It’s been a whole week since I updated everyone on my NaNoWriMo progress. This is mostly because I took some time off. I took two days to catch up with and clear a ghostwriting instalment, and then I took two days holiday.
Day 12
Last Friday, then, which was Day 12, I wrote a blog post, duplicated a blog post on Medium, raised an invoice (hurrah!), scheduled a blog post for Monday’s publication of Mardi Gras, and I did a load of faff work too.
Of course, when I say faff work, I mean investment work, or admin. Being a full-time freelance writer doesn’t mean I’m writing all the time.
Although, saying that, by Wednesday evening, just over halfway through the month, I’d amassed 52,397 words. That’s a lot of words.
In between all of those words, I also do the faff work, meaning I work on covers, or plan production schedules, or do some proofreading, or I publish another book. And that’s what I did on Friday. I published another book to appear on Monday 29 November.
As well, though, I also wrote 1,410 words for NaNoWriMo (22,298). This was further than I needed to be for the month at the time, but it isn’t as far as I wanted to be.
22,298/50,000 words. 45% done!
I ground to a bit of a halt, and I messed around, typing story, like I do for the ghostwriting until it gets me going again. And just as I had a brilliant idea to keep me writing, it was time to finish work.
But at least I did something.
Days 13, 14, 15 & 16
Then, of course, as I’ve already mentioned, and I wouldn’t wish to bore you rigid, I worked all weekend, and I had two days off at the start of the week where the poet and I (and the dog) actually went *out*.
Day 17
Day 17 should have seen me getting back into the swing of things, but no. There was more faffing on the horizon. I did my Asana project work first, then I transferred the details to my diary (in case I can’t get onto my Asana, but also because I ❤️ my diary).
The rest of the day seems to have morphed into publishing schedule work to the end of March, some book cover activity, and creating publicity graphics.
I wrote up a book review that’s been in my in-box for about 2 months, and I posted it and updated the project for it in Asana.
I didn’t do any NaNo…
Day 18
Day 18 was Thursday, and the plan was to get to my desk, set the Pomodoros off, and just plod through the work a chapter at a time – that’s NaNo and Book 7 Part 4 for Ghostwriting Client #1.
However, I found out Wednesday evening that I was doing the gig list this week.
Now, I always do something on the gig list every week. Mostly I sort out the announcements, pin them to the top of the group, unpin them, switch commenting on and off, and then do all of the sharing. (When I say ‘all’, I don’t mean everyone’s, I just mean mine.)
But this week, I had to go down the list that people fill in, not always to the same format, and transfer the information from the group post to the actual gig list. Then I like and hide each one so I know I’ve done them. Once the gig list is complete, it’s copied & pasted to the group.
I put my Pomodoro on and, fortunately, it only took one Pomodoro – although it should be added here that my Pomodoros are set to 50 minutes each with a 10-minute break. So, the gig list took me the best part of an hour.
That isn’t bad at all, and it’s not shorter than usual. It just means that if I put the timer on and do that and only that, it doesn’t drag on for the entire morning. Still, it would have been useful to know I was doing it before I did my diary for the week, but it only pushed me an hour along in the end.
I am be very happy with that one.
I made myself a cup of tea, and then put the next Pomodoro on for NaNoWriMo. I track the time I work on each job too, so when I pitch for a new client job, I know that I know roughly how long it’s going to take. At the moment, though, I’m not pitching at all. The work is coming to me all by itself…
I only managed 539 words for NaNoWriMo at first, which isn’t very good at all. Too much time off and not enough outline written. So I went back to the drawing board and worked on the outline, and tried again.
I added a further 3,038 words, bringing today’s tally to 3,576 (25,874).
25,874/50000 words. 52% done!
But then I printed off everything that I have with a view to doing a bit more fleshing out.
Today
Today is Day 19. I have another review to write up for NetGalley, I have diary work for next week, and I have another publication day post to schedule for Monday.
But generally, it’s ghostwriting for Ghostwriting Client #1 and revisions for Ghostwriting Client #2.
And NaNo.
Have a great weekend – if the weather holds, we might be off to ‘L’ again for the alphabet adventurers…
