Week 1

Well, February got off to a great start when my laptop (which contains the most recent versions of the NIP & soon-to-be-published Going Fourth) decided to stop charging. To make matters worse, I wasn’t informed before the battery died mid-sentence. On top of trying to sort that, the oven also stopped working and in the furor, I missed my first day of the 200 word a day challenge. I made up the word-count the day after, and have decided to award myself a streak freeze, but I’ll know. I’ll always know. The day job has also picked up slightly which, while interesting, usually leads to a bit more fatigue at the end of the day and less mental capacity for writing. On the bright side, the broken laptop did force me to start writing something entirely new from scratch, which is totally unlike what I normally write, so there’s some growth in there.

Week 2

As we moved into week 2, the new NIP reaches around 4000 words, with a bit of a bonus on some days as it’s something I’ve had in the back of my mind to write for some time. We also move into a week containing both valentine’s day and, the far superior Shrove Tuesday (pancake day, here in the UK), which meant the focus was drawn to seeing who could make the best pancake. At the weekend, I was embroiled in a rare-these-days Ultimate Frisbee tournament with some friends, which was great fun, but did, obviously, have an impact on the writing front. As a saving grace, it produced this photo, which I think we can all agree makes the entire debacle worthwhile.

Week 3

Or, The Return of the Laptop. After sending my laptop away, it arrived back to me in the 3rd week of February, allowing me to get back on with proofing & formatting on Going Fourth, as well as getting the edits back from my cover artist. I have to say, the cover art is way beyond anything I expected, so keep an eye out for the upcoming cover reveal in the near future – it’s not one you’ll want to miss. Nothing much else happened this week – I had a good amount of gaming to catch up on and, towards the end of the week, I was struck down with a cold which absolutely killed my productivity and resulted in my second 0 word day of the year. It was always more of a guideline really anyway, wasn’t it?

Week 4

Week 4 brought the final delivery after edits of the cover art and, I’ve got to emphasise this.

It.

Is.

Fire.

In more ways than one. After battling hard against the cold, I was also able to move again this week (something that was kind of prevented after the Ultimate Frisbee tournament – those things really take it out of you, for those that don’t know – so I started running again. There’s a half marathon in the schedule for March Week 4 and I’m behind on the training. As we move into March Week 1, I’ll be recovering from a Stag Do and (hopefully) getting Going Fourth ready for Advance Reader Copies. The formatting is all but done now, and the cover art is there, so we have a product that is all but ready for launch.

I just have to finish off this last proofing.

Watch this space.

Until next time,

GJD