So where am I on? "Focused Fandom: Fanart, Fanartists, and Careers." Well first, late with this post – I was a bit under the weather.
First of all, if you noticed the header, it got pushed out two weeks. I'm quite busy and am likely to be changing apartments – which easily kills a weekend. So I figured better to delay it ahead of time.
Our big lesson for the week? Well that has to do with the rescheduling – namely, plan ahead to add space for the unexpected.
Last book I did for the series I plowed through it. I worked weekends. I did an entire book in 3 months. Yes, I did it – but it doesn't mean it
In giving myself more time on the second book, I got under the delusion that I'd be fine – but just adding extra time doesn't mean you're estimating well, preparing for interruptions, etc. If I didn't have a self-imposed deadline, it'd be one thing, but . . .
So when you're doing your own projects remember – don't just set aside time, if you at all have a deadline, project ahead, estimate your time, try and get some sense of hours, days, etc. to work. Think ahead about interruptions.
Then? add about 10-30% time onto that. Seriously, rare indeed is the person who gets their time estimates right. Take it from a Project Manager.
Next book? I still want to keep putting these out reguarly (I'm thinking every 6 months), but you can bet I'm going to put timelines and estimates on that just to be sure I'm not full of it . . .