Focused Fandom Countdown: 9 weeks to go

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 . . .

Steven Savage