I spent a couple of hours today with a project management app at zohocreator.com, working out a set of goals and deadlines for my next novel, “Light of the Outsider.”

I’m freakin’ out, here, a little. I have a lot to do, and very little time to do it.

See, the overall goal is that the book be ready in time for the 64th Annual World Science Fiction Convention, which I plan to attend. By “ready, ” I mean the book will be available to purchase as a print book and e-book, and will be available to listen to as a podcast novel. In other words, the exact same strategy I’m employing with Brave Men Run – A Novel of the Sovereign Era.

The first draft needs to be done by May 1st. I’m shooting for 75,000 words. Assuming I begin writing in earnest on March 18th, that’s forty four days of hardcore writing, at a rate of about 1700 words per day. That’s not a grueling rate, actually… but keeping it up every single day is going to be tough. It’s my own little NaNoWriMo, I guess — plus two weeks.

In addition to the actual writing of this book, of course, is the editing, prep for publishing, recording of the podcast, soliciting advance readers, web site design, and so on. I’m going to be doing little else but LOTO all Spring and Summer… about the only other thing I will be doing is continuing to promote Brave Men Run.

So… I’ve hunkered down and done some pruning in my blog and podcast consumption… nothing personal to those of you who didn’t make the cut. And I’m not going to be as vocal in the mailing lists I belong to — I pledge not to post just to say something smarmy or sarcastic (in some groups, that’ll kill my posting altogether… sometimes I just can’t help myself.) Finally, while I’m not a very active IM’er, from here on out my default status will be “Away,” with instructions to would-be chatters that they e-mail me unless their needs are time-sensitive.

It feels good to have a solid plan in place. Now to follow it..!