Weekly Writing Intentions: Saturday, Sept 2, 2023:
Good progress on exercise, not so much on writing, side-tracked by promotional work.
Daily Diary, Day 1097
I feel as if I did a good job this week in terms of exercise, actually averaged slightly over 100 minutes a day, but not because I pushed the walking, but because I added back in about 15 minutes of the Physical therapy and chair pilates exercises I used to do regularly. This had the benefit of not stressing my right foot, which was achey this week. Also divided cleaning into shorter increments.
The weather was certainly up and down, unfortunately often very humid, with no breeze in the morning so that even if only in low 70s, not really pleasant. Today it was overcast, but now a couple of hours later, it is actually raining (the light hard to even see drizzle, but enough to make the streets wet and my husband to postpone walking the dog.)
Doing the second walks after dinner, even though it is warmer, there is usually a breeze coming from the west (ocean side) so not as oppressive. I ended up walking all but one day, and did the exercises all but one day. So, my intentions for the coming week is to keep up with this schedule.
The week wasn’t as productive in terms of working on the novel. I did complete the two scenes of what will be the first chapter, for a total of 1,469 words. But that was far short of the 500 words a day pace I was shooting for. Some of the difficulty was the work I did to promoting the novella, and writing a couple of longer posts. The sales of the new novella have been quite healthy, however, so the work was worth it. I also had a number of unanticipated phone calls, but that happens all the time, so I should just expect this.
But this coming week, except for a scheduled yearly retinal exam, and my usual phone meetings, I should have more uninterrupted time for writing, starting today. But first I am going to finish watching a video about a new service by Bookbrush (which I use to make graphics) where you can pay designers to do this work. If it isn’t too expensive, I might give this a try, because I don’t particularly like doing this work, don’t feel good about it, and it takes away from writing. For example, I really should do a BookBub ad for the books that are discounted on Chirp this month. But I never feel good about the graphics I create, and they don’t seem to sell very well, so depending on the cost, this might be worth getting someone else to do…if it pays with sales.
By the way, 83% of you said in the poll I did last week that you would like me to put up my shorter works on substack. That, plus the fact that having done this certainly didn’t hurt the eventual sales, really pleased me. So thanks to those of you who took the time to do the poll!
Hope you all in the US have a good labor day long weekend and are getting to do exactly what you want to do. For me it is to make some progress on the writing, which you might say is a “labor of love.”
In case you aren’t sure how you got here, I’m Mary Louisa Locke, the author of the USA Today best-selling Victorian San Francisco Mystery series and the Caelestis Science Fiction series. This is my newsletter reflecting on my life as an indie author trying to age gracefully. If you aren’t already subscribed but are interested in doing so, you can subscribe for free by clicking the little button below. If you enjoyed this post, please do click on the little heart and/or share with your friends, and I always welcome comments!
Where did you learn the pilates chair exercise? I am limited to exercising in a chair, but don't have a good routine . . .
Thanks for keeping us up on what you're doing. I am continually impressed with how much you get done!
When I broke my toe during Covid, I started buying various lessons from Better5dotcom. They are always having sales on their digital (I watch on my computer) classe (they also have DVD. The one I am doing right now is the 10 day Gentle Chair Pilates, only $10, they have others with more challenging lessons, but this particular one I am more likely to stick with and not end up hurting myself!