Friday Done List Sept. 18

Goal 1. Write And Publish Adult Short Stories, Essays, and Humor 

• A new essay was published at Books Are Our Superpower, which I will be writing about here at some point.
• Took an excellent flash fiction Zoom workshop through Thurber House with instructor Tina Tocco. It was a generative workshop, my favorite kind, and I came away with the beginnings of two stories I've wanted to start for a long time now.
• Brought my submission marketing spreadsheet up to date and planned 3 submissions.
• Did not make those submissions. Tomorrow! Tomorrow!
• Started an essay on a history book I just finished reading.
• Pretty much finished a humor piece.

Goal 2. Build Community/Market Work/Brand Myself and My Work

• Promoted the new essay on Facebook and BlueSky. Some people on Facebook were very interested, which doesn't usually happen.

 

Friday Done List Sept. 11

Why, yes, things did get a little out of hand week before last and no Done List was posted last Friday. But I have been doing things these last two weeks.

Goal 1. Write And Publish Adult Short Stories, Essays, and Humor 

• Took an excellent Zoom workshop with author Dariel Suarez through Pioneer Valley Writers' Workshop.
• Wrote and published the last Seeking Time essay for the summer. This series of essays was not successful with the goal I had for it, increasing readership at Medium. However, I have wanted to use time material from Original Content in new ways for quite a while, and I'm happy to have finally done it.  Additionally, an unexpected by-product of publishing thirteen essays in six weeks (I started writing five of them earlier in the summer so I spent more than six weeks doing the actual writing) is that I found myself making good use of early morning and evening time for work, something I wasn't accustomed to doing. I hope to be able to carry that forward.
• Have been working on a humor piece. I kid you not.
• Registered for a flash fiction workshop through Thurber House.
• Registered to attend an in-person author talk.
• Got started going through workshop lists to plan what I want to take the rest of the year. Did not get far.
• Worked on market research for short stories and essays. Did not get as far as I'd hoped.

Friday Done List August 21

Goal 1. Write And Publish Adult Short Stories, Essays, and Humor 

• Finished two Seeking Time essays, one of which I've published. I'll publish the other tomorrow morning. I want to go over it one more time, and I suspect evening isn't the best time to publish on-line. 
• Promoted the first Seeking Time essay.
• Have the subject matter for the next two Seeking Time essays planned.
• It's going to be difficult to get them both done, because I have family events going from Wednesday through Saturday next week. I'm hopeful about one of them, at least.
• There's nothing like a rejection to make me feel I'm working, and I got one of those this week.
• I also registered for a Zoom workshop with the Pioneer Valley Writers Workshop. It's happening tomorrow morning, and I just saw an email they sent me sometime today indicating there are ten of us registered. Yikes! The Off Campus Writers Workshop workshops I attend can have 70, 80 or more people attending so it's easy to get comfortably lost in the crowd and just take notes. This one I feel I'm sticking my neck out. Well, isn't that special? It's a possibility to network with adult writers instead of children's writers. I guess I better fix my hair, huh? What am I going to wear? What if my equipment doesn't work? I know it works with OCWW. This is far, far worse than, What if the other kids don't like me? Wait, wait. I just remembered. I did a couple of Thurber House Zoom workshop a few years ago, and that went fine. Or was there a sound problem with one of them? But that was definitely them. And I did Zoom writers' workshops during the pandemic. Calm-toi, Gail.
• Oh, and I spent a little time working on my market research spreadsheet for short-form writing. I found another place I can submit something when it opens in October.

Goal 2. Build Community/Market Work/Brand Myself and My Work

• The big news is the new website that went up last weekend. We had to work some kinks out relating to posting links to it on Facebook. Facebook would show only a part of the preview. 
• Did one blog post and, you guessed it, it was about the website.

Goal 4. Begin Some Writing on the 19th Century Novel Idea

• Tomorrow's workshop is about developing a novel, and I'm taking it to help with developing this novel idea. Though I am primarily a short-form writer these days. 

Friday Done List August 14

Goal 1. Write And Publish Adult Short Stories, Essays, and Humor 

• Submitted the humor piece I wrote last week.
• Submitted a flash fiction.
• Have a plan to submit a flash fiction next month when a publication opens for submissions.
• Did some work on my marketing spreadsheet.
• Only wrote one Seeking Time essay this week.
• But I published that essay!
• Have a few Seeking Time essays started. Barely started.
• Did some tinkering on some things.
• Figured out how to record ideas on to my phone and am trying to use that and transcribe every evening.

Goal 2. Build Community/Market Work/Brand Myself and My Work

• Have finished a complete and total redo of the website! Will try to upload it this weekend. We would have done it today, but I wanted to send a link to the present website to Facebook and a few family members so people would have a chance to see how huge this change is. And not just because now I have long hair.
• Managed one blog post, but it was a History Reading Project post, and that's important.

Friday Done List August 7

Goal 1. Write And Publish Adult Short Stories, Essays, and Humor 

• Having technical difficulties with a submission. Should be able to get that out this weekend.
• Published one Seeking Time essay. The second for this week should go out this weekend.
• Knocked off a journal entry, most of which could end up being a flash piece to submit somewhere.

Goal 2. Build Community/Market Work/Brand Myself and My Work

• Published two blog posts.
• Promoted them as well as the Seeking Time essay.
• Watched a workshop video about how AI searches for books differently than Google used to.
• Spent a lot of time working on a new website. Does that need to be done now, Gail? How do you justify this use of time? Well, I am rebranding, and I hope to do more submissions relating to the rebrand. Perhaps it would be a good thing if my website reflected the kinds of writing I'm doing. Just maybe.

Friday Done List: July 31

Sometimes I'll do a done list and feel that it indicates I did more than I thought I had. This one is for two weeks and makes me feel I should have done more.

Goal 1. Write And Publish Adult Short Stories, Essays, and Humor 

• Finished a draft of a humor piece!
• Published seven Seeking Time essays at Medium in the last two weeks. This did involve last minute copy work and significant writing for the last two. The first five were written mostly over the early part of the summer.
• Have next week's two Seeking Time essays started. Well underway.
• A History Reader Project piece was published last week at BAOS.
• Have been reading for The History Reader Project.

Goal 2. Build Community/Market Work/Brand Myself and My Work

• Wrote a blog post about the Seeking Time essays that I'll publish this weekend.
• Promoted all the publishing I did on Medium.
• I have been thinking about a massive website redo and did a mock-up of the homepage to discuss with my computer guy who is anxious to run with it.

Friday Done List July 17

Goal 1. Write And Publish Adult Short Stories, Essays, and Humor     

• Those five Seeking Time essays I mentioned at this time last week are ready to go. I start publishing on Monday.
• I worked on revising the Black AF post into an essay to submit to Books Are Our Superpower. I would have submitted it, but BAOS has been giving me problems uploading images recently, so I have to work that out.
• I have a sixth Seeking Time essay nearly ready to post week after next.
• Will the day spent walking result in a nature essay of some kind some day? Can I justify that as work for that reason?

Goal 2. Build Community/Market Work/Brand Myself and My Work

• Finally did a This American Woman Post. I finished reading the book a few weeks ago.

Goal 3. Submit Book-length Work to Agents and Editors 

• I finished the BlueSky pitch event on Monday. I got a little attention for my effort. In my experience, BlueSky pitch events are far less eventful than the ones on Xitter were. They probably aren't worth the time involved, which may explain why so few people take part in them. 

Goal 4. Begin Some Writing on the 19th Century Novel Idea

• I did a little note taking on this in relation to setting and the setting of one particular scene. Firming up the setting would be very helpful.
• Also, on the way home from Monday's walk, while someone else was driving, I read some more of a book about the historical issue the 19th century novel turns on.
• The 19th century novel I'm still reading is surprisingly good.

Friday Done List July 10

This is another week when I really need a Done List. The boundary between personal life and work life has been very weak. But I managed a few things.

Goal 1. Write And Publish Adult Short Stories, Essays, and Humor 

• I have worked on five Seeking Time essays for a Medium publishing project. This includes finding illustrations as well as writing and getting the material started on Medium. These will be published one a day directly to Medium without submitting to publications. We will see how that goes.
• I've worked on two blog posts that could become essays for submission.
• I was approved by NetGalley as a reader for Aristocracy American Style by Nancy Isenberg, which I have started reading. 
• Some reading of recently published flash fiction.
• Promoted a previously published essay on both Facebook and BlueSky

Goal 2. Build Community/Market Work/Brand Myself and My Work

• Published one blog post and promoted it.
• Started taking part in a BlueSky pitch. I don't think it looks as if it will be as ... robust? active?...as the pitches on Xitter were, but I'm pitching an adult book and this gives me an opportunity to brand myself as an adult writer.

Goal 3. Submit Book-length Work to Agents and Editors 

• Taking part in that BlueSky pitch for one of my adult books. A multiplier! An action that addresses two goals!

Goal 4. Begin Some Writing on the 19th Century Novel Idea

• I'm reading a 19th century novel that one of my characters in my potential 19th century novel could have read.

Friday Done List July 3

While I am well aware the world isn't waiting with bated breath for my done lists, they are very helpful for me. In fact, after around 5 weeks of aiding a family member, two weekends of my own upper-respiratory illness, a houseguest for three nights, prepping for a John the Baptist Day gathering for 17 people, and a 48-hour trip that involved visiting a couple of historical sites, two woods walks and a quick visit to a dam, as well as a stop at a garden and arboretum, I am having trouble wrapping my head around what I want to be doing. 

A done list should help a great deal with that.

Goal 1. Write And Publish Adult Short Stories, Essays, and Humor 

• At least two of the five blog posts I've done since mid-May should become essays I'll be submitting or publishing somewhere else.
• I did write and submit an essay that was published at Books Are Our Superpower.
• I submitted three pieces of flash fiction to a site that accepted up to three pieces per submission. They were all rejected within days. Such efficiency!
• I created something called a junk journal that has cleaned up my desk and may have organized my life some.
• I did a lot on my Market Research Spreadsheet that I'm using to keep track of journals I've checked out, whether I'm interested in submitting to them or not. Knowing you shouldn't be submitting to a publication is useful information. The spreadsheet has a place for planning and for keeping track of submissions. And rejections, too, of course. 
• I requested a just published history galley from NetGalley. They rejected me. So I requested a different book today! Also, I looked at my NetGalley profile. The information about where I share material about my reading had disappeared. Fixing that might improve my chances for being selected as a gallery reader.
• I finished revising a chapter of one of my unpublished books into a short story and just submitted that.
• I've started a couple of essays for a series I'm planning to publish directly to Medium without submitting to publications. More about that another time.

Goal 2. Build Community/Market Work/Brand Myself and My Work

• I'm in the early stages of planning a big website and work revision. I've looked around at some writer websites as research.

Goal 3. Submit Book-length Work to Agents and Editors 

• I have a page long list of agents in my junk journal that I am slowly going through to see if any are appropriate for me to submit my adult books to. So far, not many. 

Goal 4. Begin Some Writing on the 19th Century Novel Idea

• I started reading a book dealing with a historical element relating to my novel idea. The book is not very good.
• This past week's historical visits on our mini-vaca were all about the 19th century novel idea.

Friday Done List May 8

 A good week. At least, it feels like a good week.

Goal 1. Write And Publish Adult Short Stories, Essays, and Humor 

• Truly worked on a humor piece.
• Finished a blog post that is going to become an essay.
• Worked on an essay for a project.
• Took a workshop on literary submissions in preparation for submitting a new short story.
• Finished reading an excellent history book for The Reading History Project.
• Started reading another history book for The Reading History Project.

Goal 2. Build Community/Market Work/Brand Myself and My Work

• Published a blog post. Will publish another this weekend.
• Promoted said blog post. 
• Spent way too much time reading on social media about Mac Barnett, whom I hadn't heard of this time last week.

Goal 3. Submit Book-length Work to Agents and Editors 

• Received a rejection. Rejection means you're working!

Friday Done List May 1

I read an article about a woman who tracked every hour she spent writing for six months. What she found out was that a lot of the time she wasn't writing, she was doing writing-related activities. My first response was, Oh, no, I am never tracking my writing. That is asking for misery. But now I'm thinking, wait. There is a lot of writing adjacent work that writers need to do. No judgement!

Goal 1. Write And Publish Adult Short Stories, Essays, and Humor 

• An essay submission I'd made last week came back requesting edits. Essentially, it was too short. So I did a rewrite that increased the word count. I think the essay was actually better afterward.
• The essay above has been approved for publication.
• I finished two blog posts that I plan to revise to submit as essays.
• I set up some files for the essays I plan to write from blog posts.
• I took a workshop yesterday that wasn't what I was expecting. However, I came away with some thoughts regarding the short story I recently finished and made a couple of changes to it today.
• I did just the tiniest bit of work on some humor pieces.

Goal 2. Build Community/Market Work/Brand Myself and My Work

• I published a blog post last Saturday, which I also promoted.
• I wrote and published another blog post, which I also promoted.
• Read an article about AI and another about marketing books, for what good that will do me.

Goal 4. Begin Some Writing on the 19th Century Novel Idea

• Made some notes on this.

 

Friday Done List April 24

Goal 1. Write And Publish Adult Short Stories, Essays, and Humor  

• Some basic revision of the prose poem I began in a workshop last week.
• Made a submission!
• Revised a blog post I'd forgotten about into an essay for submission.
• Submitted the essay I just told you about.
• Wrote a blog post I hope will become part of a series/arc I'll publish directly at Medium. A case of using the blog for actual writing/first drafts.
• Wrote a draft of a blog post for the Reading History Project that I hope to revise to submit to a Medium publication.
• Finally got a little market research done. Swung this because I had to spend time in a waiting room while someone had a medical test. Got on the office's WIFI!

Goal 2. Build Community/Market Work/Brand Myself and My Work

• 
  
  Someone made a lovely comment on BlueSky about Happy Kid! Which I then reposted and wrote about on Facebook.

Goal 3. Submit Book-length Work to Agents and Editors 

• Made a submission!

 

Friday Done List April 17

 Goal 1. Write And Publish Adult Short Stories, Essays, and Humor 

• Started a new humor piece. Not one of the new humor pieces I've been thinking about starting for weeks, but a totally different humor piece.
• Took a workshop during which I started 3 prose poems, all variations of the same material. Which I think I might turn into a piece of flash fiction, my original idea, after all.
• Started a blog post that I am already thinking about revising to submit elsewhere.

Goal 2. Build Community/Market Work/Brand Myself and My Work

• Bratz v Anthropic blog post.
• Promoted the above blog post.
• Started another blog post, as mentioned under Goal 1.

Goal 3. Submit Book-length Work to Agents and Editors 

• Checked a couple of hours ago, and an agent I'm interested in submitting to has finally reopened. On next week's To Do List.

Goal 4. Begin Some Writing on the 19th Century Novel Idea

• Some thoughts. Some notes.

Friday Done List April 10

Well, this was a better week. Yes, I'm feeling better. 

Goal 1. Write And Publish Adult Short Stories, Essays, and Humor 

• Made two submissions.
• Attended a Zoom workshop.
• Finished a short story, except I've got to do something about the last few lines.
• Am considering a new series of essays for Medium that I would publish myself, not through publications.

Goal 2. Build Community/Market Work/Brand Myself and My Work

• Did a blog post.
• Promoted the blog post.
• Have plans to increase writing about time here.
• Updated the What's New and Essays, Short Stories, and Humor sections of my website. That hadn't been done for a while. It took a couple of weeks for me to do my section of the job. Computer Guy did his in a couple of hours.

Friday Done List March 27

Goal 1. Write And Publish Adult Short Stories, Essays, and Humor 

• An essay was published earlier this week. 
• Received a rejection yesterday. "While we are saying no this time, we want you to know that we particularly enjoyed your work and would love to see more from you in the future." Sure. That's what they say to all the girls. Nonetheless, I've got something in mind to submit to them.
• Nearly finished a short story.  It's been so long since I've finished anything that just nearly finishing something brings tears to my eyes.
• Have finished an essay for Original Content to publish tomorrow.

Goal 2. Build Community/Market Work/Brand Myself and My Work

• Promoted everything I needed to promote.

 

Friday Done List March 20

Oh, my gosh. Another week of family stuff. Next week should be better, except I'm going shopping. And walking. And then I think it's Easter.

Goal 1. Write And Publish Adult Short Stories, Essays, and Humor 

• Rejection! On Sunday! There is no safe place!
• Submission!
• Just wrote my sisters an email that I'm calling a first draft of a humor piece.

Goal 2. Build Community/Market Work/Brand Myself and My Work

• I fished BlueSky's 30-Day Women Writer Challenge in which you post a book you've read by a woman writer, no particular order, no commentary. Because if there's one thing I can do, it's stick to low-risk, low-labor activity. I did finally break 400 followers because of this challenge. Perhaps I should find another.
• Published my most recent Reading Project post. Promoted it at one place. More next week!

Friday Done List March 13

I spent two days this week with family. Then two hours on the phone with family business. Not my best work week. No, I don't know what was my best work week. Perhaps it's still in my future.

Goal 1. Write And Publish Adult Short Stories, Essays, and Humor 

• Have nearly finished a revision of my Pedal Pusher post for an essay submission. 
• Worked on revising a book chapter into a short story. Definitely an interesting experience. Because a short story is a short story and a book chapter is a book chapter. We're talking two different animals.

Goal 2. Build Community/Market Work/Brand Myself and My Work

• Mainly I've just been continuing to take part in BlueSky's 30-Day Women Writer Challenge in which you post a book you've read by a woman writer, no particular order, no commentary. Got a lot of attention for posting an old book by Joyce Carol Oates. No new followers.
• Though I'm also close to being done with a Reading History post for a book publishing next month. I think I worked on that earlier this week. But who knows?

Goal 3. Submit Book-length Work to Agents and Editors 

• Get this--an agent who posted her Manuscript Wish List to BlueSky's MSWL event isn't accepting submissions until next month. She's just screwing with us.

Friday Done List March 6

Life got ahead of work this week, meaning I was tied up most of Monday and today and feeling a certain amount of frustration about that. And that, folks, is why a done list has such value. When I collect my thoughts about what I actually did this week, I see that I accomplished more than I felt I had. 

Not that much actual writing, though.

Goal 1. Write And Publish Adult Short Stories, Essays, and Humor 

• Started something totally new and flash-like in my journal. 
• Have nearly finished a blog post that will then become an essay submission.
• Made a short story submission. Interesting story here: I saw on BlueSky yesterday that a journal I'd heard of and been following had opened for a brief period, which it does at the beginning of every month. Hmm, I thought. I must check this out. So I checked it out...at my marketing spreadsheet where I keep track of publications I like and want to submit to. I had done some reading of this particular journal, liked what I'd seen, and even had identified a short story I wanted to submit to it. The marketing spreadsheet is working! May not result in publications, but, otherwise, it's working. 

Goal 2. Build Community/Market Work/Brand Myself and My Work

• Published a blog post last weekend. It was about an ADHD book, a subject that interests me, written by a long-time Facebook friend, giving me an opportunity to support another writer. 
• Promoted that blog post on Facebook, BlueSky, and Goodreads.
• Continued taking part in BlueSky's 30-Day Women Writer Challenge in which you post a book you've read by a woman writer, no particular order, no commentary. 
• Attended a Zoom author presentation. The author involved is Dana Stabenow. It was an excellent conversation between Stabenow and a librarian very knowledgeable about mysteries, which is what Stabenow writes. It left me discouraged, not because Stabenow is far more successful than I am. That kind of thing truly doesn't bother. I write for the sake of the writing, grabbing what publication I can. What bothered me is that Stabenow is able to do so much more than I can, successful or not. Oh, well. Move on.

Goal 3. Submit Book-length Work to Agents and Editors 

• Made one of the three book submissions I planned to make this week. One of the submissions I decided not to do. The third one I'll get to next week. This submission, along with the short story submission I made, means I've already met my goal of two submissions a month for March. On average, I've done more than two a month so far this year.

Friday Done List February 27

So, we had a blizzard last weekend. Lost power for 90 minutes. That led to a heat problem for a little while. I had to shovel snow a couple of times. Had a decent workweek in spite of all that.

Goal 1. Write And Publish Adult Short Stories, Essays, and Humor 

• New essay, The Reading History Project: The "Our" in "Our Shared History" was published at Books Are Our Superpower.
• Worked a bit on revising a chapter into a short story.
• Cleaned some files while the power was out and determined that I had some work that was not going anywhere and threw it away. This is a good thing.

Goal 2. Build Community/Market Work/Brand Myself and My Work

• Promoted The "Our" in "Our Shared History" on Facebook and BlueSky
• Wrote a Story Behind the Story post for the above essay and published it here on Original Content.
• Wrote a new Reading History Project post.
• Wrote still another blog post. 
• Promoted all the blog posts. 
• Continued taking part in BlueSky's 30-Day Women Writer Challenge in which you post a book you've read by a woman writer, no particular order, no commentary. I did one of these soon after I joined BlueSky. It was fun and gathered me a few followers. This has led to me breaking 400 followers on BlueSky. In case you're wondering, I've been on BlueSky for something like 15 months and just broke 400 followers, which is maybe a third or less of what I had on Twitter. 
• Signed up to attend a Zoom author presentation next week. The author involved is Dana Stabenow, who I've never heard of. But she's promoting a mystery set in the nineteenth century, and I can watch her without changing my clothes or leaving my house, so I'm in.

Goal 3. Submit Book-length Work to Agents and Editors 

• Yesterday the Manuscript Wish List people ran an event on BlueSky that involved agents posting material they're looking for. I have the names of three agents I'll be submitting to next week.

Goal 4. Begin Some Writing on the 19th Century Novel Idea

• Worked thirty minutes on this.

Friday Done List February 20

Goal 1. Write And Publish Adult Short Stories, Essays, and Humor 

• Finished an essay on the Reading History Project.
• Submitted the essay on the Reading History Project. 
• Did a very little work on a scifi short story.
• Took what was one of the two worst Zoom writing workshops I've ever encountered. The last writing prompt for it gave me an idea I'm liking though.

Goal 2. Build Community/Market Work/Brand Myself and My Work

• Taking part in BlueSky's 30-Day Women Writer Challenge in which you post a book you've read by a woman writer, no particular order, no commentary. I did one of these soon after I joined BlueSky. It was fun and gathered me a few followers.
• Started updating a section of my website.
• Am now considering just redoing the entire website.
• Renewed my SCBWI membership even though I do no children's writing now. I do still have some children's book manuscript, one of which I submitted to an agent last month.

Goal 4. Begin Some Writing on the 19th Century Novel Idea

• Did some scene work.