Monday 1 June 2026: May wrap-up!

Oh dear. May didn’t work out at all, hardly. I had such big plans too, and a big long list. 

I already decided at the top of the month that I’d be dropping the 2 premium sites until after we move, but that was already on my to do list before I made the decision.

I’d also already started to delist my books from some retailers on D2D, but as the month progressed, I started to wonder if I should just move them all from there. And that put the brakes on the republishing work. Again until after we move.

I looked into direct publishing via Apple, but gosh do they have a lot of hoops to jump through. So that has been postponed until I can give it more time and concentration.

And, of course, we’ve had lots to do for the house move. People to talk to and email. Details to hunt out and provide. Packing and decluttering, which again were already on the list but are still ongoing.

The biggest problems were the editing jobs. One was a dream and hardly took any time at all. The second one took exactly as long as  I expected. (Yay!) The third one was a rewrite too, and that took a lot longer than I thought it would. And the final one just keeps dragging along.

It’s taking me for ever to clear that fourth and final editing job (for now, I still have one in that needs doing). I’m actually proofreading it and consolidating the proofreader comments with my corrections and the author’s. I’ve done the first two, though, and am well through the third, so there is light at the end of the tunnel. But it has taken up more time than I’d planned for it.

The next issue was the intense heat of last week. I lost a lot of time due to the high temperatures and practically all of last week’s jobs have been carried over to next month.

But it all means that May turned out a lot bleaker than usual, even if it was the hottest May on record.

Here, then, is how it went…or didn’t…

May wrap-up!

• create graphic for Hello, May ✅
• create graphic for May wrap-up ✅
• make new covers for the next 12 book republications ❌
• republish 10 short stories ❌
• republish 1 collection of 10 short stories ❌
• WMG Workshop: Make a Living Writing Novels (live 6-week workshop) ✅
• 3 Patreon & Medium premium posts ❌
• long May Day weekend (yay!) ✅
• 4x client proofreading jobs ✅✅✅❌
• daily dog walk ✅
• daily dog playtime ✅
• daily household chores ✅
• daily reading hour ✅
• daily blog post ✅
• weekly backup ✅
• weekly finance work ❌
• monthly schedule planning for June ✅
• advance finances for June ✅
• update word-count tracker spreadsheet (week) daily ✅
• packing ✅
• decluttering ✅
• long bank holiday weekend (yay!) ✅
• maybe move house ❌

Extras

• hair appointment ✅
• 3x WMG Workshop assignments ✅

I wrote 18,606 words in May against a 20,000-word goal, and I proof-read 110 pages against a 110-page goal.

How was your May?