This year, I’ve been having monthly calls with Claire from CP’s Day Off. They are designed as an accountability mechanism, to help writers define their goals, identify obstacles to progress and work towards achievement. All of that is good stuff, though Claire and I are both aware that I’m probably more organised and productive than […]
Category: Blog
Weeknotes – S05E16 – Just Getting On With It
Summary: Reasonably steady progress throughout the week, with particularly good sessions at the start and end. Glad to have finished a first draft of a long-ish short story that’s been in my head for weeks. Monday: There was a whole lot of faffing about with booking holidays, sorting admin, updating websites, reading online articles […]
Weeknotes – S05E15 – Weird But Exciting Times
Summary: I have no idea what else happened this week (writing-related or non-writing-related) because contact with a publisher on Thursday and over the weekend pushed everything else into the background. Monday: I got feedback on my TL;DR Flash Fiction Competition entry so I tweaked it a bit and then submitted it. The final version […]
Weeknotes – S05E14 – Go, Crew, Go!
Summary: Awesome week on the writing front, with the subconscious crew going absolutely above and beyond on the novel, a longish short story and a flash fiction piece – all without waking me up before 8:30am! Go, crew! Monday: I started out with my Hour of Writes marking for this week’s competition. Then, after […]
Weeknotes – S05E13 – Relinquishing the To-Do List
Summary: Lots of progress on lots of fronts this week, mostly fuelled by relinquishing the to-do list and trying to see my writing projects as things I want to spend time on, rather than obligations I have to get through before I can take time off. It worked really well, so hopefully I can maintain […]
Weeknotes – S05E12 – Progress on All Fronts
Summary: Lots more progress on the third novel, and even a draft of a new flash fiction piece as well, not to mention another podcast episode completed. Go, me! Monday: The subconscious crew started the week with a ton of new ideas for Safeguarding, filling in small (and huge) holes in the plot, working out […]
Weeknotes – S05E11 – Third Novel Well Underway
Summary: Good progress on the third novel, with some other bits and pieces thrown in – though I really want to dedicate some time to a new short story next week. Monday: I broke my usual rule this morning and started out with several submissions and a Bear post, rather than Safeguarding. But, in […]
Sticking With It
Fantasy author, Juliet McKenna, wrote a fantastic review of my debut novel, The Defiant Spark, recently, including some very interesting thoughts about reviewing in general. She also invited me to write a guest post on her blog and here’s what I came up with: I first met Juliet as one of my tutors at […]
Weeknotes – S05E10 – Breaking New Ground
Summary: I finally broke new ground on novel number three, which was exciting! I didn’t get quite as far as I’d hoped across the week, but all progress is good progress, and I’m very much on track for a completed first draft before the end of the year. Monday: Scheduled focus session with Ann […]
Weeknotes – S05E09 – Bears Must Suffer For Their Art
Summary (this was Feb 22 to Feb 28): Quite a range of writing activities this week, including a rather more hair-raising adventure with Bear than was anticipated. Monday: The now regular focus session with Ann got me up and organised to write by 9am. I started with the ‘single most important thing’, which was […]