Summary:

I wrote every day this week, which I know I decided was a bad idea, after the July Camp Nano experience. But the daily aspect was mostly small, fun exercises, and I had a relaxed approach to it in terms of not putting myself under too much pressure, so it was okay.

 

Monday:

I wrote a list of what I wanted to work on today and in what order, reminding myself that all progress is good progress, and that I have found I enjoy the process more and actually get more done if I’m more relaxed about how much I want to achieve.

I completed Day Three of AWC’s Mojo Month, which continued to be fun and interesting. Today was all about thinking about the future.

My Mojo Month goal was to put Colours at the front of each writing session (so to work on it for an hour at the start of each morning slot, and then again at the start of each afternoon slot) so I then moved onto Colours editing. My brainstorming session with Dave from the night before resulted in a plan of moving ahead with the smaller and easier edits, just to get moving on it, and let the bigger problems hopefully take care of themselves further down the line. The rationale behind this was just to make progress and feel better about the whole thing, rather than letting myself get paralysed by the big void of the new ending, which I don’t know how to fix yet.

I picked what was probably the easiest set of edits, as they were confined to a small section of the narrative, and worked through them, completing the whole set, thus enabling me to cross out an entire page in my notebook, which felt good.

I wrote a review of the book I finished the night before, then went back to my horror short story to revise it based on feedback from one of the TL;DR writers. When my next draft was complete, I sent it to another TL;DR writer for further feedback.

Later, I edited a blog post for Dave and did some submissions.

Thousand Year Old Vampire continued to provide a light challenge and a way to feel productive without having to concentrate on anything too much.

 

Tuesday:

I completed Day Four of AWC’s Mojo Month. Today’s segment was about loneliness and isolation, and it turned out I was already doing all the things they suggested for mitigating the effects of separation from other people, so that was good.

I also added a few more scenes to my vampire game, just to keep the story flowing.

Later, I had a bolt of inspiration about an upcoming submission opportunity, so added to my notes for the story I was planning.

 

Wednesday:

Day Five of AWC’s Mojo Month – all about procrastination, which isn’t something I have all that much trouble with generally, but it’s always good to get tips and remind myself I don’t need to be ‘in the right frame of mind’ to write.

 

Thursday:

I completed my scoring for my first TL;DR anthology submission, then did Day Six of AWC’s Mojo Month.

 

Friday:

Day Seven of AWC’s Mojo Month, which was all about imposter syndrome. This is something I have been a victim of in the past, but not really about my writing, at least not for a while. I think my writing is generally good, and reasonably often it’s good enough for publication – but it’s not often great, and I’m okay with that. I could spend a lot more time and energy making it better, but I’m happy with the balance I have between quality and enjoyment.

 

Saturday:

There was a lot of faff this morning before I finally sat down to write.

I did Day Eight of AWC’s Mojo Month, then turned to Colours. The bigger issues still felt too much to tackle (I decided I needed to make a better plan – yay, more notes organisation – so I could break these down a bit more into manageable chunks – maybe tomorrow) so I went through all my notes and picked off all the quick wins. These were checking the timeline, making minor amendments to specific scenes and adding a few words here and there.

Then I wrote my script for the next main podcast episode, which we were due to record later in the day.

Later, I did my second set of edits for the TL;DR anthology and also provided feedback on another TL;DR writer’s story. I also added submission opportunities from this month’s Writing Magazine to my rolling spreadsheet.

 

Sunday:

I started off with Day Nine of AWC’s Mojo Month, which was about daily rituals, as distinct from daily habits. A daily writing habit doesn’t work for me at all, but daily rituals around meditation, tea-making, and going for walks are all great for recharging my creative energy.

Then I settled down to review my notes on Colours and work out a less overwhelming approach to my editing plan. I managed to organise some of the notes into a more coherent fashion to show me a way forwards for a couple of aspects.