My plan is working so far. I didn’t set a goal in my last blog, but after getting some writing done, I’ve settled on an informal goal of 1000 words a day for writing up my solo trip. Since I’m holding myself to that standard on week nights when I often don’t feel like doing anything after work, that means that I have to get creative with my planning.
When I knew I wouldn’t have time to write very much after work, like on the days I was planning going to an evening CrossFit endurance workout, I’d make sure to get my words done during lunch at work, even if that meant skimping on socializing or watching shows during lunch instead. On days when I planned to workout during lunch, I better make that time in the evening to write.
It’s been surprisingly easy to make progress this way.
Another way I’ve departed from my past efforts is that I’m not typing up my handwritten notes first. While I hike on the ICT, I’ve been using the reverse sides of my maps to write notes about the day. My first step in writing up these trips has typically been to transcribe those notes. But I don’t really use them once I do transcribe them. So this time I’m putting that step last. I’ll write them up once I finish my draft and, if there’s anything they have to contribute, I’ll add it in.
I’ve made some progress on the production side for my guide book. I got an initial batch of photos and renamed them to reflect where they occur on the trail. I think I’ll add a few more different views and then start winnowing the field. After that, it will be creating the captioned photos that will actually go in the book, and then I’ll start formatting. Last will be the cover, since I won’t know the dimensions I’ll need until I know how many pages it’s going to be. I will be using the same template that I used for my first guide, so that step should go more quickly, but it’s still a lot of little details that need to be completed. I feel good about being able to get that done by my goal date of June 4th.
I think I’ll finish the write up of the solo trip before my goal date of July 1st, as long as I keep up the pace. And there’s no reason not to. It really isn’t difficult to write 1000 words telling this story every day. It’s still fresh in my mind. Heck, I’m still looking at fading bruises. This might just be the way to write these.