by Hallee Bridgeman, @halleeb
This is one of my favorite weeks of the year. The Christmas chaos is over and my kids are still home from school. Because they’re home, I typically don’t spend any time writing, because the part of my brain where all of my fiction lives kind of shuts off when they’re around. So, I never schedule writing time around school breaks.
The calendar concept for planning purposes – 3d rendering
That lets my brain kind of chill on my stories and it shifts instead to the coming year, the past year, goals, objectives, successes, not so successes, and how I want to change or keep things the same.
I pull out fresh, brand-new calendars and planners and personalize them, adding school holidays, birthdays, stickers to represent holidays, color. As I move through the pages or flip through the months, my relaxed mind considers what’s coming, what that looks like to my schedule, and the writing I want to achieve.
Here is my mental checklist:
How many books do I want to write this year?
What does that look like in terms of actual writing versus actual editing days? Can I accomplish my goals with the schedule in front of me?
What will this month look like in comparison to last year?
Where do I have room to hole away and punch out tens of thousands of words if I need a catchup day or weekend?
What conferences do I want to attend? How do they mesh with my husband’s day-job and my children’s school schedule? Where will I need to hire outside help with that?
What down time am I giving myself?
The more I let myself relax and just work through the calendars, the more I am able to truly look at what the coming year has to offer. I get excited for that first day back to school when I can once again pull out my current novel and open that part of my brain and step back into the world I’ve started building.
Broken and battered, Valerie comes home and finds a lifetime of love waiting for her. Since boyhood days, Brad has always carried a flame for Valerie. Her engagement to another man shattered his dreams. When she comes home, battered and bruised, recovering from a nearly fatal relationship, he prays God will use him to help her heal.
With over half a million sales, Hallee Bridgeman is a best-selling Christian author who writes action-packed romantic suspense focusing on realistic characters who face real-world problems. Her work has been described as everything from refreshing to heart-stopping exciting and edgy. Hallee is a member of the American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW) and the American Christian Writers (ACW) as well as being a member of Novelists, Inc. (NINC). An accomplished speaker, Hallee has taught and inspired writers around the globe, from Sydney, Australia, to Dallas, Texas, to Portland, Oregon, to Washington, D.C., and all places in between. Hallee loves coffee, campy action movies, and regular date nights with her husband. Above all else, she loves God with all of her heart, soul, mind, and strength; has been redeemed by the blood of Christ; and relies on the presence of the Holy Spirit to guide her.