Oh, I’m feeling very smug today. I only completed one item on last week’s To Do list, but it was a biggy! That’s right, I finished The Family Trap, and now I’m having a week off while it ‘rests’.
Well, what passes for a week off in my world, anyway. The two things I didn’t complete last week were my marketing & promotion planner and the press release for A Life Unpredicted. So the first is on this week’s list, and the latter I’ve decided to leave. Leave? I hear you cry. As in not bother? That’s right. I’ve decided to take a different route with A Life Unpredicted, and focus on the free promotion market instead. The local press aren’t going to feature everything I publish, and I want to save their goodwill for when The Family Trap is released.
So, this week’s list:
- Write out publishing/promotion schedule to take me up to Christmas.
- Decide on cover image for The Family Trap.
- Do a free promotion for A Life Unpredicted, hopefully starting tomorrow if I can get organised.
- Clean the house from top to bottom!
- Index all the Writing Magazines up to and including November’s (I’ve already done up to June, I think).
For those of you who read the excellent Writing Magazine, I compile an index each year and make it available for free on the blog. Last year’s index can be downloaded here: Writing Magazine 2011 index, and 2012’s will be up in the middle of November. It’s a great resource to help you find all your favourite bits in the magazine.
So, how are you guys getting on with your To Do lists?
Related articles
- To Do List – 15th to 21st October (joannegphillips.wordpress.com)
Joanne Phillips 
October 22, 2012 at 11:43 am
That’s brilliant, well done :). You are one dedicated and motivated writer. Jealous 😛 x
October 22, 2012 at 1:10 pm
Thanks Emma 😉 Still, I have to admit it feels really nice today not to have any writing to do. And the bathroom is looking very shiny x
October 22, 2012 at 1:17 pm
Congratulations Jo, that must feel great! 🙂
Xx
October 22, 2012 at 9:46 pm
Thanks Vikki, it does x
October 22, 2012 at 4:58 pm
Yikes, I know I’m 8 hours behind, but you already seem to have your week all figured out and I’ve only just staggered out of bed!
Congrats on finishing The Family Trap – that seemed to come together very speedily.
Will be interested to see how your strategy for the short stories works out… I think you’re wise to ‘keep your gunpowder dry’ with local media.
Thanks so much for your supportiveness over at my place. You have so much on your plate, it’s really good of you to encourage those of us just beginning our indie journey.
October 22, 2012 at 9:47 pm
You’ve got a great blog, Pauline, can’t think why it’s taken me so long to sign up! Love the sound of your new book – can’t wait to read it xxx
October 22, 2012 at 8:02 pm
Amazing that you’ve already finished the first draft of The family Trap – I thought I wrote quickly! Still takes me nearly 3 months to do a first draft though. Didn’t you only start it a few weeks ago? Do you have one of those things like in Harry Potter, where you can turn back time and get more stuff done – um, as well as being a wife and mother, you’re doing a degree course and your self-employed work, and you’ve written a whole novel in about 6 weeks???? Come on, you’ve got one of those things, haven’t you?? Ha ha!
How many re-drafts and edits do you normally do? I do about 5 or 6, so I allow 2 months for those. I plan to have the sequel to Dream On out in Feb next year.
Re the short story collection – it’s notoriously harder to sell them then novels on Amazon, so probably best to keep goodwill of press for new novel, yes!
October 22, 2012 at 9:52 pm
Ha, I wish! It does seem like I wrote it quickly, but that’s because I’ve only been talking about it since I started posting my To Do lists six weeks ago. Actually, I started it right after publishing Can’t Live Without back in May, and the outline I wrote ran to almost 20,000 words in itself! The recent push to finish it has been really exciting, with all the planning and chapter sketches coming together, and I have edited a lot as I wrote with this one, to keep up the continuity with CLW. A lot of the writing was also rewriting, so I guess it’s more of a 3rd draft than a first, and I’m looking forward to the beta-reading and final editing stages coming up.
October 23, 2012 at 10:52 am
Phew! I am so glad I read Terry’s post and then your reply. I nearly had a heart attack that you had managed to get your novel written in six weeks, and ready to go to your editor! I have just this minute sent my novel to the ebook formatter, and that has been pretty full-on since April. And I bust a gut over it! It’s interesting to see how we all approach things differently. I agree with Terry and Pauline about short stories being harder to sell and the Press. Good luck with it all, Sooz
October 23, 2012 at 4:23 pm
Well done Jo. I’m so impressed you finished the second novel. And that is only a couple of weeks after launching your short story book.
You’re an inspiration to all of us! 🙂