The past few days have been all about chilling.
I finished the editing job on Tuesday evening at about 7:30pm and it was back with the author by about 8pm, in 3 different files – one with full tracked changes; one with comments only; and one completely clean. I still have a way to go with this one, but I needed to get the first edit off my desk and on his desk for my own sanity, really. And then I stepped away from it.
I don’t know how long I’ll have away from it, but I still have 2 other jobs in from the same client that I need to get going with. I sent her an email asking which one was the priority but until she lets me know, I’m having a breather.
Saying that, I did spend almost the entire day yesterday on farming for potential markets for my short stories. I’ve now found a load of anthologies that are calling for submissions between now and the end of the year as well as a couple of free competitions.
Looking at these calls for submissions gives me ideas for topical or interesting stories and they keep me disciplined. If I want to send any off, then they have to be of a certain word length and in by a certain time, or they have to be to a specific format. Some pay very little, such as a fiver or a tenner, while others pay up to several hundred. But they don’t take your copyright.
Most of them are licensed for a year following publication, others are licensed until they publish them. That means as soon as they’ve used their licence, I can sell them again, but some of them can use them again if they wish without further recompense. Yet others will pay if they use them again. I also selected a few markets that are pure reprint markets, although these tend to be the lowest payers.
I still have to finish my stories for the Around the Campfire anthology – newsletter subscribers will get an update on that – and I think I missed one of the Christmas anthologies I was going to have a go at… well, I’ve not actually missed it yet, because the deadline is 31 August, but with a holiday on the horizon, I do need to work quick if I still want to send them something. And you never know, I might get a bit of a whim to do that yet.
I’ve been catching up on a lot of my reading, mostly for my own pleasure rather than for book reviews. I also have 6 new short stories I want to polish and get into the publishing schedule as part of my publishing challenge.
But I’ve been doing all of this (since submitting the editing job) at an uber-relaxed pace. I mean, it’s a heatwave out there and I’m a winter person.
So that’s what I’ve been doing. What have you been doing?
