Summary:

Three really great writing sessions this week and tons of progress on all sorts of projects. It wasn’t always easy, but I stuck to the plan rather than the mood and ended up achieving a lot. Between one thing and another, I wrote over 10,000 words this week, which is several thousand more than I’ve managed in any other week so far this year.

 

Monday:

After years of promising, I finally made it to Harrow today to meet up with Geena on her home turf. The venue was the delightful Miriam’s Munchies and I had some writing time before Geena arrived, so I started with a few reviews.

Then I went back to GYWO Yahtzee and worked on my second entry. I ended up writing a whole 1500 word story, in five sections, which I can easily submit elsewhere. So I posted it on Scribophile for feedback and then did some critiques to get my points back up.

Later I chatted to Geena about one of my story ideas and she came up with a fantastic way to resolve it.

 

Wednesday:

I found out today that I won this week’s Just Back travel writing competition in the Telegraph! By far my biggest success, in terms of both publication circulation and financial reward.

I met Hannah after work and edited Artisan Chapter Twenty-Two.

I did some planning for later in the week, and then completed an in-depth Scribophile critique to get my points up.

 

Thursday:

I took myself to Waterstones on Tottenham Court Road for a writing session, starting off by catching up on Colours. I did the next eight scenes, bringing me back on target in the schedule.

I did some planning for later in the week and then edited the next two chapters of Artisan.

After much faffing and procrastinating, I finally put some words down for a first draft of Perfection, a short story I’ve been planning for some time, the deadline for which was fast approaching. As usual, once I actually got started, it all flowed pretty well.

Then I started work on my next GYWO Yahtzee entry after discovering I was currently at the top of the leaderboard.

I did another Scribophile critique and also went through the comments on the story I posted on Monday, making amendments to the first draft and compiling notes for more extensive revisions.

Later in the evening, I went to a workshop on fantasy writing with Tade Thompson. It was great – we brainstormed ideas around one specific fantastical scenario and then each developed our own story from that and a set of collaboratively created characters. And now I have another potential novel idea to add to my list…

 

Friday:

I went back to the beginning of Colours and did another pass, trying to get all the individual scenes over 400 words and a bit more dynamic.

 

Saturday:

I wrote a review of a book I finished the night before.

 

Sunday:

Whole day’s writing with Urban Writers’ Retreat.

I started with a review of John Wick 3, then completed the first draft of Perfection and posted it on Scribophile for comments. Then I went back to Colours and completed making all the scenes at least 400 words, adding another 1400 words to the manuscript as a whole. I’m going to stick to this word count for scenes going forwards, which makes me feel a bit better about how long the first draft is going to be once completed.

I turned to this week’s Fandom Weekly challenge for a bit of light relief.

Next, I completed another piece for my third GYWO Yahtzee set and completed edits to my short story from Monday.