Plan for September

(featured image courtesy of Canva)

I haven’t done a monthly plan since the July one. Nor did I do a round-up for either July or August. It’s time I caught up with that.

With only three weeks left in September, I was feeling a little overwhelmed with the amount of work I’ve set myself.

And so yesterday evening, after fat club (maintained – even after a holiday), I sat down with my phone and I jotted down every single job I know I already have to do between now and the end of January.

This morning, before even eating breakfast, I fine-tuned the list on my phone, saved it as a Word document, and emailed it to myself. Then, when I opened it up in Word on my desktop, I tweaked it again.

(I could have used Google docs and simply saved it to the cloud. But I don’t really like using the cloud and I would have only had to reformat it back to Word again when I opened it on my computer.)

Here, then, is the plan for September (I’d take a seat if I were you…):

My writing work

proofread Project Management for Writers Gate 1
send Project Management for Writers Gate 1 to beta reader(s)
revisions for Project Management for Writers Gate 1
publish Project Management for Writers Gate 1
write Project Management for Writers Gate 2
write flash short story for competition (deadline 30 September) (500 words max)
write short story for Dean Wesley Smith pop-up workshop #40 (3,000 – 7,000 words)
write January story for fiction market #1 (deadline 5 November) (800, 1,900 or 2,600 words)
write January story for fiction market #2 (all lengths)
proofread Twee Tales Twee
publish Twee Tales Twee in paperback
create a workable short story writing plan ✅
create a viable writing competitions plan ✅
look at The Beast Within
start work on collaboration novel with the poet ✅
look at Catch the Rainbow
look at Whitehorse Farm
look at The Fool

Words Worth Reading Issue 1

add Night Crawler part 1 to Words Worth Reading Issue 1 ✅
edit Mardi Gras (25,000 words) ¹
proofread Mardi Gras part 1
revise Mardi Gras part 1
add Mardi Gras part 1 to Words Worth Reading Issue 1
write cover story for Words Worth Reading Issue 1
write 2nd story for Words Worth Reading Issue 1
add archive story to Words Worth Reading Issue 1
add Tarot series episode 1 to Words Worth Reading Issue 1 ✅
add 4 book reviews to Words Worth Reading Issue 1
write welcome letter for Words Worth Reading Issue 1
finalise contents page for Words Worth Reading Issue 1
write next issue page for Words Worth Reading Issue 1
update cover for Words Worth Reading Issue 1
print out Words Worth Reading Issue 1
proofread Words Worth Reading Issue 1
revisions for Words Worth Reading Issue 1
publish Words Worth Reading Issue 1 (deadline 17 September)
create promotion flyers for Words Worth Reading Issue 1
promote Words Worth Reading Issue 1

Blummin’ ‘eck! 🥴

¹ Mardi Gras is currently around 50,000 words, and it’s incomplete. Because of my time constraints at the moment, I’m contemplating splitting it into two parts of around 25,000 words each, as this will be the usual length for a novella in the magazine. Then I’ll print part 2 in Issue 2… perhaps…

If any of this isn’t finished by the end of the month, I won’t beat myself up. I’ll aim at doing the date-tied work first and anything left over will simply be moved to October’s list… which is also already a little long…

However, in order to have the hard copy version of the magazine ready for at least some time in October, I need to work ahead for that. If I skip the 17 September deadline, it will push the paperback release towards the end of October.

I think, though, that if the electronic version of the magazine is available from 1 October, then that will be a major and satisfactory achievement.

Client work

This is the work already in as at 10 September, and already anticipated to arrive before the end of the month.

proofread history book for Yorkshire client
ghostwrite (1) book 6 blurb (500 words max) ✅
ghostwrite (1) book 6 part 4 (20,000 words)
ghostwrite (1) book 6 bonus story (3,000 words)
start new ghostwriting (2) project
start ghostwriting (1) book 7 part 1 (20,000 words) – not in yet but already cleared