You never know

I have spent a great deal of time teaching about the need to create a system to your writing and a business focus for execution of your plan. I never realized how important full business/automation was until this last week. My family had a sudden, and totally unexpected, emergency that pulled me out of town for two days and out of the office for two more. Beyond that the complete shock of the event made my brain completely worthless for most of last week.

Friday's blog wasn't posted.
Many reader emails weren't returned.
Emails to speaking venues weren't sent

Editing slowed to a crawl.

Writing stopped completely.

But even as I was out of town with my family I thought about how I would maintain my writing schedule as my business continues to grow.

So here is my thought for your consideration, are you working your writer's schedule in such a way that you would be able to stay on deadline if something major happened? Or are you waiting to the last minute to accomplish every task? Have you automated enough of your systems so that things like newsletters, blogs and articles are able to go out on time, no matter what? Are you allowing time in your schedule to accomodate a sudden event?

I thought I had but now I realize I wasn't doing it enough. I need to have everything ready at LEAST 10 days ahead.

So, today I have to work to catch up and work ahead. I want to be ready next time. And you should be too.

Tiffany Colter is a writer, speaker and writing career coach who works with beginner to published writers. She can be reached through her website at www.WritingCareerCoach.com
Learn more about Tiffany's Marketing techniques on her main blog.
Common-sense money management is free at The Balanced Life website.
Read Tiffany's award winning manuscript "A Face in the Shadow" on her fiction blog.
She writes a blog for the Christian writer Tuesdays at Writer's Rest.