Hiya! It was a pretty good work week last week. No real distractions aside from the fact that I’ve run out of chamomile tea! It’s okay; I’ll rectify that tomorrow. 😅
Review 5th to 11th April 2021
My writing goals for last week were:
- Complete pages 40 – 52 (inclusive) of Story Structure Organiser Workbook for Deniable Unit #1: Working the Asset (DU#1)
How Do I Think It Went?
I’d mentioned last week that I’d have to do the bulk of the pages twice because I’m writing an action-adventure romance. This is down to the fact that these subgenre stories essentially contain two plots. Both of the plot threads share equal billing (50% each), and it requires a delicate balancing act to get it right—the same is true of romantic suspense, paranormal romance etc.
What I failed to remember in my scheduling was that with romance (the dual-protagonist kind that I write) is that the heroine and hero also have equal billing. Meaning, I had to do two sweeps for the romance plot. So, yay, more work. 😑
Onward.
I seem to have found the right mindset for getting the work done—for the moment, that is. Before I get to work, I sit down with the goal of writing “Extra Credit” in my journal and slapping a sticker with the extra work noted on it. (I’m a bullet journaler with a major sticker problem.)
This mindset made it possible for me to complete all my goals—including the extra run through on the romance plot—by the end of Friday.
The workbook is essentially complete. The rest of the pages are for when I’ve completed the first draft of Deniable Unit #1: Working the Asset. But there are quite a few changes I have to make to the mountain of index cards, some minor scene-by-scene changes, others are more global and require strict tracking to implement their transfer to the cards.
As I had a couple of days at my disposal, I decided to make notes of all the changes and when they occur in the story into my DU notebook. For some reason, I’d blown how much time this would require out of all proportion. Initially, I’d figured that would take at least three days. But, I got so excited by the changes that I was done by the end of Saturday.
On Sunday, I was full of good intentions. I would get a head start making the changes to the mountain of index cards, including making the now faded pencil notes legible. But that didn’t happen.
Sunday would have been my dad’s birthday. With that floating about in my mind, it was impossible to focus on work. After a few hours of being easily distracted by anything and everything, I packed it in for the rest of the day.
This Week’s Goals
This week is the start of our holiday time, so I’m not going to task myself with too much—aside from binging on Burn Notice for the millionth time. 🤩
Aside from taking it easy, my goal is to make the changes and clean up the index cards for:
- Act 1 and Act 2a
The Schedule
| Monday | Changes to Act 1 pt 1 index cards |
| Tuesday | Day off/blog post (the one you’re reading right now) |
| Wednesday | Day off/blog post for craft site (braithwaitecrafts.com) |
| Thursday | Changes to Act 1 pt 1 index cards (there are a lot of changes here) |
| Friday | Act 1 pt 2 |
| Saturday | Act 2a pt 1 |
| Sunday | Act 2a pt 2 |
That’s it for this week. I’m all set with a bar of Mrs Tilly’s Macaroon and a mind to watch Michael Weston help take down some bad guys 🥳. Thanks for stopping by, and take care.
Susan
My mind is boggled with your meticulous planning. Hats off to you for that, Susan! Some anniversaries are difficult and you need to give your head (and heart) over to them.
It’s interesting, if I get nicely ahead of my intentions, I tend to take my foot off the pedal. Perhaps that’s because prefer (do I?) to have the pressure of a deadline to work to. As happened to me last week. So I caught up by working really hard over the weekend, getting a bit ahead, and now… well, I have the excuse of having some paid work to do this afternoon. But I suspect it’s going to happen again; maybe I should redefine my week. 😉
Keep well, keep up the discipline, but not so it makes you miserable. See you next week 🙂
Thanks, Chris. I’ve taken the foot right off the accelerator this week, I’m rolling slooooowly uphill. I’ve got holiday brain on and all I want to do is chill out.
Like you, I used to work best with the pressure on, but somehow the pressure stopped being a motivator and I ended up not meeting my goals for a long time.
Great news on the paid assignment! I know that you’ll be all superwoman and power through it, and your own work, before your week is out.
Take care 😊
With all that I guess you are very organised Susan. My desk would be a mess of piles of cards, sticky notes and things with scribbles all over them. Glad you are having craft and downtime. Hope Jez has time to pay as well 🙂 🙂
Have you been sneaking a peek at my desk? Honestly, all you missed from that was piles of notebooks and yarn overspill. My desk is in the corner of the livingroom; that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it. 🤣
😀
Woohoo 🎉 Burnfest 😃
And some World Order vids 🤖