summer. Mel (my website designer) had a look and thought it was gripping and couldn’t wait to read the first draft (nor can I for that matter!). And so to the business plan. The great thing about having a business plan is that you can see where things begin and end. The first draft of The Burning Sands of Time should be completed by July, around the same time my website is completed. Usually I take a breather of a few weeks between 1st and 2nd drafts either to write a short story or just to chill out generally (it doesn’t do to rush headlong into another draft so close to the previous one, I’ve found). But this time I think I can afford to take a bigger break, and do something different, say like the first draft of Smith? Smith will be like a breath of air compared to the epic heroics of The Burning Sands of Time. It will be brief and racy, and something I can write without hampering the bigger project. And, more importantly, if I start it in July, I should have the first draft done by November - just in time for me to shut up shop so I can concentrate fully on promoting The Secret War. And then in March next year, I’ll start on the 2nd draft of The Burning Sands of Time(followed on the heels by the 2nd draft of Smith!). It all seems so simple – and that’s the beauty of business plans. They’re not daunting, and if you do them correctly and realistically, they should be accurate up to a couple of weeks And you’ll know where you are, when you are. You might even be able to cram in another project or two.