I was having a slow and leisurely start to Tuesday, until I remembered it was the People’s Friend writing hour on Twitter at 11am. Usually I’m late or in a rush to get there or I completely forget about it. It *is* in the diary now, as a weekly event. But if I don’t check my diary, I still forget about it.
I didn’t check my diary, but I did remember it. So I made sure I’d got all of my social media and email stuff out of the way, and I read a couple of chapters for the NetGalley book.
As usual the hour went by really quickly. They ask the kind of questions that make you think. Sometimes it takes me a few minutes to think of a reply, but I always try to say something.
With that out of the way I caught up on Monkey Dust admin that I should have done on Monday but ran out of time. They have three gigs this month. One is a private wedding, so I don’t have to do anything for that. The other two are repeat gigs, which means the posters are quicker to do. I didn’t realise, though, that I could duplicate an event on Facebook. That will also save time.
I listened to podcast episode 14 while I had dinner. Then I worked on Catch the Rainbow. I added 659 words, bringing the current tally to 20,907 words. A call for submissions came in that I’m really interested in having a go at. The deadline is 30 October, so plenty of time there, and I plugged it into the machine (aka added it to my spreadsheets).
Once I’d done the creative work, I pulled out Diary of a Pussycat and did some proofreading.
If I want this book to be ready for publication on Monday 24 July, it needs to be in production by Friday 14 July. I had ten weekdays on which to do this proofreading and if I’d started it on Monday, I’d only have to proofread 16.2 (∴ 17) pages per day. Because I missed a day, I had to divide the work into nine days, and that gives me 18 pages per day. I proof-read 18 pages and plugged that number into my spreadsheet.
Then I turned to the client proofreading job, which is a bit more daunting at 527 pages. I wanted this one off my desk by now, but that’s not realistic. I hijacked a section of my planning spreadsheet for longer works and plugged the information in. With only 19 weekdays on which I can do this work, I have to aim at proofreading 28 pages a day, and I thought I’d best just get on with it.
I proof-read 34 pages.
Finally, I wrote the outline for the short story The City of Glasgow, and moved it along the power board from ‘planning’ to ‘writing’. And then my tea was ready.
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Excellent start to the week!
Thank you!