Thursday 19 October 2023: One project at a time

The last thing I did at my desk before closing down yesterday was create the cover for the NaNoWriMo diary. I’m writing a diary by hand as I complete each day’s session and the plan is to get the diary typed up, with exercises for readers to try for themselves, and perhaps the finished product as a bonus.

All being well, the finished novella will go towards 4 different products in my ‘magic bakery’:

1. It will be the feature story in Words Worth Reading Issue 1
2. It will be released as a standalone novella
3. I’ll add it to a 2-book boxed set for the NaNoWriMo diary
4. When I have three or more in the same series, it will be added to another 3- or 5-book boxed set

This is the way I’m handling all of my work from now on. Short stories will look like this:

1. First, they’ll go off to market
2. Then they’ll appear in the next suitable Words Worth Reading
3. After that, they’ll appear as standalone short stories (Wordsworth Shorts or Wordsworth Flash Fiction)
4. Then they’ll go into the collection rounds

And this means that each copy of the bookazine will have additional layers too:

1. First, there is the bookazine/magazine itself
2. One novella per issue will be released afterwards
3. Short story #1 will be released as a standalone (after it has previously been to market)
4. Short story #2 will be released as a standalone (after it has previously been to market)
5. Short story #3 will be released as a standalone (after it has previously been to market)
6. A quarter of a novel will be published (after it has previously been to market)
7. Collections

I’d like to get to a point where the novella goes to market before appearing in Words Worth Reading too, but I simply don’t have the time to do that at the moment. In the time it takes a traditional publisher to consider a submission, it could already be earning and I don’t get into any licensing wrangling. But if the system works and I start to produce more, then I’ll certainly consider it.

Once again, when I’d done everything I usually do of an evening, including eat tea and watch telly, I pulled out my journal for The Secret of Whitehorse Farm and scribbled. This time I finished outlining the rest of Act 1. There are some writers who say just get the first few scenes outlined to get you started and take it from there. Well, at least I can try that now that I have the first Act road-mapped.

I’m slowly getting better from the bug that got me at the weekend, but I’m still sleeping a bit late. This morning, after speaking to the poet on the phone (he’s on his way home today) I went back to sleep and it was gone 9:30am when I woke up again. I was ready for breakfast, though, which is something I haven’t been ready for until at least 1pm all week.

Social media and emails got attention first, along with a game I’m playing as a side hustle. When I got to my desk the first job I did was print off a client edit. My toner cartridge is almost empty so I ordered two new ones. I have one on the bookshelf, but I like to keep two on hand. While I had a basket in my hand on Amazon, I ordered my last two paperback books and a large tapestry frame.

I opened up Scrivener and started to tidy up the writing diaries file. I duplicated the project management file then added folders for the cat writing diaries, which were all then filed in either ‘done’ or ‘pending’, and for this NaNo writing diary, which is at the top as it’s the current WiP here. When I was happy with that, I topped and tailed it with the front and end matters, I updated my ‘Also by…’ page, and I started the introduction.

Then I turned to my word/page tracking spreadsheets on Excel and added both the NaNo diary and the NaNo project to those. I may have called today’s post ‘one project at a time’ and, strictly speaking, I am working on just the one project – The Secret of Whitehorse Farm. The diary is simply something that runs alongside that.

Similarly, I do have a very quick client edit to do today, and then it’s back to the big Vietnam book. I’ll carry on with today’s progress in tomorrow’s post.

The poet’s already on his way home. The storm seems to have calmed down for the moment. All is well in the world again.