Waitlisting is hit or miss. It will obviously depend on the resort, room type, time of year, and length of stay. A shorter waitlist might be more likely to come through than longer. So make a reservation at 11 months at your home resort (not sure where your home resort is), and then look to adjust based on what is available at 7 months. In some cases, you might not even need to waitlist. Also, one option we like is the potential of a split stay (not sure if you're interested), where we stay 3/4 nights at our home resort and 3/4 nights at a new non-home resort. If you opt for something like that, a word of advice - "split" your original reservations at 11 months. For example, make a 4-night res at OKW (if that's your home resort), and then follow that with a 3-night (again, just an example). Then if you decide to waitlist for 3 nights at Beach Club, you will have a specific 3 nights to waitlist and replace the 3 nights at OKW. If you have a 7-night single reservation, you can only waitlist/replace all 7 nights. If your waitlist does not come through for a split stay, you can call/chat/email Members Services later to take your 2 OKW reservations, and merge them into a single reservation, if they are the same room category. Sorry - hope this makes sense and doesn't confuse the issue more. It's just a waitlisting lesson we learned awhile back.
The 7-month strategy would be to 'stalk' (checking regularly when eligible), and then 'waitlist'. Also be open to what 'other' resort you might wish to visit. Plan A might not be available, but Plan B could be. Good luck - hope you get to stay where you want to stay!