Welcome to the newly upgraded WWW, now with a renewed focus on my novel writing progress, and more insight into living and working as an indie author with a full-time job and Crohn’s disease.
my_writing_week
Today, with this post, I’m celebrating one year of working on my writing every single day.
It took some discipline, particularly to begin with, but has become easier over time. I’ll be blogging separately on this subject, and will include tips that might be useful if there’s anything you want to be more consistent with.
The past week, I’ve been on leave from my day job and, as usual, I didn’t get as much done as I’d hoped or intended.
Last Sunday, I allowed myself a bit of a break, but did some work on the cover design for the second edition of The Spike Volume 1.
On Monday morning, I began writing my upcoming blog post on consistency, then in the afternoon, I visited my parents; we went to the cinema to see “Mission Impossible – The Final Reckoning” (quick review: truly incredible stunts; virtually no story).
On Tuesday and Wednesday, I worked a bit more on my consistency blog post, and nearly finished the cover I’ve been working on for The Spike Volume 1, only missing the back cover blurb. I’m not sure if I’m happy with it, so decided to put it aside for now and work on the covers for the individual parts of Volume 1 that will be published separately for the first time.
Also on Wednesday, I spent more than an hour (and more money than I care to admit) in my nearest bookshop, and came away with enough to keep me occupied for a while. I’ve already read Nineteen Eight-Four, but the others are all new to me and I’m looking forward to reading them all. Before I decide which to read first, though, I need to finish Dracula, which I’m halfway through.
Thursday, I travelled out of town to spend the day with friends, and didn’t get home until 10:40PM. I had to maintain my record of working on my writing every day, especially as I was so close to completing one year, so I spent 10 minutes bringing together the connecting_links below, then crawled into bed.
I mixed things up a little on Friday. I wrote a little of this blog; I updated the series bible for The Spike; and I worked on the cover design for one of the two parts of The Spike Volume 1.
All in all, not as productive as I’d hoped whilst I wasn’t working my day job, which has prompted me to set a new target…
Going forward, I want to increase the number of writing sessions I do per week. My current average is 11, and I’d like to get that up to 14, averaging two per day. That should be possible – I’ll report back on how it goes.
status_report
I’ve almost completed a new cover design for a second edition of The Spike Volume 1, but I’m not certain if I like it.
I’ve returned to work on covers for the two individual parts, Application Infiltration and Laying Down The Law, which are going to be published separately for the first time. I want both to have a similar style and layout, and I have an idea I like for each, I’m just not entirely sure how I’ll do them or whether they’ll look as good on the page as they do in my head.
Draft 2 of The Spike Volume 2 is complete! It contains three separate books from the perspective of seven characters.
Revision will begin soon.
The aim is to have Volume 2 finished by the end of 2025 for publication early 2026, although this is beginning to look ambitious.
Early brainstorming has been done for The Spike Volume 3. I know how it must begin; I have an ending that I think will be great; and I have a long list of ideas to get from one to the other that needs to be whittled down and put in an order. I’m not intending to do much more work on this until revision is complete on Volume 2.
There are a couple of other projects in the works that I’m not ready to share yet – they’ll be announced here first.
connecting_links
The Spike is set in our world, incorporating real events; the links below are relevant to the themes and overarching storyline, and may or may not provide clues to the direction of the series.
I do not necessarily agree with or endorse any of the views within.
Is AI sparking a cognitive revolution that will lead to mediocrity and conformity?
Is a quantum-cryptography apocalypse imminent?
Robots run out of energy long before they run out of work to do − feeding them could change that
The pursuit of better drugs through orbital space crystals
What is Palantir? The secretive tech company behind Trump’s data collection efforts
weekly_inspiration
Every week I share something that’s inspired my creativity.
This week, as I often do when I’m on leave from my day job, I’ve been listening to The War On Drugs, and I love the energy of this live version of “I Don’t Live Here Anymore”.
What’s inspired you this week? Please share in the comments.
See you next week.
Arrowmaker Books 