January

Scotland is back in a phase of heavily restricted lockdown (same as last March), which means no travel except for emergencies or necessities. So we’re currently hunkered down on the farm, which is fine, since the cold weather is setting in.

There are several things I am grateful for:

• The full metre cubed bag of firewood we ordered before the holidays.
• Smoky whiskies from Islay, particularly the Lagavulin 16 and the Caol Ila Moch.
• Hot water bottles with fuzzy covers, which I have been obsessively using to keep warm in bed.
• Romance books with happy endings, because happy endings are exactly what I need right now. (I am reading KJ Charles’ Slippery Creatures, which is excellent!)

I’m trying to utilise the lockdown time to write a new project, which I’m continuing to document via the progress tracker in my site’s footer.

You’ll notice since my end of December blog post that I’ve made some progress on Garden Book’s trash draft. I’m aiming for 50k words this month, but the draft may end up being longer. My trash drafts for SFF books are usually about 60k words.

This year I’ve decided to give spreadsheet tracking a try. I didn’t get as much work done in 2020 as I wanted (for . . . obvious reasons, I’m sure), and once Seven Devils 2 is finished, I’m out of a contract. Therefore, work needs to be done this year, manuscripts need to be sold, and my time is a precious commodity.

So! Tracking!

Here’s what my first ten days of tracking looks like:

I’m trying to keep my January goal realistic to avoid burnout, and I think 50k is doable with the other business tasks I have to complete. We’ll see!

One thing that’s helping is going back to work on the Alphasmart.

The Alphasmart is a piece of tech from the 90s and early 2000s. It essentially functions as a digital typewriter; it doesn’t have an internet connection, or any games, or anything to do but write. The Dana takes 3 AA batteries and has between 15-20 hours of battery life (my Alphasmart 3000 — yes, I have two models — has about 28 hours of battery life). It also has a memory card slot, but can only fit about 1GB. So it’s old, it’s clunky, it’s ugly, and I love it.

I ought to make clear that it’s not ideal for editing a manuscript. It is, however, perfect for vomiting out a draft — which is precisely what I am in the process of doing with Garden Book. I also used it for drafting The Fallen Kingdom in 4 weeks, as well as some early chapters of Seven Devils, and my short story in the anthology Toil & Trouble.

I manage to write about 900 words per hour on the Alphasmart, which includes breaks every 20 minutes. Hopefully, I will end this month with one very, very messy draft that I can use as a starting point.

Thoughts, observations, and farm things:

• The owls have started calling to each other at night. My husband scolds me for this, but when I’m working in bed at night, I like to leave the window open a crack so that I can listen to the owls and the river. I find it relaxing. He’s right though, it does make the house cold.
• We finally had our first snowfall! It’s in the photos below, and I’m thrilled about it.
• I also noticed today that the snowdrops have begun to bloom. Snowdrops are one of my favourite flowers; there’s just something special about seeing them come out of the ground as the days start growing longer. It’s a reminder that spring isn’t too far.

More later, much love.

xx