Friday began with my usual dirty cuppa, but instead of feeding the birds first, I had to jot down some notes that came to me in the early hours.
Sally Rigby includes an explanation in one of her audiobooks (perhaps all, I don’t know, I don’t listen to them) about how she instructs her subconscious to come up with the idea for a novel. She says she sets it to work at bedtime, and in the morning she has her answer. The poet (who does listen to audiobooks) thought it was a good idea and asked me why I didn’t do that. And I told him that I did, that we all did.
He’s often heard me say I’ve set something to percolate, it’s an expression I use all the time. Quite a few of us do. Well, I always set stuff to percolate when I’m in the middle of writing and often when something is cooling. And on Friday morning, my subconscious came up trumps not once, but 4 times. And before I did anything else, I had to jot it all down.
1. My subconscious knows that I’m revising A Mystery At Whitehorse Farm in April so I can include it in Words Worth Reading Issue 3. This novella is very rushed and there’s too much happening at the end, so I already knew I had to expand it by at least 4 more chapters. But so all the hints and clues aren’t always at the end, I’ve come up with a solution to get some of them out there earlier.
2. Stevie Beck and the Body in the Lake is, chronologically, the first of the Horvale cosy mystery novellas. Because I’ve been working on one of the character backstories, the first book in the series has obviously been on my mind as I came up with a way to link this novella with the short tarot tales.
3. I’m currently working on Stevie Beck and the Christmas Tree Mystery. I abbreviate these titles when I’m talking about them by removing the ‘Stevie Beck and…’ part. I had one character in this story feeling bitter and resentful for being excluded from a deceased relative’s will. But the characters who people Horton Magna are mostly transitional. So there’s no family to inherit anything from for most of them. My subconscious came up with a solution for this quandary.
4. Still on The Christmas Tree Mystery, I really, really didn’t want any gruesome murders because it’s a lighthearted Christmas tale. But I was missing a reason for the crime, for the subterfuge. And now I have one.
After jotting down these thoughts while they were still fresh, I found myself chomping at the bit to get on with the writing. But I didn’t have a full Pomodoro left by the time I hit my desk. So I started a short, 25-minute Pomodoro and updated today’s blog post instead. Most of the rest was already pre-written.
With 10 minutes still left to spare, I fed the birds and made a fresh cuppa, and I shared Friday’s blog post to BlueSky. (I do wish JetPack would hurry up and get BlueSky automated!)
The entire rest of the day was spent on The Christmas Tree Mystery.
March wrap-up
I don’t know if the Smashwords sale for March went as planned. My dashboard kept saying (and is still saying) that my choices had been recorded, but the prices didn’t actually change on any of the books, despite me running them all at 50% off (or free if they were under a certain price anyway). So I abandoned all marketing for the sale. Then I noticed on my Draft2Digital dashboard that sales were recorded on Smashwords during the sale. So I’m still none the wiser.
However, if you bought any of my books during the sale at the sale price, thank you!
My operation went ahead, but I took the entire 2 weeks to convalesce. I’m still taking it easy now as the scars are only just starting to heal over, 3 weeks on, and I still can’t lift anything heavy for the next 3 weeks. I’m really, really, REALLY looking forward to a bath. I’m absolutely not a shower person and, anyway, the shower aggravates my eczema. But I have to wait another week, I think, for that.
I cancelled all publishing schedules for March in the end. That included the newsletter. And I pushed the project management book along to a time when I only have 2 big projects to work on in any one day, such as a novella *and* a novel/non-fiction/full-length revision/client edit.
The newsletter and the bookazine are big-ish projects that I like to spend a few days on, so I’m still planning on alternating a short story with one of those.
The Monkey Dust gig was cancelled at the last minute due to illness, so I had some extra admin to do for that. I didn’t finish the client edit, due to the author not coming back to me in time. But I did get a shift on with it anyway.
Here, then, is how March went in the end:
- create graphic for Hello March
- create graphic for March wrap-up
- start Project Management for Writers: Gate 3
- revise A Mystery at Whitehorse Farm
- pre-write Book 5 for the Great Novella Challenge (possibly The Christmas Tree Mystery)
- write Book 5 for the Great Novella Challenge
- write Story 3 for 12 STORIES IN 12 MONTHS
- client edit
- quarterly newsletter
- (week) daily blog post
- weekly backup
- weekly diary work
- Monkey Dust admin
- share Diane’s gig list every Thursday
- Monkey Dust gig
- monthly schedule planning for April
- advance finances for April
- update 12-project spreadsheet (week) daily
- dental appointment
- blood test
- hospital visit
- recovery time
- publish short story: Ash Wednesday
- publish short story: The Mucky Duck
- write short story: The Ace of Swords
- have a birthday
Extras:
- finish reading Jane Eyre
- research & share links re. AI training
- update reading log spreadsheet
- building inspection
- extra Monkey Dust admin
- theatre visit
I published 1 standalone short story (flash fiction) in March, and I wrote 43,728 new and consumable words.
How was your March?
The percolation is so important!
You got an impressive amount done, even with surgery. I hope you continue to heal well.
I dropped the ball on promoting the Smashwords sale, so I doubt I’ll see much in return, especially since so many people set their books to “free.” We’ll know by mid-April, I guess.
Have a great week!
You too! This is a busy month – busier than ever.