Tuesday 17 June 2025: Good work rhythm

I was up on time on Friday, and instead of reading a newspaper or playing a game, once I’d fed and watered the garden birds, I read a short story and a chapter of a book over my dirty cuppa. The short story is homework for the 50 murder mystery prompts workshop assignment and the chapter was from Save the Cat Writes a Novel by Jessica Brody.

At my desk, the first job there was Week 4 of the mystery writing classic workshop. There were no illuminating epiphanies this time, fortunately, which meant I could get on with my work. The next job was finishing and posting Friday’s blog post. And then the next one was starting today’s.

I also decided to write up the latest book review for yesterday’s blog post. This is the only way I can keep up with the book reviews. I threw one book back as unread because I couldn’t download it for my Kobo. I do this as a NetGalley-only ‘review’ with 5 stars because I won’t give a poor rating to a book I haven’t even read. I had to send it back this way, though, as it stays on my record as ‘not reviewed’ and makes my statistics look bad.

I started off my weekly backup while I worked on this week’s workload, and when I was happy it was all working, even to the end of the month, I transferred it to this week’s diary so I can see it at a glance without having to look at a device of any kind. I had to move the next project management book along a couple of weeks just so I can hit these other immoveable deadlines, but that needs to be a priority soon.

I had to plan ahead a bit more and include things like the next novella, the next short story for 12 stories in 12 months, the next 2 assignments for the currently live class, then the 3 assignments for the next live class. I had to add in the bookazine too, as that needs to be published before the end of July. One day – one day – the bookazine will start to appear earlier per month. But not yet.

And I had to build in revisions for the Rainbow Chronicles books as well as schedule in the writing of Book 3. Book 3 will be July’s great novella challenge book.

I did some more work on Assignment 1 for the 50 murder mystery prompts workshop, and I was just closing down when I spotted last Wednesday’s Zoom call recording for the Christmas cosy novella workshop was live. So I made myself a drink and settled down to watch that.

The poet was out on Friday night with one of his band mates, at a concert in York, so I had a bit of a lazy evening, bumbling around. On Saturday we did the shopping, but the day was cut short because the band had a gig that night and it was an early start. I didn’t touch the assignment much while I sorted out which books to take in which bag. But while the band setup at the venue, I managed to write nearly 800 words. Not a great deal, but a lot in about an hour, in longhand, while there’s stuff going on around you.

I need to get myself over this only being able to write into Scrivener. I remember the days when I’d do a brainstorm in one shorthand/reporter’s notebooks, write the outline in another, go back to the first one and write the first draft, then graduate to an A4 lined pad and write the next draft, before typing it all up into the third draft. And then the revisions began. When I was ghostwriting, I got into the habit of composing straight into Scrivener, and it was a bit of a shock to the system going back to that longhand draft.

If I’d started earlier in the week, I probably would have carried on with the longhand draft in an exercise book I can carry around with me. But this time, I decided to just copy type what I’d done into Scrivener and then carry on in Scrivener. And I did that on Sunday while the poet pottered in the garden, put washing through, hung washing out. He was having a lazy day because it was Father’s Day and at least one of the kids was coming to see him. They all touched base with him at the top of the day.

When Son #2 turned up with Grand-doggy #1, the poet was in the garden hanging out washing, which mildly amused Son. I had an ice lolly with them, but carried on with work…well, I carried on staring at the same words wondering how to make them deeper while at the same time having a fair attempt at writing a mystery. By the time our visitors had gone, I’d increased my word-count to around 1,500.

I plodded on with it, taking breaks for meals and things, but I carried on working quite late into the evening and wished more than once that I’d started it earlier in the week. I finally had an entire draft and, at 1:30am, went to read it out loud to the poet. His first comment was it was very deep…Yay! I got depth! But did I get too much depth? His second comment was he could tell I’d spent more time on the first part of the story than I had on the end part, which was right. Generally, though, he liked it, and he is my first sounding board.

He had to go to bed as he was up early Monday morning, and I did a quick tidy up and sent it off at around 2:15am. The deadline was midnight, Vegas time, but they’re about 6 hours behind us. I I sent him just under 4,400 words (blimey!) with just under 4 hours left to spare.

The magic bakery

A few years ago I stumbled across a book called The Magic Bakery by Dean Wesley Smith. Originally written in 2017, this book turned on a lightbulb inside my head and enabled me to see copyright in a whole different glow.

One of the first things I did, after reading this book, was start my own magic bakery. And in one 12-month period, I published around 56 books: short stories; collections; novellas; novels; and non-fiction books. Fifty-six of ‘em. I’ve added to them since, but those books now provide me with a steady trickle of income. Passive income.

Well, the magic bakery is back, but this time Smith is updating it, chapter by chapter, first on his website, then in a class, and then in a new and updated book. Here’s chapter four.

I’ll carry on linking to the chapters, as they appear, so that you guys have some understanding of what I’m banging on about when I persist in talking about my magic bakery. And I’ll repeat this bit of blurb every time for first-time readers.

For those of you who’d rather read them as Smith posts them himself, rather than when I get around to it, you can go straight to his website here.