Summary:

Tons of progress and ideas and achievements on all fronts this week, and mostly working on projects because I actually wanted to, rather than it feeling like a chore. Hurrah!

 

Monday:

I was up and at my desk by 8am but I had a ton of email to sort through and lots of life admin to organise, so I hadn’t done any writing tasks by the time Ann joined our focus session a bit after 9am.

However, once all the admin was out of the way, I launched straight back into Safeguarding, even though there was only a short time available before my accountability call with Claire from CP’s Day Off.

Had a good call with Claire, all about finding time for things in unexpected places, and also taking time to get used to the idea of rejoining the world and how that will look in terms of writing schedule.

Then I finished the next Safeguarding scene.

Later, I helped Bear post about our geocaching adventure at the weekend, and also wrote a blog post about letting go of the to-do list.

I also watched the next Brandon Sanderson lecture, which was the second one on plot. It explained to me why my novel-writing got so much easier once I started doing a proper outline – whilst I would prefer to do discovery writing (just launching in and seeing what happens), that leads to a whole lot of required revision (which I absolutely hate). Whereas, if you do a lot of prep work up front, your first draft will be much cleaner and won’t require as much reworking. That was definitely true comparing the first novel (no plan) to the second (fairly extensive plan) to the third (pretty much everything worked out beforehand). Seems like this Sanderson guy knows that he’s talking about!

 

Tuesday:

I finished a graphic novel and wrote my review.

Later, I had my focus session with Hannah, during which she provided her usual excellent feedback on the dragon story and I brainstormed ideas for a couple of interesting upcoming anthology submissions.

 

Thursday:

Lots of complicated financial shenanigans got in the way of me starting on writing until quite late, but my regular focus session with Claire from CP’s Day Off got me back on track and I wrote the next Safeguarding scene.

Then I did a few submissions and completed prep work for the Q&A session planned with CP and some of her regular workshop attendees on what I’ve learned on the road to publication.

Later, I edited the latest episode of the podcast.

Then I finished another graphic novel and wrote my review.

Considering I also got a ton of useful admin done, took the car to the garage, went for a run and a long walk, I think this was an extremely productive day all round!

 

Friday:

I went through all the excellent feedback I received from both Hannah and one of the TL;DR writers on my dragon story and revised it accordingly before submitting it. I was very pleased with this story overall and have high hopes for it being accepted.

I also finished another graphic novel and wrote my review.

 

Saturday:

I was going to take today off from writing projects, but I woke up really early and couldn’t get back to sleep, so I figured I might as well make use of the extra awake time.

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

Then I started an online writing course from The Carterhaugh School about injecting more fun into your writing, with a focus on folklore.

Later, I watched the next Brandon Sanderson lecture, which was mostly a Q&A on the stuff covered so far, but also touched on viewpoint.

 

Sunday:

I was again planning to take today off from writing projects, but I hit the middle of the afternoon and had already read a ton of my current book, done some knitting while watching TV, written lots in my journal and done a personal training session in the park – and I wanted to feel productive (I really need to work on learning how to relax…) so I did some more of the Carterhaugh course.

It was about using Vladimir Propp’s 31 building blocks of fairy tales in your writing and I came up with a really fun variation: Roll a D20 and a D12 and minus 1 to determine your number of plot points. Then repeat the formula (D20+D12-1) that many times and write down each identified block to provide your outline. That way, you have archetypal plot points but in a random order that forces you to think creatively to get the story to work. I decided to apply the technique for my next short story, so made some notes accordingly.

Later, on a long geocaching expedition, Dave and I hatched a potential plan for me to start seeking paid proofreading/editing work to supplement my income.