Writing Intentions: July 15, 2023

Daily Diary, Day 1049:

Hi, I’m Mary Louisa Locke, the author of the USA Today best-selling Victorian San Francisco Mystery series and the Caelestis Science Fiction series.

If you have received this newsletter reflecting on my life as an indie author trying to age gracefully, it is either because you subscribed or someone forwarded it to you. If you are in the latter camp, and want to subscribe, just click on this handy button.

First my week in review. The weather finally turned sunny and warm, which did have some impact on my exercise, as did the day I spent gardening last Saturday. I confess, the hours I spent creating a desert motif in the planter, which primarily consisted of moving rocks around, left me sore for the next few days. As a result, I didn’t walk on either day last weekend. However, the rest of the week, despite soreness, I did average just under 90 mins of exercise, and I did walk every week day.

For next week, I am going to have to play around with walking goals because of the heat. Not bad if I get out walking by 8, but I might need to try to actually work up to a sixty-minute walk, or see if it cools off enough for me to do my second walk after dinner. This morning I did a 40 minute walk, so I only have to do a 20 minute walk this afternoon. My intention for the coming week is to figure out a schedule that I can maintain over the next few months which will be hot.

In terms of working on the story (now officially a novella), I didn’t work at all last weekend but managed to average 400 words the rest of the week and I finished scene 12 this morning (it totaled 3,200 words.)

My intentions next week are to finish the story with an epilogue and give subscribers 4-5 days to read this first draft before I archive these posts. During those days, I will do my first major edit before sending to beta readers. If I feel good enough about the shape the story is in, I will put the novella up for pre-order, with a publication date for the end of August. Between now and then, I will be editing, rewriting after feedback from beta readers, sending off to the proof-reader, and then doing many of the activities (announcing in newsletters, getting a new release scheduled with BookBub, etc) associated with publishing a new book.

Then I will be ready to start work on the fifth book in the Caelestis series.

A lot to accomplish, so let’s see if I can’t turn those intentions into reality this coming week. I'm not sure when I took this photo, sometime last week, but definitely cheery!