Last week & this week

Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay

I forgot to mention in Friday’s post that the two publications I applied to join as a contributor both came back with acceptances. I’m really pleased about this because one of them in particular is one of the top publications and is run like a proper business.

Once I’d got these two under my belt, I ducked out of the one I wasn’t very happy with. We were a poor match and their standard of writing wasn’t that high.

I didn’t want their editors editing my stories so that the writing was of a lower standard, and nor did I want my stories buried beneath those written by the owner.

I know I seem to be banging on about Medium at the moment, but it’s forming a part of my new business strategy. It’s been a slow-burn, but I’ve only been posting for 5 weeks or so, and at least the pennies have started to trickle in.

Apparently, the trickle is faster when you have 150 stories or more on there. At the time of writing, I had 62 published and 2 more in draft. One of those drafts I’m going to break into two and start to query publications with them.

I didn’t stay on at fat club on Thursday as we hadn’t had tea yet. Despite weighing ¼lb less at home, they had me at the same weight there. Typically, the morning after, I’d lost ½lb. Let’s see if I can keep it off this week.

Here’s how the rest of Friday went:

• found out how to publish stories to Medium from the mobile phone¹
• epublished Chapter 16 of Diary of a Scaredy Cat on Medium
• epublished Chapter 17 of Night Crawler on Medium
• republished Do You Need a Logo? on Medium
• shared links for the Medium stories on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook
• made the link for Night Crawler free to Facebook friends
• drafted the next two chapters for both books and posted them to my Medium stories folder
• chased an invoice²
• terminated a contract that had gone to sleep
• started today’s blog post (528 words)
• collected repeat prescription
• weekly shopping

Words written today = 528

¹As I didn’t want to be tied to the desk again for another weekend, I really wanted to either schedule posts to post or stick them in the drafts folder and post them from the phone. Now that I know how to post them from the phone, I’ll do that for the time being, until I know that scheduling works.

²The invoice was paid by the end of the day.

We had a bit of a lazy day on Saturday, only going to visit the MiL. While we were out, I successfully published 2 of those chapters to Medium from the phone.

On Sunday, with it being Father’s Day, we went for a day out to Hathersage. On the way back, we visited friends in Barnsley, then the daughter and her family in Doncaster. I think it was about 8:30pm by the time we got home.

The ghostwriting client had been in touch, but I wasn’t in a position to reply until we were back home. He was just making sure that I knew that he was happy for #5 to start on Monday.

I’d already posted the next 2 chapters to Medium, not only from the phone but also while I was still in bed!

Here’s how last week went in the end:

• finish 3rd instalment of ghostwriting gig #4 ✅
• write bonus short story for ghostwriting gig #4 (3,000 words) ✅
• write 1 short story/series instalment (2,000 words or 3,500 words) ❎
• write 500 words per day on The Beast Within ❎
• write 500 words per day on Project Management for Writers ❎
• continue to prepare the query for an article ✅
• epublish Night Crawler chapters on Medium daily ✅
• epublish Diary of a Scaredy Cat chapters on Medium daily ✅
• write a blog post every day, including Wednesday’s writing prompts ✅
• epublish a short story from the archives on Medium (Ash Wednesday) ✅
• epublish a Wednesday Writing Prompts from the archives on Medium ✅
• republish Twee Tales paperback on KDP ❎
• republish Twee Tales Too paperback on KDP ❎
• republish Twee Tales Twee paperback on KDP ❎
• continue to publish and epublish Baggins Bottom Best Bits Book 4 ❎

8 ✅ 7 ❎

I have two appointments this coming week. One is my second Covid vaccination; the other is a hair cut for the two of us.

The poet had more side effects last week following his 2nd jab, so I’m hoping I get off relatively free. However, the week will be shortened.

Here, then, is the plan for this week:

• start 1st instalment of ghostwriting gig #5
• start to write 1 brand-new short story or series instalment (target: 2,000 words or 3,500 words)
• start to plan 1 brand-new article for Medium
• request another Medium publication adds me as a contributor
• publish Night Crawler chapters on Medium daily
• publish Diary of a Scaredy Cat chapters on Medium daily
• write a blog post every day, including Wednesday’s writing prompts
• publish a short story from the archives on Medium (Bonfire Surprise)
• publish a Wednesday Writing Prompts from the archives on Medium
• republish Twee Tales paperback on KDP
• republish Twee Tales Too paperback on KDP
• republish Twee Tales Twee paperback on KDP
• continue to proofread Baggins Bottom Best Bits Book 4
• publish A Stranger At Eight on Kindle Unlimited (short story)
• publish Arrivederci Roma on Kindle Unlimited (short story)
• publish Ash Wednesday on Kindle Unlimited (short story)
• start to collate content for Words Worth Reading monthly magazine
• start to read through Mardi Gras (steampunk novella)
• read the next book on the list for NetGalley
• have my 2nd Covid jab (Wednesday)
• hair cut (Friday)

Phew! So, what’s your plan this week?