A little over a year ago, I wrote a blog essay arguing for a monthly release schedule for my website. The timing was good, since I was entering the final and perhaps most difficult year of university. In fact, I recently released a video over on my informal youtube channel that spoke about that essay in anticipation of this blog.
When writing the previous schedule post, one of the reasons I had behind wanting to post less was that I wanted to be consistent during the high-stress time that was university. I have since graduated, and so the only thing in my way now is work, which is quite tiring, but in a different way.
This post will not be an essay, neither do I expect it to be long. Why? Unlike before, I am not trying to prove anything, or justify a slower monthly schedule. Today I will simply announce the schedule I’ve already been following for many weeks now, its specifics, and the reasoning behind them. Let’s get to it.
The New Schedule is the Old Schedule
My most long-lasting schedule was the weekly one. I once went a year only missing a week once. It’s a good schedule, and with my current backlog of chapters for The Solune Prince, it will be more than manageable (for now anyway). The schedule will be as follows:
One post per week, to be released around midday on Thursday.
Here are the rules that I am applying:
The occasional break week. Sometimes, I anticipate that a week may have no post, since life happens, however, the following 2+ weeks will (hopefully) have a post. The idea is that maybe once every three or so months; that is a handful of times a year, I will likely need a break. The real reason for this rule is psychological. If I miss a post, it doesn’t ruin all my momentum and effort, instead it’s part of this pre-established rule.
The occasional extra post. I will try to refrain from it, since, I would rather save up a backlog in case I have a stressful month or something, but there may be short pieces like poems or time-sensitive posts that I want to just release immediately.
Alternating Content. I know that series content does not perform as well, and additionally, it isn’t very accessible. If someone sees something like “Chapter 31: Kent and Siren and Such” release, an individual is much less likely to click through than if they see a poem like “Shade the Past” which (theoretically) stands on its own. Despite this, The Solune Prince is my primary personal project, and I do intend to continue releasing chapters of it here. Therefore, the solution I’ve come to is a goal of releasing a chapter every other week. On the weeks I do not release a chapter of The Solune Prince, I will put out something else.
What other content should be anticipated? The same as before; it may be a blog post personal update like this, or it could be an essay, or a poem or short story. So, if this is your first time visiting my blog, please follow if you’re a WordPress user, or subscribe by email if you’re not…if you are interested of course. Otherwise, you can continue browsing the site or simply carry on with your day.
Thanks for reading,
One response to “Reopening the Schedule”
This is a great plan. I myself schedule posts for every week, and if I so happen to write an extra few posts, I schedule those along too, so I never really go out of plan where the weekly posting is concerned. This helps me have a buffer time, and the larger I can build that buffer, the better. Who knows? Maybe one day I’ll have a large enough buffer that I can start posting twice weekly. Anyway, wishing you all the best with your goals!