Weekly Writing Intentions: February, 4, 2023
Daily Diary, Day 886:
Review of the past week: The usual ups and downs in terms of writing, but I did break through the 5000 words a week goal and achieved 6122 words. My health and therefore exercise was a little more problematic since there were a couple days of rain and I’ve beem fighting a stye in my left eye all week (and dithering about whether or not to take anti-biotics for it.) As a result, there were a couple of days where my only exercise was cleaning, and then when I started to walk, I kept the walks shorter. Nevertheless, I did get in slightly over 60 minutes a day average.
I am so close to end of the first draft in the manuscript, that I can feel my sense of urgency rising. My goal for this week is to complete the next two chapters and fill out the outline for the last two chapters. That would put me on schedule to finish by February 17. Given how long the book has become, and how much editing I need to do, I won’t be surprised if it takes me a month to do that editing and get ready to send out to beta readers. But that is getting ahead of myself.
One last subject I want to bring up. Once this draft is done, I have on my agenda to review what my goals for the substack newsletter are for this coming year. I know I am committed to continuing it and continuing the daily posts on both facebook and substack, and I am also committed to having those daily posts on substack be free.
However, I would like to figure out how to carve out more time to do some of the longer posts, like the Historical and Science Tidbits, and posts I am now calling the Authors Corner that are more directed at authors and people interested in the indie author experience.
Additionally, I am playing around with the idea of posting some of my fiction in draft form as I write it and before I publish it—for example, if I wrote a short story in the historical mystery series this year. Or maybe even start reading already published short stories, or the most recent novella, Mrs. Stein Solves a Crime, out loud. Unless I discovered people hated my voice (smile.)
My dilemma, which you will all recognize from my daily posts, is I don’t want these activities to get in the way of my daily word count on whatever novel I am currently working on (and this year that will completing the Caelestis science fiction series.) Nor do I want this to limit the time I spend on exercise and keeping up with friends and family. So, the one place I could carve out time is the time I spend on things that I generally describe as marketing (doing face book and amazon ads, mounting promotional campaigns, participating in joint promotions, etc.)
And this brings me to the question of paid subscriptions, which substack facilitates. I don’t want to create a system where a subscriber only gets certain content (like the longer posts, or draft chapters, etc.) if they pay. No matter what I produce on substack, I want it available to everyone. However, what I do like is the idea that if enough people want to contribute (sort of like a tip jar) that I can reasonably shift away from spending time on other forms of marketing and spend it on what is much more fun, like the longer posts, that would be helpful. In order for authors to test whether or not subscribers would be willing to contribute through a paid option, substack has just created a way for subscribers to “pledge” an amount of money that they would be willing to contribute if the author institutes a paid option. Again, to be clear, this paid option wouldn’t get you special stuff, but simply help me reallocate my time to produce special stuff for all subscribers.
Anyway, starting today, a pledge button will start showing up on the daily newsletters, if you read the newsletter in an ap or browser. Absolutely no pressure to click, in fact, I only want people to pledge if they really feel comfortable with the $5 a month or $50 a year pledge that I might charge down the road.
I would also appreciate getting some reactions to this idea, so I am putting the comment button here.
Now off to write, and here is photo of last night’s stunning sunset.