Diary of a Tiger: Fri 30 Sep 2022

Chapter 35: Friday 30 September – or ‘at least I’m on the right day today’

Disaster! We both slept in. Really badly. So I didn’t get the early start I planned. However, I always think that if we do sleep in, then we were clearly tired and needed the rest. Or at least one of us did.

It was really, really nice to be able to open the door to the office and come to work. The cat has found her happy place on a cat mat on the windowsill where she was snoozing happily as I started to write this blog post. The dog has a basket in the office too, but with the poet working elsewhere in the house, the dog didn’t want to settle.

The first thing I did, once I’d ploughed through social media and daily competitions, was open up an email from the ghostwriting client with the revisions for Part 1. I’d already noticed a few errors/inconsistencies in Part 1 and the beta reader noted some of those too. It was good to get some feedback, though, and there are always good suggestions to take forward into the rest of the book.

Committing the beta reader feedback to percolate in my subconscious, the next thing I did was have a fiddle with my desktop wallpaper. This is something I created in Canva and it has Heinlein’s rules for writing on, photographs of the poet, the dog and the cat, and a few Post-it! graphics with things like the poet’s phone number on and the house post code, for when I’m asked for one or the other.

So I went into Canva and pulled up the image, then I replaced the old post code with the new post code, and I changed the background picture and the colours. Then I added a new Post-it! graphic for the landline number. I also print out this information in a big bold font and put it on the wall of both of our offices. Now when I change that, we’ll only need it once between us.

For info, here are those writing rules:

• You must write.
• You must finish what you start.
• You must refrain from rewriting except to editorial order.
• You must put it on the market.
• You must keep it on the market until sold.

I can’t believe that we’re at the end of September. There are only 3 months left in the year, and one of them is NaNoWriMo. I was going to finish the campfire stories during NaNo in November, but some of them are topical for this year, so I may put them into the regular writing and publishing challenge.

I need to start thinking a lot further ahead, but I won’t be publishing a book a week after the end of October. By then I’ll have done that and I’ll know I can do it – and so will everyone else!

Dean Wesley Smith, another fantastic motivator for me, is starting a new challenge from 1 October. I don’t think I can write enough stories to fill 18 collections of 6 stories like he plans to do before the end of the year, but I might be able to revive Words Worth Writing in the new year and I’ll need fresh material for that.

In the meantime, I have one month to plan for NaNo, because I do want to do it as it’s another good kick up the bum for me.

Yesterday was the last Thursday in the month and that meant monthly newsletter day. If you sign up for my newsletter, you get a free short story with every issue. I’m also uploading previous newsletters to a secret place that only recipients of the newsletter will see, in case they miss any or want to see any that came out before they joined. I’m still working on that, though.

I didn’t have a lot to say in the newsletter, and I forgot to change ‘Doncaster’ at the bottom to ‘Rotherham’. But it’s gone and it should be in your inboxes by now.

I started again on the ghostwriting, but the poet went into his second Teams meeting of the day, so instead I worked on the revisions for Part 1 and sent those back to the client. When I’d done that, and the poet had finished his meeting, I went back to the ghostwriting.

I started planning work for October, and worked into the evening on the ghostwriting, only taking a break to add some words to one of my writers’ guides.

Today I need to finish the ghostwriting and get it submitted. When I’ve done that, I have a short story to polish and then publish in time for Monday release. I might polish the story, do some ghostwriting, and go back to the story to ensure it’s as good as it can be.

I don’t think I’ll be doing much work at the weekend. We have shopping to do and Monkey Dust have a gig on Saturday. Then we still have boxes to empty and sort out. If I do anything, it will be short story work or planning.

Have a great weekend!

Sign up for my newsletter
If you would like to receive my newsletter, please follow this link or use the form below to sign up and receive your first free short story.

And don’t forget, you can unsubscribe at any time.