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I have been expanding my writing practice this past year, at least since May. In addition to my Substack newsletter here, I also have my blog and my Medium account. I also have my course creation writing, as well as my other writing projects.
Since this is the first year I have been working steadily and consistently, I don’t have any real plan or anything prepared past sit down and write. I want to change that both for the coming quarter (October through December) and for the coming year.
I have already started to brainstorm this idea.
I read an article in the past three months, which is why for the life of me I cannot find the original writer so I can give them proper credit for this idea, and the author wrote how their writing calendar has a topic per day and that is how they always know what they are going to write about.
They gave an example of their prompts for the week: clown, flower, dog, tapestry, squirrel.
These are examples that I made up because I can’t remember what the actual list was. I do remember they were all so mundane that my brain went, huh? Really? That … simple?
The other part of what I believe the writer said was that this is what they stick to, year after year. That no matter what the given topic, they will write something different every single time. And even if they were copied by another writer every day, neither they nor the copying writer would write the exact same thing because they are completely different people.
So my plan is to create a master running list of basic and mundane topics, to go through the entire year. Three hundred and sixty-five days of, plus one every four years, prompts to keep me writing. I am thinking of sticking to the original author’s idea of the prompt being a single word.
However, I have no less than three forums on which I regularly publish currently. Substack (here). Medium. My blog. One single prompt will not suffice for all three publications. People will be bored to tears to hear me talk about, say, rabbits, in three different articles on the same day.
My idea here is to create a different prompt system for all three forums. Three prompts per day. I am still pondering whether to make them all one word or not.
How does all this apply to my weekly Passion Planner?
One weekly Passion Planner will be the repository for all the prompts, so I won’t lose them. Each day, I will list the different prompts, probably color-coding each prompt to denote which forum goes with which prompt.
What is still in the planning phases are the themes. Seasonal themes. Quarterly themes. Monthly themes. Weekly themes.
All the things that I can denote within the pages of my weekly planner.
Once I have the planner in hand, I will set it up and then make a video to show you how I did everything. I ordered several planners this past week and am waiting for them all to arrive as yet.
I am a Passion Planner Ambassador. If you would like to try Passion Planner for your planning journey, feel free to use my affiliate code.
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Need to read more?
Throughout the month of August, I will be posting five days a week on my personal blog here.
Throughout the month of August, I will also be posting five days a week on my Medium account as well.