Weeknotes – S09E07 – Significant Activity

Summary: It was a pretty heavy paid editing week this week (hurrah!) but also a significant milestone in completing the writing accountability course I’ve been on for the last six months.   Monday: I started the week with a goal-setting workshop for creatives at a co-working space in town. The main purpose for me was […]

Weeknotes – S09E02 – Back to Reality

Summary: It was tough, coming back to the real world after Christmas, New Year and a week’s writing retreat – but I did it! Client work – check! Novel writing – check! Short stories – check! Podcast – check!   Monday: I was still trying to get used to rejoining the world after Christmas, New […]

Reflections on 2024

I have an exercise I do at the end of each year, where I track the number of hours of paid work I completed across the year (329.5), the total amount I earned for those hours (£20,275), and therefore my average hourly rate (£62). This year, I worked 62 hours fewer than in 2023, but […]

Self-Publishing Woes

While this blog post is quite negative, I very strongly acknowledge that I am in an extremely lucky position in a lot of ways, including regarding my writing. Also, a large number of people have gone out of their way to help and support me on my writing journey (including this latest stage), and I’m […]

Balancing Paid and Unpaid Work

At this moment in time, I have lots of paid editing work booked in for the next few months – which is really, really awesome! I’m used to a fortnightly schedule, whereby every other Friday, I’m in a position of all my client projects coming to an end, with nothing booked in for the following […]

Seduced By The Shinies

I wrote the first draft of my fifth novel in the first half of 2023 (which I’m very proud of, since it was a slog and I had to keep forcing myself to work on it, but I’m really pleased with the eventual result).   I have useful comments from my wonderful editor, Amie, and […]

Changing Goal Types

The second half of 2022 was a struggle in terms of bolstering my creativity. I felt like I didn’t achieve that much and that I was always trying to force myself to work on my writing projects, and generally failing.   Doing an objective review of what I achieved across the year showed me that […]