We struggled to get up on Friday, probably because we’d been so rudely awakened the day before when we thought we were getting a lie in. It resulted in both of us doing what work we could on our mobile phones over our first dirty cuppa of the day. And yes, he had a dirty cuppa too. (Must be contagious…)
Once at my desk, I finally managed one of my new weekly tasks: weekly finances. I’m trying to keep my books up to date as I go along so I don’t end up spending 2 or more solid days on it when my tax return is due. I’m working on the current year at the moment, and that’s up to date. I have to go back into the previous year, though, and update my income. I think the expenses are done, and a lot of the income is too. but I still have quite a few statements to trawl through before finalising my accounts for the last financial year.
I finished Friday’s blog post, chose a picture, and posted that. It was almost done anyway, as I’d done that as I went along the day before. I’m less likely to miss anything that way. Saying that, I did forget a few things…
At the end of the working day on Thursday I fired off an enquiring email to that author who keeps promising me his updated files for a client edit I’m doing. Last time I heard from him was on 4 August, so as it was 4 September, I thought I’d send him a quick email making sure he’s okay and asking when I can expect the new file. This is a massive edit and I fear I’m going to have to do what I’ve already done again.
By bedtime, he’d replied (he’s in New Zealand, I think) to say it will be with me next week. We’ll see…
Another thing I forgot about was that I moved a load of scheduled work along so I could fit in the next bookazine. I can’t believe we’re almost at the end of another quarter. Issue FIVE is due out in October. Everything is written for it. Even the front cover is already drafted. But I have to merge all the files together into one, format them all, give them a final proofread, top and tail it all with front and end matter, and then upload it to Draft2Digital and Google Play Books.
There is only one brand-new short story in this issue. I do try to keep it all fresh and new, but going forward, I want my short stories to appear in Words Worth Reading before they’re published as standalones. And most of them have already appeared as standalones. So the less new stories in this issue are The Bonfire Party, Burn and Trick or Treat, which have all been previously published as standalones or in collections. One was also published in a magazine a long time ago.
The brand-new short story is Fireworks at Killiecrankie, which I initially wrote for 12 stories in 12 months. I also have the brand-new novella Stevie Beck and the Haunted House Hotel, and I have the brand-new novel serialisation Catch the Rainbow. None of these have been published as standalones yet, so they’ll all need a more thorough proofread.
I like it to be a week-long job, so I had to move everything along to make way for that. I also moved Project Management for Writers: Gate 3 in its entirety to December. I finish the great novella challenge at the end of October and I think I may finish 12 stories in 12 months at the beginning of December. So I had 2 yawning gaps in the schedule. One in December, now filled, and one in November. In November, I’ll be working on Issue SIX of Words Worth Reading!
I have some client edits in too that will take me to the beginning of November. I don’t know yet whether to have a bit of a breather or go in search of work to fill the time. The current editing client usually keeps me well supplied throughout the year, but I still have 3 jobs from them, which are the ones taking me to November.
The great novella challenge has been a huge success for me. Even if I finish it now, prematurely, I have completed 9 brand-new novellas, 3 of which can be stitched together as a full novel too. There’s no way I would have had that much new work in production without it.
The 12 stories in 12 months challenge has also been very good for me, but I’m really not happy about some of the members using AI to either check if the story was written by AI or to provide a critique. Again, I have more than 2 dozen brand-new short stories in production thanks to this challenge. But I’m thinking perhaps I should replace it with another challenge…
Which brings me to the WMG Workshops great challenge: write a short story every week for a year.
They do a super challenge too, whereby within 2 weeks of submitting the story to Dean (accountability partner), the story must to be published. Because I write a lot of seasonal stories and I like to indie-publish them at the right time of year, that would entail a helluva lot of planning in advance. I also still want to write stories that may be suitable for the ever-shrinking market, and I wouldn’t be able to indie-publish those until after they’ve been published elsewhere if they’re accepted.
We’re not paying to enter these challenges because if we ‘miss’, we get a full credit towards another workshop or lecture, and if we ‘hit’ we get extra credits towards the same but this time including lifetime workshops, lectures, pop-ups, etc. So not only do we get 52 stories by the end of the year, or 12 novellas, or 6 novels, or 12 new publications, we also get more learning worth at least what we already paid. Plus the accountability and motivation.
But I think the great challenge will suit me much better than the super great challenge, and I’m seriously contemplating that. I just have to try and time it for another half-price sale, if they have one.
If I wrote 52 stories in one year, I’d have plenty of fodder for Words Worth Reading, and I may get that up to 75,000 words per issue. And when I don’t have any editing jobs in, I can also work on my own novels, which can be serialised in the bookazine and on Patreon, and non-fiction books, which can be serialised on Patreon. If I write enough novels and novellas, then I might be able to increase frequency to every 2 months. Or even every month. But that’s way off in the future at the moment.
And finally, something else I forgot to mention before, I renewed my subscriptions to the Crime Writers’ Association and the Society of Authors last week too. That was a bit of a blow to the old finances in one go.
Every day I’m trying to put something away off my desk instead of leaving clutter everywhere. It’s a slow process, but I’m getting there too. That was the next thing I did on Friday after posting Friday’s blog post. And I started today’s.
I wrote a quick email to the trustee of the Master’s House with an update on my attendance over the previous week. I didn’t really do a lot of online work that required me to de-camp up there, and what I did have to do the patchy mobile hotspot looked after for me. If the cable work has been completed by now (I was writing this on Friday), then there won’t be any need for me to go up there this week either, other than to drop a donation in the box.
The rest of the working day was spent on Novella #10 for the great novella challenge. Then we went out to do the shopping as we were going to be tied up all day on Saturday.
I was going to round up the weekend in today’s blog post as well, but it’s already long enough. So I’ll save that for tomorrow’s instead.
It’s great to hear how well these challenges have worked for you! Well done!
I hope our cable is sorted.
The challenges have been fantastic. And, of course, I know the assignments are going to a real person and not getting posted in the cloud somewhere.