Summary:

The joy is definitely back! But I’m taking it slow, trying not to put too much pressure on my writing, in case it goes away again… Lots of good stuff this week, but in small chunks.

 

Monday:

I woke up full of enthusiasm (despite having finished my major retreat project the day before) so I launched in with this month’s GYWO discussion post, then wrote a blog post based on my experiences of the previous week about getting out of my own way.

Later, I did some brainstorming for some upcoming short story submission opportunities.

 

Wednesday:

Last day of my at-home retreat, so I decided to try and make it count!

I wrote my script for the next podcast episode. Then I revised an existing story to fit an upcoming submission opportunity and submitted it, along with several others to different publications.

Later, I continued brainstorming one of the possible short stories from earlier in the week. I set the subconscious crew the task of coming up with a way to start it on Saturday morning.

 

Friday:

I wrote two reviews, one of a film and one of a board game.

I also signed up for an online outlining course from The Novelry.

 

Saturday:

I woke up early, eager to get started on my writing to-do list for the day. I started out with a couple of meditation exercises from TINACAW, setting up my writing space and connecting with my inner mentor. I did my TINACAW weekly review, then started Connection, the new short story I brainstormed earlier in the week. The subconscious crew came up with an opening scene right on schedule so I drafted that.

I did a review of my progress over the year and discovered that Connection would be my fifteenth brand new short story of 2020 (not counting a handful of throwaway flash pieces I’m not pursuing for publication). This was more than I would have guessed, which was a nice surprise.

Then I logged into The Novelry site and started my new course, with a view to embarking on novel number three – working title Safeguarding. I completed the two introductory lessons and made some notes.

Next came the fourth TINACAW live workshop, which was awesome, as expected.

 

Sunday:

Sunday is usually my day off, when I give myself permission not to think about writing for the day. But I woke up excited to carry on with both my current writing projects, so I fired up the Novelry course and did another lesson, with a view to developing the idea for Safeguarding.

I wrote some notes for both Safeguarding and Connection based on what I learned in the course lesson and came up with some interesting new ideas for both, which I then left to percolate.