Two whole weeks of content complete and still going strong. The written content has been fairly smooth sailing, but the podcast has a steep learning curve. My plan to spend around 5 hours a week on content hasn’t worked at all, it’s been closer to 20 hours each week, not because it takes that long to make the content, but all the extra hours in setting up a website, learning how to make a podcast, and dealing with random problems.
There are a number of programs that writers can use to track their work hours, and I’m going to look into putting one on my computer this week. Ever the scientist, I need to have good data to inform me. Not because it will dishearten me to know the actual hours I spend on YouTube or playing Sea of Thieves at the moment, but because I can identify inefficiencies if I have the right data.
I’ll find a program I’m happy with in the next few days and then it will be a part of this Monday blog to note the hours that I spend on writing each week.
As I mentioned in the last podcast, each Tuesday flash from now on will be from a prompt that I announce in the podcast. To start I’ll search out some that I find interesting, but if you find a prompt or challenge for me don’t hesitate to email me. I might use prompts for the Patreon flash, but I’m not going to tie my hands, because I might have a story that naturally bubbles up and I need to write.
Speaking of Patreon, I just added some ambitious goals. The goals highlight a path to escape the night job that I currently need to pay the bills, although it is written as though Patreon will be the only income I make from writing. I’ll be releasing short stories on kindle et al, as well as submitting work to magazines, and hopefully a full novel launch before the year is out – maybe. So while the goals speak to Patreon income alone, if my actual writing income reaches those levels from any source I will consider the goals completed.
Tuesday’s writing prompt is “Scars of the past” I haven’t worked out what I’m going to write yet, but probably something with aliens, since all my stories so far have been very human-centric and I’m itching to write something from the outside perspective.
Well, that’s all for today. I’ll see you tomorrow for new content.