Bit of a surprise

Monday evening finished on a bit of a surprise when the ghostwriting client sent an email asking two things:

Could we make the new story 80,000 words instead of 60,000 words?
Would I be able to write another one concurrently?

The first one was a bit of a surprise because I’d already said that the outline needed a bit more substance. But if that can be remedied, then yes, I can do 80,000 words instead of 60,000 words. It will just take a fortnight longer.

The second one was more of a puzzle. Could I write another story alongside the first one? Would it be difficult switching focus? Might I mix up the two storylines? But, more importantly, would I burn out?

I think that I can do two at the same time. After all, I spend half a day on my own stuff and half a day on client stuff. But it means that this will probably be the only work I can do for as long as I’m writing two stories.

He obviously has faith in me. Or he doesn’t want me working for anyone else… I won’t be able to take on any new clients, and existing client work will have to be very carefully woven in.

So, while I did send a reply, I did still cogitate. Meanwhile, the contract that was promised for me to start on Monday had yet to materialise. This of course meant more time to spend on my own work and clearing the decks in case the 2nd contract comes in.

Also overnight, I received an email from the publication I approached the day before with an acceptance. So that’s now three publications on Medium I’ve been accepted for as a contributor. I think that’s enough for now, when I also have three of my own…

… Yes, I did have two and now I have three. But more on that further down.

Tuesday

First job of the day was a quick email to a client’s author, to make sure that I can go ahead and make some changes to a book before sending it back to the client and into production.

The next thing I started to do was to get those paperbacks published on Amazon. However, I needed to go back to the beginning on the jackets, and that ended up taking up quite a lot of the day. In the end, I only finished one jacket before giving up.

In the meantime, I also rewrote an old alphabet adventure and published that on Medium, but when I went to load up the photographs, I didn’t have them. So I had to wait for the poet to find time to save them for me again.

While I waited for the pictures, I ended up creating another publication on Medium, The Alphabet Adventurers. We need to kickstart this, so I want it to get as much coverage as I can give it.

When he gave me the pictures on a memory stick, he also let me have the photographs from the weekend’s run out to Hathersage, as that story is the one I wanted to try the new publication with.

I wrote the new story from the Hathersage trip and submitted it, then I published the next 2 chapters for Night Crawler and Scaredy Cat.

By the end of the day, the client’s author had come back to me, and so had the ghostwriting client with the dates for book #5 and the promise of a contract for book #6 to start next week. 😳 I’m going to be busy.

Here’s how Tuesday went:

created a new cover for Twee Tales
wrote an article for the new publication (983 words)
published Chapter 20 of Diary of a Scaredy Cat on Medium
published Chapter 21 of Night Crawler on Medium
published A is for… Aysgarth Falls on Medium
shared links for the Medium stories on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook
made the link for Night Crawler free to Facebook friends
added the new stories on Medium to the master index
started today’s blog post (687 words)

Words written today = 1,670

Wednesday

Wednesday was the day of my second Covid vaccination, so the day was split in two as my appointment was at 2pm. We had to leave at 1pm. I managed to do some work before we went, and I did some after we got back too.

The contract for part 1 of ghostwriting gig #5 arrived, which was great. I’m still awaiting the approved outline before I go for it.

I did this week’s Wednesday writing prompts, but I got so carried away reading about one of the anniversary subjects (Jacques Cousteau) that I was only hitting publish as the poet was waiting to go through the door to Sheffield.

While we drove over to the vaccination centre, the message came through that the article I wrote on Tuesday had been accepted for publication! This made me very happy.

In Search of Little John’s Grave is here. I have the poet to thank for the title, and Son #2 to thank for the idea.

When we got back, the poet had to leave me to it, because he had to be in Manchester for an evening process test. I grabbed a bite to eat, and then cracked on with work.

I pulled a Wednesday writing prompts out of the archives… well, another one from March, and I tweaked it a bit, added a bit, rewrote it a bit, and posted that to Medium.

I dug out a short story, also from the archives, and prepared that for future publication, and I pulled out the next 7 short stories and put copies in my Medium folder. Then it was chapters work before calling it a day.

Here’s how Wednesday went:

wrote this week’s Wednesday Writing Prompts (554 words)
had my 2nd Covid jab
rewrote and republished an old Wednesday Writing Prompts on Medium (513 words)
published Chapter 21 of Diary of a Scaredy Cat on Medium
published Chapter 22 of Night Crawler on Medium
shared links for the Medium stories on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook
made the link for Night Crawler free to Facebook friends
added the new stories on Medium to the master index
finished today’s blog post (351 words)