Summary:

I apparently did paid work on four days this week – plus actually got back to working on novel number five at long last (albeit not in any hugely productive fashion, but still…). So that seems like a good week!

 

Monday:

Back to work after two weeks away – and I was actually looking forward to it, which was a very strange feeling, but a good one!

I had projects lined up from four different repeat clients, which is a great endorsement of my work to date, and also meant I didn’t have to pitch for work while I was on holiday, which was nice.

The two I started today were second rounds of developmental editing on books I’d read before, but which had been greatly transformed by my previous feedback. One was a historical thriller and one was a memoir about being raised in a Christian fundamentalist society.

After lunch, I went through all the feedback I’d received from various people on Meditations and created a revision plan. I also meant to do some work collating notes on Darkness – but, as ever, this got sidelined by other things and I ended up not having time…

 

Tuesday:

I worked on more developmental edits for the cult memoir and also tweaked Meditations a bit, but I was definitely suffering from lack of sleep, so I decided to take it a bit easy today.

So, still no work on Darkness…

 

Wednesday:

I went into Central London to work because I was meeting friends in the evening.

First on the list was my review of Miss Austen by Gill Hornby, which I finished the day before – still not sure what I thought about this…

I started editing a book about famous predatory figures for a regular client in the cafe at Picturehouse Central, planning to camp out there for the day. But it turned out the restaurant was going to be shut from 17:30 for a private party, which would be a problem for meeting up with my friends. So, I ventured out into Soho to seek out a new venue, and fetched up at Brewdog!

I did some more developmental editing on the historical thriller from there. Then I helped Bear post his second holiday instalment.

Then, I really did think about doing some work on Darkness, but I just wasn’t feeling it. I sat and stared into space for a bit, trying to decide if I wanted to read my book or watch TV on my phone. And then I pulled my novel notebook out of my bag (I had lugged it all the way into town, after all), dragged all my motivation to the fore and actually collated some more Darkness notes onto World Anvil!

 

Thursday:

I had a bit of a slow start today but managed to get my brain in gear by 10:30am, to work more on the developmental editing of the cult memoir.

I also started loading the current plot for Darkness into World Anvil. It felt very thin and very obvious in terms of the major twist – but I reminded myself it was still at a very early stage and was still going to be developed a lot more.

 

Friday:

I wrote a review of the Totoro stage show at the Barbican, which I saw the night before.

I also added a special post to Bear’s blog, with pictures of the Totoros who accompanied me to the theatre!

 

Sunday:

I wrote notes for my upcoming author talk at a reading retreat in November. I’d been planning this talk for some years, hoping for an opportunity to be a visiting author, so it was fun to put it all together and anticipate actually giving it.

I also prepped for the next podcast episode by watching the designated film and making my notes.