Summary:

A bit light on the work front, but some unexpected repeat clients popping up to tide me over. Great writing solidarity from friends and good progress on the new novel, despite a lack of motivation.

 

Monday:

I’d spent the last four days on a solo reading retreat, completing four whole books, so I wrote reviews for the last three of them.

 

Tuesday:

After four days off of very intense reading time, it took me a while to get back into the swing of things today – especially since none of my current editing projects are paying ones…

Still, I managed to get to my desk by 9am and freeglanced another blog post for Dave. I then finished providing feedback on my friend Hannah’s latest middle-grade fantasy manuscript, and also read a chunk more of Sam’s cozy mystery novel and added some comments to it.

I tried to work on the next scene of my current novel, A Wizard Calls My Name, before lunch but I got 230 words in to one of the hardest moments in the story and ground to a halt.

I had a chat with the lovely Revision Club members in our usual weekly session, and had an epiphany about how to approach the scene. So, I pressed on in our focus session and completed my target 2000 words, which was a big relief.

 

Wednesday:

I had a great book coaching call with Karen, who did a full developmental edit of my last novel, A Darkness Divided, for free, as part of her editing qualification. I made some really good notes for the revisions.

 

Thursday:

Coworking in Shoreditch again today – though it turned out to be solo as nobody had turned up by noon, so I took myself off somewhere else for an excellent lunch and more work in a different venue.

After stating yesterday on the Editors Learn Together Slack that I had no paid editing work currently booked in, two previous clients got in touch out of the blue to offer me more work for the next couple of weeks! So, freelance total unpredictability is still in full effect!

So, this morning, I started a new copy editing project on a book about positive mindsets. I also read some more of Sam’s mystery novel and made comments.

My disrupted work day wasn’t massively conducive to productivity, though, and I came home early, with zero motivation for working on the novel. I decided preparing for the next podcast episode was more important (and more appealing) so I started watching the (very long) film I’d selected and made some notes.

I also wrote a very whinge-y blog post about self-publishing.

 

Friday:

I sent out my monthly editing/writing newsletter, proclaiming that I had hit 20% in my first draft of Wizard – which wasn’t strictly true at the time of sending, since I failed to write a new scene the day before.

So, in order to make that right, I thought I’d better get on with it – so I wrote the next scene.

I also watched some more of The Ten Commandments and made notes for the podcast.

 

Saturday:

Today was the official launch of The Book That Needs to Be Written – Sean’s six-month follow-up accountability/support group of writers mostly from the retreat I went on in July. It was great to see people again, feel motivated and inspired, share writing experiences and discover that others are just as keen as me to meet up face-to-face more often.

We did some very useful freewriting exercises that helped me crystallise some aspects of Wizard and I’m very much looking forward to the rest of the course.

 

Sunday:

I freeglanced yet another blog post for Dave.

I also watched quite a bit more of The Ten Commandments and made notes, as well as setting up my script for the next solo podcast episode, which is on Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir.

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