Summary:

I tried a new schedule but it didn’t work out entirely to plan – the novel suffered but I got tons of paid work done and made good progress on the novella.

 

Monday:

I put together a whole new schedule for the next few weeks, aiming to work on four mornings instead of three ‘full’ days. This was designed to free up the afternoons to do fun things with my husband, while he’s not working.

So, today was the first planned day of the new routine and I was a bit concerned about managing to fit everything in and not shortchange the novel or the novella.

Because I wasn’t sure how much I’d be able to get done, I started with paid work, rather than the novel, as I had sections of time outside the official routine set aside for novel/novella catch-up, if required.

I started with the mythology book, then went on to a new self-help project, and finally the next section of the yoga novel.

I completed all the scheduled client work in three hours, but something came up and I didn’t get around to doing my own writing, but that’s okay. I think I’m much more likely to find time later in the day for client work than my own, so I planned to go back to alternating for future ‘work’ days, in order to try and keep a balance between the two.

Later, the subconscious crew turned up in my meditation class again, so I hastily wrote some novella notes afterwards. I also wrote a long overdue blog post about motivation (again!) and helped Bear post about our afternoon caching expedition.

So, overall, a very productive day!

 

Tuesday:

I started with the novella today, since the deadline for that was much sooner than for the novel, so the buffer for missing scenes was shorter too. The next scene flowed pretty well – 1400 words in 45 minutes isn’t bad!

Then I went back to editing the next chapter of the 1980s novel, the next section of the mythology book and the next chunk of the yoga novel.

Everything took longer than I expected, which could be a problem with keeping to the new schedule, since I didn’t finish until 3pm today, and I should have been done by 1pm, including doing the next novel scene! Ah, well! At least the flexibility of freelancing means I can always shift things around a bit if I need to.

Later, I finished an audiobook and wrote my review.

 

Wednesday:

Since Monday and Tuesday had proved harder work than anticipated, I decided to give myself the whole day off today! I also shifted everything around so I could take tomorrow off too, to give my thumb a decent rest.

 

Thursday:

I finished my twelfth book of the month and wrote my review.

 

Friday:

Back to work with a vengeance today!

I finished editing the mythology book and sent it back to the publisher for review and approval. I also did developmental edits on yet another romance outline (none of which have ever yet turned into a full manuscript – or not that any of the clients have asked me to edit, anyway…).

Then it was back to the novella for the next scene, which went pretty well.

I edited the next sections of both the 1980s novel and the yoga novel.

So, an extremely productive day to round off the work week! Even if I didn’t get back to writing Darkness…

 

Sunday:

I wrote some reviews – a theatre trip, a cinema trip and an unfinished book.