Weekly Writing Intentions: July 23, 2022
Daily Diary, Day 691:
As I've posted before, I like to see Saturday as the beginning of my next week of writing and look back and see how I did meeting my goals and what my next goals should be.
Mrs. Stein Solves a Crime went live a week ago, and I am pleased to say that my marketing, facebook announcements, the special promotional newsletter, and Bookbub’s new release email all did a good job of alerting fans of the novella’s publication. However, I can see that the sales have finally begun to drop off. This means I need to consider if there is anything more I should do, or just figure it is going to settle down to a steady but small number of sales a day.
However, I do feel very good about how well I did this week meeting my goals for starting this next writing project. I finished skimming through the Paradisi Chronicles stories, had fun doing the Alternate Futures podcast, and have spent much of the last few days working out most of the main plot and character arcs.
I also reached out to two of the writers who have been active in this series and whose story lines intersect with my timeline. It makes the world more interesting for readers if we can reference each other’s work. For example, the author Andy McKell has a scene in one of his books with Jaxon as a young boy, with the cat, Bell, getting on a shuttle to escape the Challenge and get down on the planet. Just a mention, but a nice crossover. On the other hand, I don’t want to usurp some other writer's characters or write something that will not be consistent with another writers’ work, or close off avenues for any future stories they plan on writing.
As I work on these plots and character arcs, I am beginning to suspect that what I am seeing is more than one book, but I really won’t know until I get much further into the project. Just like I didn’t know at the start of writing it if Mrs. Stein Solves a Crime would be a short story or a novella. I’ve tentatively given the initial book the title Against the Tides of Acerba, but that could change, particularly if this project turns into more than one volume.
So, my writing intension for this week is to finish this preliminary stage and start to do a rudimentary chapter outline. At least for the historical mysteries, I start out with very broad strokes, maybe only for a chunk of the book, then start to fill in, write a bit, then go through the process again with the next chunk. I don’t know if that will work for this science fiction series.
I haven’t been entirely successful on the exercise front, but it seems clear I need to get out by 7:30 if I want to do a 60 min walk before it gets too hot. What I haven’t been good at is stopping in time to do my PT exercises every day before lunch. I think I need to set one more alarm on my phone, because I have been so engaged in the work I am doing, I will suddenly notice it is time for lunch and I've missed the window to exercise.
This morning I didn’t walk because it was deep cleaning day, where I try to get most everything done while my husband is out walking the dog (and not assaulted by the dust, which he has allergies to). This means a good hour on my feet, going up and down the stairs, sweeping, etc. which I feel is probably even more exercise than a walk.
Here is a flower from yesterday's walk.