Camp NaNoWriMo – Day 4

We had a good weekend … apart from the dog not feeling very well. He has a bit of a garbage-mouth, so we’re not surprised when he gets the runs every once in a while. We are keeping an eye on him, though.

The intention was to do some work on Saturday if I could, and I did manage an hour or so. But then I was distracted (ooh, shiny …) by Canva again, and I had a play on that. I also started to read a new book – a writers’ guide – and already I’m wanting to apply what I’m learning. (It’s Show, Don’t Tell, by Sandra Gerth, whose books are ace.)

The work I managed was some editing in Word. The file had somehow formatted itself to do some weird stuff, and it had delayed me getting some advance chapters back to the client on Friday. I think I’ve worked it out, though, so will hopefully get something back to her today.

I also managed some diary work and I’ve decided that I really am a diary person. I’ve tried a couple of different planners and I’ve tried keeping it all online. But nothing works as well for me as a proper diary, and so I’m reverting back.

The diary I already had for this year wasn’t my first choice. The appointments were quite sparse, and they’d printed the day and date on the inside of the page instead of the outside, so you can’t flick through it and find where you want very easily.

So I treated myself and ordered a bright yellow A5 mid-year day-a-page desk diary, with appointments. It’s due to arrive on Thursday. I prefer the mid-year or academic diaries as my new writing year always starts in September. Because you can’t often buy them off the shelf, I’d given up for a couple of years and made do with ordinary diaries. But I think I’ll just start to order them in the future at around this time of year.

I also have half a dozen brightly coloured exercise books coming. We’ve been looking for some nice exercise books for me but haven’t been very successful, and I needed to order something else so I got free delivery. And so I have 6 new notebooks coming too.

The poet went back to work last Wednesday, which was a bit of a shock to the system and he wanted a rest at the weekend. But he cut two of the lawns on Sunday, and we tidied up the vegetable garden. We also nipped out to get garden canes as he’d run out and the peas were all falling over and tangling themselves up in each other.

I’m starting the week with 3 x 10-hour days, as I have a client deadline on Wednesday, I’ve promised the above-mentioned client some chapters back so she can start to read through it all, and I have some articles to edit for the content provider. Plus, I have 5 days of Camp NaNo to write.

So, out came the Pomodoro, as well as my Toggle (timesheet), I set the timer, and off I went …

I started with 45 minutes of admin work, which includes checking emails, writing blog posts, and scanning the job boards. I can’t take on any more work at the moment, but I still like to keep the list at least acknowledged. If I “hide” them now, I won’t be faced with a gigantic list when I do come to look for work. You also never know when one might still jump out and grab you anyway.

Then I did the content editing work as a stack had come in on Friday morning and I didn’t have time to do it all before the weekend. That took up 2 hours.

Then I wrote, and I set the NaNo timer again to see if there was any improvement. There wasn’t because I stopped to look through photographs again. I’ll try again tomorrow. And I wrote 1,956 words against my 1,860 daily target. For the rest of the week, this will be my first job of the day again.

And then I got on with client work in the time that was left. Before finishing for the day, I checked in again on the content editing job, and there was another article added. That one will have to wait until my next session for them.

Total random close, but … it’s time I booked a haircut …

word meter from Writertopia