Working with agility in my day to day life we talk a lot about; "the definition of done."A clearly defined set of deliverables and functionalities that needs to be completed for the product or service to be considered complete.
But what does that really mean when it comes to your own book?
I started to write The Secret of the Crying Minds already year 2012, a story formed in my head that I wanted to get out on paper. The rough draft for the first three books was written in around two years. After that, the writing became a bit of a roller coaster ride.
A year could pass when I didn't have the time to revisit the book. When I did have time to write, I wasn't happy with what I had done before due to new experiences and ideas in between. Edit, add, edit, add... It became a wheel of an impossible task to finish.
My baby, my story, was so much better in my head than on paper...
Rounds, and rounds of feedback from friends and family, more edits.
Is this good enough? Will people feel my English is too bad - being Swedish?
The plot and characters are excellent and robust, but what about the fact that I am not educated in the English language after college? Will that be a problem?
Can a self-taught, hard-working single mum write a book?
Clearly, JK Rowling did, but can I?
Does this sound familiar to you? Or maybe it was just me...
Not until I suddenly became furloughed from one day to another in the middle of the Pandemic, I saw an opportunity to finally finish the book(s) I had started.
I was determined to turn this horrible situation and period in our lives to something as positive and productive as possible.
Lucky and in good health, this was the opportunity I needed.
No more excuses, no more keeping the story for only my own critical self or very kind friends and family...
So, in the middle of homeschooling two children, be the dinner lady, two teachers and a mum all at the same time (chaos), I started my "scrum book launch backlog planning."
Backlog:
Edit book
Manuscript ready to publish
Book cover design
ISBN
Blurb and descriptions
Logo and brand
Create a social media presence:
Perhaps not very scrum like, I did put a deadline to this backlog and definition of done, to be the 1 June.
Why did I do that?
1. I work better towards a deadline.
2. I knew that after the 1 June (hopefully) everything would go back to normal and my chance of completing the first book at this point in my life would probably disappear overnight.
Little did I know about the complexity of a pandemic and lockdown.
It's hard to believe... In six sprints, I have managed to fulfil my dreams - I actually did it!
A huge thank you to Joanna Folan, Maria Rosberg and my amazing parents (the sprint team) who made this possible.
Even if only my parents buy my book, I am so proud of myself and forever thankful to all the people around me who made this happen during these world-wide challenging times.
In my next blog post, I will talk about how I did it a bit more in detail.