“Who are you and what have you done with my wife?”
That’s how the poet greeted me yesterday morning when I bounced out of bed at the crack of dawn with him. He was off on a long-haul drive across t’hill (over the Pennines). It was 7am, so not that early. Even so, it was Very Early for me. However, since about 6am, when I let the dog out, my mind was whirling with things I have to do. So I got up early to commit them all to paper.
Yes, paper. One of my lovely touchy-feely A5 notebooks, in fact.
Before breakfast, even, I started my list. And I wrote it out in order of priority, i.e. what MUST be done first. There were two lists: one long (mine); one short (client’s). In fact, the client’s list consisted of a grand total of two, because I’ve been restricting client work to just one client. Then I had to work out what had to be done by when, using future issues of Words Worth Reading as a basis, as well as usual and existing calls for submissions.
Once I’d done that, ‘my’ list looked, if a bit scrappy. But from the top, here it is:
- Re-issue Words Worth Reading magazine (it’s due out on 1 October, but I break up for another week’s holiday at the end of next week)
- Plan & write The Ace of Swords short story
- Revise & submit The City of Glasgow short story
- Write & publish Project Management for Writers: Gate 3 writer’s guide
- Write & submit The Mucky Duck short story
- Write & submit A Winter’s Promise short story
- Write & submit A Midsummer Crime’s Dream short story
- Write & submit Ghost Hunters short story
- Revise & submit Take Your Pick short story
- Brainstorm & outline Lady Mathilda Investigates novella
The orange bits are actually highlighted yellow in my notes, but the yellow didn’t really work on here. That’s what I want to FINISH before we break up at the end of next week. The green bits are what I have in so far for October. Blue is for November.
Obviously, I expect to get a lot more added to the list before the end of October, but this at least gives me some focus on what to work on now.
It didn’t take me all day to do just that. I also learned how to make a magazine in Affinity Publisher 2. I did some costing, and the prices they charge for magazine production, even on demand, are a bit prohibitive at the moment. But I will make a pdf of the magazine available to paid subscribers on Substack. Newsletter subscribers get a free short story plus the entire newsletter archive. Substack paid subscribers will get the magazine.
I didn’t do any book work yesterday, on Google Play Books, Calibre or Kindle. Watching videos and putting into practice what I’d just seen took up the bulk of the day, right up until 9pm. And it’s still not finished. I’m only halfway through, but at least I get an extra revision pass while I do it. The ‘magazine’ will come out in October in ebook and paperback, but it will still look like a book.
All of the above will be shoe-horned in to my regular working schedule.
I bounced out of bed with the poet this morning too, but it wasn’t as early as yesterday…
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Bouncing out of bed sounds like a cracking start to the day!
It doesn’t happen very often…