Monday 5 August 2024: July wrap-up

I was so busy before we went away I didn’t have time to schedule the July wrap-up or the Hello August posts, so here’s the first of those.

July was a well-planned month with the only job I deferred due to my own lack of organisation being the newsletter. The only other job that has been carried over to August is the first client edit. I *was* awaiting the proofreader’s report but, as it happened, that worked to my advantage in the end as I really did run out of time.

Had we not been away for the last week of the month, I may have scheduled in a bit more work. It looks like my planning was pretty much spot-on though, this time.

While we were away I discovered that people I know are having their trad-published magazine short stories pirated. Some of these are straight pirate reprints, some are where it seems the pirate publisher has stripped out the longer stories from the magazines and published them as standalones.

The publisher in question is looking into it, but this, of course, has repercussions when those authors are trying to self-publish their trad-published stories once copyright reverts to them. The Kindle bots may spot the earlier, pirated version and they may suspend the new publication pending proof of copyright.

I’m sure the publisher *will* sort it out, but it’s yet another nail in the coffin for me traditionally publishing any of my stories anywhere. I may as well go straight to self-publishing so that the first versions are always my versions and not the pirated or the trad-publisher’s versions. I’d still like to target some of the anthologies, though, especially as another friend of mine has been quite successful with those this year.

July wrap-up

Here, then, is how July went:

• new month wordcount & progress spreadsheets for July ✔
• writing with depth workshop bundle ✔
• Halloween cosy mystery novella ✔
• PROJECT MANAGEMENT FOR WRITERS: GATE 3 ✔
• 12 STORIES IN 12 MONTHS: Trial ✔
• newsletter ❌ (deferred to August)
• client edit: Taliban book ❌ (deferred to August – pending proofreader’s report)
• client edit: Holocaust book ✔
• (week) daily blog post ✔
• weekly tech scan ✔
• weekly backup ✔
• weekly diary work ✔
• Monkey Dust admin ✔
• Diane’s gig list admin every Thursday ✔
• hospital appointment ✔
• take poet for dental appointment ✔
• Monkey Dust gig ✔
• monthly schedule planning for August ✔
• advance finances for August ✔
• holiday ✔

I wrote 28,209 new words in July, on a novella, a writer’s guide, a short story and the blog. (I count blog posts as new words too.) I also edited 234 pages for a client, and one short story of mine.

How was your July?