Back to (writing) work

Earlier in the year (gosh, is it still only March?), I had to take a bit of a sabbatical from my writing as I needed to replenish all of the work I lost while I was writing the latest non-fiction book.

The book took me longer than I expected to write, and that meant by the time I was ready to take on editing and proofreading jobs again, many of my clients had found someone else to do the work. I don’t blame them. That’s the way it works. But I still needed to build up my client base again.

Fast-forward 8 weeks or so, and I’m doing okay again. My income octopus has 10 tentacles (10-tacles!). I clawed back 3 clients. I found 3 new clients. And I’m back into a reasonable work schedule so that I can do my own work again during the day instead of having to resort to working of an evening. (I don’t like working of an evening, really.)

During that time away, I was able to read a few books, including some on time management, some on goal setting, and some on project management. I created a brand new spreadsheet that has 10 writing projects on it. I worked out a publishing schedule, as if I’m self-publishing everything but it actually incorporates traditional publishing submissions too.

One of the first books I hope to self-publish is the sequel to Diary of a Scaredy Cat. The new book, Diary of a Pussycat, is pretty much written. I just have some new exercises to add at the end of the chapters (I’m currently on chapter 35 of about 47), plus around 3 appendices. It’s due to be published in the middle of June.

The next book on the list is 52 Books in 52 Weeks, which will be a freebie, I think.  I have just 8 books to add to this, and one of them is a 5-volume series all lumped together as one, another is a multi-book bundle. They’ve all been read, apart from 3 of them, which I will start to read this week. This one is due to be published in the middle of July.

Then there are 2 novellas, The Fool and a new arrangement for an old story, The Secret of Whitehorse Farm.

There are others, 6 others in fact, but I don’t want to shout about those just yet.

I’ve been managing some writing most days, but I didn’t have a target word-count for March as I was still refilling the wells. But now I even have a blog schedule. The next book review for 52 Books … should appear the day after this one – tomorrow.

I have some steady editing jobs in, with 3 clients giving me work every week. And I still have queries to resolve for the non-fiction book and the edits to have a look through. Anything else I’ll fit in around those.

Wish me luck!