Diary of a non-fiction book: week 1 – day 2

Tuesday was a much better, more productive day.

I finished my chores thirty minutes earlier than usual, so was able to do some catch-up work from Monday.

The first thing I did was come up with four dates in the near future when I can go and visit the company archives. Hopefully, I’m going mid-week, on a Wednesday, for up to three hours at a time. I don’t think my concentration will last much longer than that, especially after a 100-mile drive to drop the dog off before I even get there. I’m just waiting for them to let me know if this is convenient or not.

I opened fourteen research folders in Scrivener – one per chapter – plus another general folder. Then I started to do the first chapter research.

I used the rule of five on Google and came up with five websites on the company and five websites on the first topic. These went into the research folders under “general” and the “first chapter topic”.

In Scrivener for Mac I believe you can save the actual websites in the research folders. As I have Scrivener for Windows, I don’t think we can do that yet and instead saved links. it’s not a problem other than Scrivener automatically opens in Explorer, or whatever the MS browser is now (Edge?), and I love and use Opera. So I need to find out if I can change the browser in there.

I also purchased two books on Kindle and added those to the bibliography, also in Scrivener.

Once I’d filled the first two research folders, I put the book to one side and started to type up the third draft of a short story. But after only one hand-written page I got bored of doing that. I didn’t want to be typing, I wanted to be researching!

So I’ve put the short material away for now while I’m buzzing to be on with this book. I can always haul it out again if I stall.

While I write this Diary of … I’m adding it to my Diary of … series of writing books – this one will be book three. I added yesterday’s post to the Word file and formatted it there and then. I usually leave this to the end, but it can be a long slog that way and it’s easier to remove the hot links if I do it as I go along.

I snuck in a couple of extra blog posts, another one scheduled for later today and one published immediately. Then after lunch, I started on the “day job”.

I changed the toner in the printer and printed off the new client edit so I could start that in the afternoon.

Here’s how yesterday went, then:

  • arrange those dates when I can visit the archives √
  • start research for chapter 1 √
  • open research binders in Scrivener √
  • write draft 3 of a short story
  • write and schedule Wednesday’s diary post √
  • start a new client edit √

And tomorrow’s jobs include:

  • continue research for chapter 1
  • write and schedule Thursday’s diary post
  • continue client edit

If I run out of steam, and if I feel like it, I have a 3,500-word short story that needs editing down. I think I’d sooner do that than type. I really, really hate typing.

2 thoughts on “Diary of a non-fiction book: week 1 – day 2

  1. You are so organised! #slinksbackintounorganisedworld
    I am in awe – and the lists are back!!

    1. Well, I try to be organised. Don’t get too excited about the lists, though. If they’re just going to say the same thing, I won’t be repeating them over and over! 🙂

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