63: Building Writing Momentum – Transform Habits with the 12-Week Year

Maybe you're like me, I haven't published a new book since

before the pandemic started. I've published a flash fiction

piece and I have written loads of podcast episodes, and a few

self help lead magnets. But that's not the same as

publishing my next fiction book. Maybe your fiction writing

efforts have stalled like mine. So in an effort to get to the

root of the problem, which for me is trying to straddle the

fiction and nonfiction worlds. I picked up two books in December

2022 that have influenced my thinking in a huge way and

continue to do so. The first was the 12 week year by Brian P.

Moran and Michael Lennington, which identified one of the

biggest obstacles to writing my next novel, The year long plan.

More about that in a minute. The second book is a 12 week year

for writers by A. Trevor Thrall, which was written for writers by

a writer. Perfect. So what did I learn? What is strategic

thinking? What are tactics and What is greatness in the moment?

Stick around and find out? A writing proceeds authors Welcome

back to the podcast. To those of you who are new, I want to

extend a special welcome. My name is Kathrese. McKee. And I'm

glad you're here. If you are writers seeking encouragement,

information and inspiration, this podcast is for you. Let's

get to it. annual plans are no good to me. Yes, you heard me

correctly. A one year plan kills my motivation and momentum.

After all, I have an entire year to get the book done. So my

brain immediately adopts Island time. That means urgency goes by

the wayside. If I don't sit down to write the darn book one day,

then I say soon come, which translates to I will do it

tomorrow, or the next day or the next. The premise of the 12 week

year is it people lose focus, procrastinate and delay action

when faced with a long time horizon, like a year. This is

why New Year's resolutions don't work for the vast majority of

people, right. But if you shift to a 12 week year, with

appropriately sized goals, then you can stay engaged, maintain

momentum, and consistently take action. You also enjoy more

flexibility to tweak your plans, because you have a faster,

quicker feedback loop. This leads to real measurable

progress. Both books are full of great material about vision

planning, process, control, measurement and time use. But

first let's talk about three other principles,

accountability, commitment and greatness in the moment, and

let's talk about them in reverse order. So greatness in the

moment is what sets the Olympic athletes apart from the rest of

us. greatness in the moment is about doing all the things

required to prevail when nobody is watching, like maintaining a

strict schedule, eating the right foods, sleeping enough

doing the weights and the treadmill, swimming early

morning laps in the pool competing against yourself and

endless workouts. This is greatness in the moment, so that

on competition day, the athlete is at their peak state of

readiness. There is no victory unless there is greatness in the

moment. For writers this looks far different, but it is

greatness in the moment nonetheless. Getting up early to

write or writing work while everyone else is doing fun

things like watching tiktoks tracking time in the chair or

words written revision revision revision scheduling an editor

and revising again, spending endless hours researching a time

period to get the details right. world building character arcs

crafting, dialogue taking critique, move that last one's

hard, great novels and great nonfiction books don't just

happen. They are preceded by greatness in the moment.

Commitment, of course, seems self explanatory, but I think it

comes from understanding really deeply understanding your

reasons why accountability is not what you immediately think

of in our current culture. This isn't about being held

accountable, or holding others accountable. Accountability is

about taking ownership of your results, and being accountable

to yourself, keeping score for yourself being honest with

yourself, owning the results you get. That's accountability,

however, accountability also means being willing to report

your results. In the 12 week year for writers, Thrall

discusses weekly writing groups. Ideally, these are not about

others holding you accountable. But about you reporting your

score for the previous week on working toward your goals.

Finding or forming an enjoyable and supportive writing

accountability group for the purpose of reporting progress is

probably the hardest part of the whole thing. But the group

doesn't have to be more than two or three people keep that in

mind. Again, this isn't about being held accountable or

holding others accountable. It is about holding yourself

accountable. You

You want to report a strong score. So you are more likely to

do the things that will make that possible. It's like a self

fulfilling prophecy. I am going to report a strong score this

week becomes action that turns into a strong score. At the

beginning, I said we would circle back to merit

measurement. So what are we measuring? That's up to you.

Let's say you want to write a novel that is approximately

60,000 words, you want to have it ready to publish in one year,

you already know the premise of the book. Maybe you've written a

synopsis already. Okay? The year is too long of a time horizon.

So you divide the super project into 12 week chunks. Let's agree

that you need time for your editor to work through it and

get it back to you. And you will need time to get it ready for

publication. That's one quarter of the year. Now you have three

quarters left 312 week years to do the rest. Still too long. But

you feel certain you can write 20,000 words in 12 weeks. I

that's a low low number, but let's go with it. Man, I feel

really bad because I know how long my novel has been sitting

Okay, so maybe you decide to work in plotter.com, or use note

cards or spin for of the first 12 weeks, creating a timeline.

Crazy, I know, don't call it an outline, it's more like a map,

only worked two days a week, you could probably get that done and

say for hard hours of work. There's your measurement, also

known as a tactic, right for an hour, four times per week, or

write for four hours once a week, or write for two hours

twice a week and track your actual writing sessions. However

you add it up, it's writing hours divided by four. If you

write for only an hour, that week, you achieve a score of

25%. If you write for three hours, you achieve a score of

75%. If you consistently score 75% or above, you will start

building momentum. If your score is lower than 75% for two weeks

in a row, then you need to assess this situation

strategically ask the hard questions. What can I do to help

myself? How else can I do this? Is there a way to do this even

better? Who can help me? How can I set aside more hours

strategize to solve the problem or choose a different

measurement? Don't forget to ask is this a doable? Number of

writing hours in my current season of life? If you have

young children? Or if you care for an elderly parent, the

answer might be no, I can realistically only write for 15

minutes at a time, a couple of times per day. That's okay, but

you need to acknowledge your life situation honestly. In a

nutshell, the 12 week year is about identifying the most

important goal or two or three, then thinking them through in a

strategic way, and then deciding on the tactics and how to

measure your success. Give yourself a few hours to come up

with your first 12 week year plan. then schedule the work and

the scorekeeping and last but not least find some way to

report your progress. There's this game called Othello that is

played with 64 discs, which are black on one side and white on

the other. The person with the most discs of their color at the

end wins the game. Although a tie is possible. The model on

the box is a minute to learn a lifetime to master. It's so easy

to learn the rules, but it is a very devil to play against a

worthy opponent. The 12 week your method of planning is easy

to understand and to learn. However, you are in effect

playing against your last best effort. With each 12 week round,

you will achieve a better understanding of how to improve

your game. Also, your estimation skills will improve success

leads to more success, so this is well worth doing. I highly

recommend reading both books, but writers should at least read

thralls book for writers. His personal story is inspiring and

he breaks the topic down in a way that is easy to understand.

Both books are listed in the show notes. The question of the

week is What does greatness in the moment mean to you? Thank

you for listening to the podcast today. If you enjoyed this

episode, please leave a star rating and follow the podcast.

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out most Thursdays when health and life permit that link and

all the links mentioned in today's episode are in the show

notes and writing pursuits.com Please join us on Wednesdays for

new episodes and keep writing my friends. Keep writing