Author: Bert Ehrmann

Each year I write 24 columns for The Fort Wayne Reader along with a handful of other longer pieces that I post to my site. Since I know the publishing schedule of the Reader throughout the year I can plan ahead. I write most of my stuff in WordPress which is the CMS for my website. In the CMS I have a page setup that lists all the dates the Reader hits the stands and I plan on what I’m going to write around these dates. Like this year the movie Man of Steel was released in theaters June 14, so when I was planning on what to write I took note of that date and scheduled a column on Superman for June 7.

As the year progresses more and more dates are filled in. These slots aren’t always permanent, sometimes I’ll schedule a topic months in advance but end up writing about something else if things change. For example, I was originally going to write about the movie Riddick back in early September and had that date scheduled on my calendar for some time. But after I had an interesting experience selling some comics on eBay I wanted to write about that instead and Riddick got bumped.

With the calendar I’ll also figure on things I’d like to write about but don’t have a specific date on when to write them. I currently have things jotted down like “Planet of the Apes movies” since there’s a new one of those coming in 2014, “the need for a trilogy?” as in why do movie series HAVE to come in threes and “Parker comic books” since I dig those. But if I’ll actually write anything about those topics is anyone’s guess but they’re all a possibility.

Here’s how the schedule for early 2014 is shaping up:

• 1/18 – The Americans?
• 2/1 – ?
• 2/15 – Summer movie preview ++
• 3/1 –  Hannibal?

“?” in my notes means that the topic is still tentative, but the dates coincide when the new seasons of The Americans and Hannibal premiers so they work. The “++” means I’m definitely going to write about this topic but I haven’t written anything yet. Or, more precisely, I haven’t written enough about it to make me feel comfortable that the writing process is over and the editing has begun.

As I write this I have four columns all in various states of completion. The way the due dates for my columns work is that I need to send them in two weeks before they’re published. So, my The X-Files column was published on a Friday and the next column was due the following Monday.

Here’s how the next four columns are shaping up:

• 10/4 – “The Online TV Revolution”:  This column won’t see publication until early October, but I first wrote down the idea for it in early August and also jotted down some basic notes for it then too. I see that there are about a dozen revisions to this column before I got this one in a good place and got down to basic editing and word choices.
• 10/18 – “HALLOWEEN Maximum Overdrive”: I started planning for this column back in July. This one was actually an easy to write once I settled on the idea that Maximum Overdrive is actually a nearly great movie. There were only around five major revisions before I got this one in a good place. Part of my process too is sitting on nearly finished pieces for a few weeks so I can reread with fresh eyes, so who knows what I’ll think of this one next week when I read it?
• 11/1 – “Ender’s Hunger Games”: Right now I’ve got about three major edits to this one but since it doesn’t print for a while it may change greatly between now and then.
• 11/15 – “Doctor Who”: Since this one has to do with the Doctor Who anniversary I’ve been planning on writing something about it since last winter and actually started writing it last summer. Unfortunately, since much of what I wrote was about the new Doctor’s all being relatively young I had to rewrite much of what I’d already written once a new, older, Doctor was chosen as the lead earlier this summer. While this doesn’t print for nearly two months as I write this, I think it’s in a good place and I don’t foresee any major changes to it between now and then.

MORE: The actual writing process