Summary:

First draft of fifth novel has begun! Prioritising it at the start of each ‘work’ day has been very successful, and I haven’t had any trouble getting my paid work done afterwards.

 

Monday:

I planned a full cafe day and was set up and ready to get started by 9am. I decided to prioritise my own writing for a change – and actually broke ground on the first draft of Darkness! I managed half of the first scene and felt pretty good about it.

Then I turned my attention to the last in the series of reflective novellas I’ve been working on since November and added comments to the first third.

I determined I was happy with the final draft of my expanded superhero story and submitted it to the magazine editor who requested it last summer. That felt really good, too, as it was an unfinished project that had been languishing for some time.

Next was a new project for a previous client – a very different project to the last one I did for him. Before, I was copy editing fiction for him, and now it was developmental editing of a nonfiction book about software engineering!

Last job of the work day was starting a new project – editing a YA novel about a young girl visiting the wilds of Canada for the summer and having adventures at a horse ranch – absolutely perfect for me!

 

Tuesday:

I have been taking the ‘eat the frog’ approach to the first draft of Darkness this week – working on it first each day. And it’s kind of working! I completed the first scene this morning and the words flowed a bit more easily than yesterday – here’s hoping that becomes a trend. I hit my word count for the scene without too much trouble, so I’m feeling just a little bit better about the whole thing now.

Then it was back to the much easier task of working on paid editing projects! I started with commenting on the next section of the final reflective novella.

Next, I worked on the next section of the software engineering book, making developmental comments. After that, it was back to the YA novel to edit some more of that.

 

Wednesday:

For the first time ever, I worked out a way to connect the climax of the novel back to something that was set up in the opening scene! I also had some random ideas (thanks to the subconscious crew) for the direction of the next two scenes to be written. So I added some notes to my Darkness outline, to remind myself later.

 

Thursday:

It took me a while to settle down to get writing this morning, since I’m still not feeling much enthusiasm for writing Darkness, despite the sterling efforts of the subconscious crew from the day before. But I eventually knuckled down and worked on the second scene, which flowed pretty well once I got started.

Then, it was time for the paid editing part of the working day. I finished commenting on the final reflective novella and sent it back to the author for review and approval. I also made comments on the next section of the software engineering book, and edited some more of the Canadian YA novel.

 

Saturday:

I finished a book I picked up at last week’s reading retreat and wrote my review. I also contacted the author, whom I’d met at the retreat and had an email exchange about his writing.