Summary:

Really got into the novel revision this week, and actually enjoyed it, which was a very pleasant surprise!

Monday:

I set out early for my writing date with Ann at Good & Proper. I hadn’t done much actual writing for the last two or three weeks, so was hoping a whole day in my favourite cafe would set me back on track.

I eased myself in gently with a writing prompt from Pobble 365, then wrote a letter to Writing Magazine in response to one in this month’s issue.

I then moved on to Artisan, organising my revision notes onto a schedule, based on my Winchester deadlines. It’s an ambitious plan, and I can’t afford to waste the opportunity presented by Winchester, but I feel a lot better now it’s all prioritised and I can see exactly how much I need to do and by when.

I took a break by drafting my first March GYWO discussion post and catching up on my reviews.

Then I took a deep breath, and launched into the new and improved Artisan Revision Plan! I did all seven of the quick wins, which made me feel as if I was really making progress at long last.

I read the next chapter of the Self-Editing book.

Overall, it was an extremely productive day and made me feel a lot better about the immediate future of my writing projects.

Wednesday:

I had a writing date scheduled with Hannah but she didn’t make it. It was a shame not to see her, but I still managed to get a lot done.

I went through the whole of the current draft of Artisan and added information about transport and how all the characters get from one place to another. I had thought this would be a mammoth task, but my notecards really helped, and it only actually took about 90 minutes.

Thursday:

I took advantage of a trip out of London for a work training session to do some more Artisan revision. My editor identified one of the minor characters as important, but not having enough to do to make her arc credible. So, I decided to put her back in as a point-of-view character (which she had been in an earlier draft) and bulk up her part in the story. I went through the previous draft, finding all her POV scenes and saving them in a new file, then inserted notecards into my current stack where these scenes should go. I then went through the rest of my current draft (which takes the story a lot further than the previous one) and highlighted scenes that should be switched to her POV, or where new scenes from her POV should be added.

I thought this would take much longer than it did, and I finished up with a very clear path to inserting this character’s POV back into the novel, which will also be much faster than I had anticipated. Hurrah for notecards! They really do make it so much easier to track aspects of the novel and figure out how to change things without screwing it all up.

Friday:

The recording of my short story, Customer Service, went live on The Centropic Oracle today! It was great fun hearing my characters be brought to life, and I thought the narration was excellent. I cringed at a couple of lines that could have been better written, but overall I enjoyed listening to it.

Saturday:

I went into town early to take advantage of the time leading up to a lunch date with my family, and settled in at Eat on the South Bank. I was still feeling enthused about the Artisan revisions, so I launched into sorting out the new/old POV stream I’d worked out earlier in the week. It proved quite easy to put the old scenes into the current draft, though the necessary tweaking and formatting took longer than I expected. Still, I got a good way through before deciding to call it a day, and also discovered there was a scene randomly missing from the current draft, which I managed to slot back in from a previous one.

Sunday:

I sent my latest GYWO discussion post for publication, and also released a slightly edited version on my blog.

I sent out eleven submissions for various publication opportunities and competitions, which took nearly three hours and was very tedious. But, I guess you’ve got to speculate to accumulate!