2023 is half over, and Story Factory production has been less than stellar. So at the July Board meeting, we decided to put the staff on a performance plan. Call it a performance improvement plan or just a mid-year reset, but something has to change.

Ninja Writers (seriously the best writing community online) had a free 5-day series of Zoom calls for a mid-year refresh, and I came away with fewer, more doable goals. One thing that Shaunta said that stood out was that we need to plan differently in July than we do in January. At the first of the year, rested from the holiday, we look at the great expanse of the shiny new year ahead and reach for the moon. By July, we realize we are still sitting in the dirt, so we prune the list of possibilities to the bare minimum – What is the one thing that will make me feel like I was successful in 2023.

For me, the one thing is finishing The Purse Driven Life. There is a first draft, and I loaded the whole mess into Fictionary, and lo and behold, there was a plot! And it was decent! So I am working in Fictionary to figure out what scenes are missing and what scenes need help. Fictionary has a Book of the Year contest, so my short-term goal is to get PDL finished by August 31 to enter it in the contest. Then I can write the first draft of Company Women, a novel about petrochemical plants in the 1970s. Since I like writing first drafts much more than editing, that is the carrot. I finish the thing, then I get to write a new story.

I thought about trying to do a short story each week again, but only if I get my novel work done for the week. I now know that I tend to use little tasks to distract myself from the big work, and I don’t have that kind of time in July.

How has your year gone so far? Are those January goals still in reach?