I managed to catch up on quite a lot yesterday, which is good because there was a lot I didn’t do on Wednesday.
The day started well with both dogs letting us sleep until almost 7am. I had my dirty cuppa combined with my quiet hour, during which I mostly caught up on social media. And the weather forecast.
We’ve had the threat of snow since the weekend, and while we did get a bit of a dusting on Sunday, and other parts of the country did get good dump of snow, we hadn’t really seen much else since. But a blizzard, no less, was forecast for Thursday evening into Friday morning.
First of all it was creeping DOWN the country from the north-east. We were forecast to get a good few inches during that particular version of events. But as Thursday drew nearer, it had switched to the midlands getting the brunt of it. By Wednesday evening, it was coming UP the country from the south-west. And even then it fluctuated a lot between snow and rain.
It looked like we weren’t going to get a blizzard at all, nor even another dusting. But as Thursday progressed, that too changed and by about 9pm we should have been in the thick of it. At the time of writing (7pm) the rain had arrived after a bit of a misty day, and it was already quite chunky rain with ice in.
Back to the day, I watched the first of my revision workshops, which was scheduled in for Wednesday, then I watched the 2nd one, which was scheduled in for Thursday. I updated my spreadsheet with 2026 open calls for submissions to the end of March, adding another one in for January I quite fancy having a go at.
Confirmation emails started to come in for the next book to be published, which I worked on earlier in the week, and I updated the Books2Read page with the one now on pre-order plus a couple on Google Play Books. While I was in Google Play Books publishing this book there, I noticed I hadn’t uploaded Words Worth Reading: Issue SIX for some reason, which I did immediately, and I updated the links for that too.
I went to collect the first prompt of the year for 12 stories in 12 months (1,200 words, due 28 January), added it to my Scrivener master file and to the submissions calls, and I brainstormed that. I collected information for one of the open calls that’s due in on 31 January, added that to Scrivener and I brainstormed it AND planned it out. I also refreshed my memory about the one that’s due on 1 February, as that one may as well be in January too.
That gives me 3 short stories to write in January:
- 1,200 words by 28 January
- 2,000 – 7,000 words by 31 January
- 300 – 5,000 words by 1 February
I colour-coded the spreadsheet and the Scrivener binder so I can quickly and easily see what’s next. Then I added the new stories to both the Nobo board and my TickTick project management, moving a few things around to make sure it all fit in on time to be submitted on or before deadline.
The 12 stories story will be the next instalment of my Fallen Angel trilogy and should wrap the first part of that story up nicely. It will bring Part 1 to just under 5,000 words in all, which is a good length for this story.
The one due on 31 January will be a Stevie Beck short story. I can’t see it running to 7,000 words, but again, it might make it to around 4,000 – 5,000 words.
The one due on 1 February hasn’t been brainstormed yet, but I might make that a Mavis Braithwaite story or, if I can come up with the title of a rock song, Marcie Craig might get it. She’ll have 5 short stories then, which means a collection in the making too. Stevie Beck and Mavis Braithwaite are both still only on 4 if they get this one. I think…
That took quite a lot of concentration, but when it was all done we had to quickly eat something before heading out for another appointment. After we got back, Son #2 dropped by, then I wrote and scheduled today’s blog post.
It doesn’t look like a lot when you write it out in black and white, but I got a lot of short story work done, brainstorming 2 stories, outlining 1, and scheduling another.
So, it’s Friday today and the weekend is before us. I think we’re going out in the camper van on Sunday, if the snow isn’t too deep…If it is too deep for the van, we may struggle somewhere closer to home where we can take pictures.
Of course, I say this with tongue planted firmly in cheek. If it has snowed overnight, it’s likely washed away by now…
Whatever you’re up to at the weekend, I hope it’s a good one.
This post also appears on Patreon.
We have to remember how much time and brainpower the thinking part takes in writing. I know I often don’t give myself enough time or credit for working things out in my head before I try to get words on the page.
Have a good weekend!
I do the brainstorming and the outlining on the page, either in longhand or on screen. That way I have an audit trail of all the work I’ve done to date. The problem with it is I often find pieces of paper hidden away or scattered about that have entire stories outlined or mapped out on them and as they may have a different title to the one it eventually ended up with, I do have some detective work to do. I have a lot of fun with the brainstorming and often come up with several ideas from one theme or prompt.