So, after talking the poet into going to price up curtains for the conservatory (it wasn’t *that* easy), he made a quiche and put some jacket potatoes in the oven. It was meat-free-Monday, so the quiche was broccoli…(how to ruin a perfectly adequate quiche!) (but it’s still very nice…) And while the jackets were baking, we nipped out to the curtain shop.
We thought curtains would be the cheapest option, and we can take curtains with us more easily when we move as they’re more versatile than blinds. But actually, the blinds were much, much cheaper (just over £150, around $200, for 12 blinds in 3 sizes). And I didn’t mind spending that much less money on something we may end up leaving behind. We’d still get our money’s worth in use and enjoyment of the conservatory.
But 12 blinds are a lot to expect a store to have in stock, so we ordered them instead. They’re all coming together, for free delivery, and that means they’ll more likely be from the same colour batch. Plus, the poet’s quite good at adapting and fitting ready made roller blinds. These are blackout and thermal, which will help with the temperature in the room, but the thermal ceiling is still opaque rather than solid, and I’m not a fan of tented ceilings, so it won’t be completely dark in there.
We were gone for exactly one hour, and the spuds were ready when we got home. Neither of us wanted a massive tea, and we had apple crumble and ice cream for pudding.
Tuesday morning loomed, and I was up with the alarm, and the poet, again, but he was off out this time. My first hour went well, feeding the birds, putting a washload through, drinking my dirty cuppa. But the second hour less so. I had to draft quite a long email to the editing client regarding the author, asking her what I should do about the looming deadline. I was particularly worried that the author might be panicking and that might be blocking him, and I didn’t want to load extra pressure on top. I know exactly how it feels and how badly it makes one feel without taking the shine off such a massive achievement of having such a big book accepted for publication.
So we discussed it by email, and we’ve decided to give him a bit more time and if we get too close to when we should really be going into production, then the client will intervene and perhaps I’ll just make my corrections to the version I have and we build any further changes into the proofing stages. In the meantime, though, I’ve already done a lot of work and I won’t invoice until it goes into production. That’s my choice, because I’m sure they’d pay if I did send the invoice in. But then if they’ve already paid me, *I* seem to lose the incentive to do the work. It’s better if I invoice and they pay once there’s already a half-decent book already being produced.
I skipped my exercise session, with a view to fitting them into my 10-minute pomodoro breaks instead, and I settled down to watch Week 2 of the advanced depth workshop, which included 2 lots of copy typing to help instil in my brain what he’s trying to teach us.
By the time my revision for the day was done, the editing client had come back to me with a much shorter edit to fit in between now and when the current book comes back from the author.
See, ask and you will get. Explain, and they will understand. Keep everyone in the dark and nobody knows what’s going on.
I’m trying to cut back on the client editing and proofreading now, so I can concentrate on my own work. But this client has been so bloody good to me for 15 years, in my role as proofreader, editor and writer, that I still like to do work for them if and when I can and for as long as they want me to.
I grabbed the files she sent and had a quick look to see how much work might be required. It’s difficult to tell with a cursory look, but on first glance, it did look like this one should be relatively easy compared to some I get.
Next I had a look at my publishing schedule. I have the next edition of Words Worth Reading due out in July and I could really do with having a novel finished and I’m missing a flash fiction.
I had chosen a flash fiction, but as it’s an old one, it should really be a story from the archives in the bookazine, rather than an allegedly brand-new piece of work. I checked other new flash fictions and they’re all date specific, such as bonfire night or Valentine’s Day or spring or autumn, and this is a summer bookazine. So now I want to write something brand-new that’s under 1,200 words.
Today’s 12 stories in 12 months submission is 1,800 words, which is Wordsworth Short length and not Wordsworth Flash Fiction length. The last one, at 500 words, is probably too short as a standalone. But it could be reworked into something longer, so that’s a possibility.
The novel excerpt should be Catch the Rainbow, Part 1 of which I did for one of my great novella challenge novellas. Ideally this one should be in 3 parts, to make it around 90,000 words in all, but then I have to split it into 4 for inclusion in the bookazine. I decided to go and have a look at that to see if it was feasible as another novella. There’s nothing stopping me writing 3 novellas in the same series and making it a complete novel afterwards.
I set all of that to percolate and turned to this month’s short story for Deadlines for Writers. The deadline is today and I had 1,800 words to write. By the time the first quick draft was finished, I had more than 2,200 words. So I cut the first scene, but saved it. Because when I send this story off to the market I’ve identified, I’ll need that original opening scene. I had to tweak the next few scenes to make sure it made sense, and got it down to 1,811 words. Eleven words are so easy to lose but, again, I still saved them in case I want them for the next submission.
Eventually, with bang on 1,800 words, I left it to cool overnight. The poet made us a lasagne for tea but we didn’t feel like apple crumble again.
Excellent work! Sounds like you’ve found a good rhythm.
I hope so.