The 12 Week Year for Writers

Writing has been difficult for me since the beginning of COVID-19. I used to write in the mornings before my commute to work. When I began to work from home under lockdown, that would mean being in my home office at the screen for up to ten hours in total. That was not sustainable.

With the restrictions easing or completely gone, I wanted to start writing again.  I was pleased to find out that there was a new edition of The 12 Week Year (see my review of that book here), written specifically for authors: The 12 Week Year for Writers, written by A. Trevor Thrall.

Book Review: The 12 Week Year for Writers, A. Trevor Thrall

I gave up on the 12 Week Year approach after about a year of using it. The end happened in the midst of the worst of the lockdown restrictions due to COVID-19. I recall that life was had just become a little stale with no outlets for fun or release, and I was simply not motivated to stick with my weekly tactics. But even though those low times are far behind us know (and I hope for good), it has taken a long time to get back to writing regularly.

Was the new book worth it? I think so, but bear in mind that if you have already read the original book, much of the content covers the same process. There are specific examples for writing given during the description of the elements of the system, but not a lot of new information.

Sections one covers the “why” you might want or need the system, and section two, the “how to” instructions to set up your own 12WY, but I felt that it was a little more shallow than the original book by Brian Moran and Michael Lennington. There is not a lot of original insight into what makes their system work.

I guess that repeating the original content was necessary to allow the book to stand alone. If you are a writer and interested in being a lot more focused in your approach to research, writing, revising etc. using the proven methods from The 12 Week Year, you will find all you need in this specific edition to get up and running.

Writers

In section three Thrall begins to focus on specific issues that affect writers and it got a lot more interesting for me. The book is not a guide on how to become a great writer. You won’t get advice on how to carry out research, to conduct interviews, on grammar or the review and editing cycle. This book focuses on the writing process: how to set up your next twelve weeks to be as productive as possible.

There are some good tips in here, for example, what to track and score while conducting a large writing project. Many authors set a weekly word count target and try to maintain it throughout a long project, but this is likely to be difficult depending on what the focus the work has in any session. Before content is produced you may require time to conduct research, and after the first draft is produced, the word count is going to drop off while it is revised. A better approach is to commit to and measure sessions on the project and to take word count as a lag indicator.

Arranging a 12WY so that you are using the right tactics to achieve the correct goals at the right time is part of setting up a great 12WY plan. For example, one of my goals is to produce weekly posts on this site. My posts are typically about one thousand words, which I usually can complete in about an hour – I dedicate two Pomodoros, twenty-five minute focus blocks with a five minute break to focus on new writing each day.

A post also needs proof reading, editing and a decent amount of time to find and add images, and time for a review and feedback. If the post requires accompanying code or configuration, that also takes time. I reckon that the writing bit is about a third of the overall time investment a post requires.

I also have a goal to simply write every day with a target of one thousand words. But I am not limiting this to blog post; I have some other writing projects. So my week is starting to look like this:

• 14 x pomodoro dedicated to new writing
• 7 x pomodoro dedicated to non-writing tasks for this blog

Accountability

One of the difficulties I faced when following the original 12WY – I did so for about a year from late 2019 – was that I was unable to set up an accountability group. This is a key piece of the system, providing both support and motivation to keep going.

Because my earlier plans covered multiple facets, from personal exercise, professional and writing goals, I did not feel anyone would really want to sit down, week after week, to hear how I was getting on. It’s difficult to be accountable to yourself, and perhaps that’s why I simply stopped using the system even though I found it effective.

With a vision and plan focused on writing, however, I think it may be a little easier to have regular accountability discussions. There are some writing groups in my area and I have some friends who also write as a hobby. A quick fifteen minute chat is all it takes to do a weekly accountability meeting. Discuss what was planned, the score (how much of the plan you got through), any problems and the current week’s plan.

I am also hoping to publish my weekly scores as an update to this post. Perhaps this will provide a little of the accountability that I have missed. I have drafted my writer's vision, created some goals and tactics and set up my model week. Since this plan does not cover other aspects of my life, I have left plenty of space, buffer blocks, during the week so I am quite confident that I can meet my goals.

The first four weeks sees me trying to maintain a steady writing rhythm while I re-read a novel I wrote a few years ago but never revised to second draft. I also am going to complete a lecture series on writing and plan several research sessions for a historical fiction novel that I’ve been planning for a long time. I’m motivated, energised and I have The 12 Week Year for Writers to thank for this boost.

Conclusion

If you are a writer who has difficulty keeping to deadlines or having one or more of the many issues that authors face, such as writer’s bloc or a lack of progress with your project, then I think that reading The 12 Week Year for Writers, and applying it will benefit you in a couple of ways.

It will help you to clarify what your vision for your writing really is. It will give you a framework for breaking down your project into manageable chunks so that you can make progress each day and week by following your tactics. You will also become accountable to yourself and your peer network by scoring weekly and giving progress reports to your writers group. Finally it will help you determine if the tactics you have chosen are getting you towards your goal, and may help you discover if the goal you are trying to achieve is actually what you really want.

The book won’t tell you how to be a writer, or how to figure out what activities are necessary to get writing done. “Writers write” is probably the best advice you’ll get.

If you’ve already read and enjoyed The 12 Week Year, then I feel you will not gain a lot from this new version unless, like me, you had lost a lot of the motivation and energy from your writing.

Updates

Week 1: 100% of tactics reached. Lag measures also at 100%.

Week 2: 100% of tactics reached. Lag measures also at 100%.

Week 3: 89% – I was unwell and missed a few tactics this week. This had a knock-on effect on my lag measures, but confident I will get back on track next week.

Week 4: 92% of tactics reached. I underestimated the time I had to set aside for a family occasion. Nevertheless, I was able to catch up on my missed lag measure from last week – lag measures at 100%.

Week 5: 97% of tactics, but had to adjust tactics midweek as I moved into some new phases.

Week 6: 97% of tactics completed, but I underestimated the time for some and did not schedule enough to complete the objective this week.

Week 7: 100% of tactics completed.

Week 8: While I got 97% of tactics done, I feel I have slipped on a few lag measures. Basically I needed more redrafting and rewriting sessions than expected.