Guess who forgot to add a detail into the first chapter of his War Child edit….Yep. Me! Does this mean I’ve got to go back and start again? Yep. Thankfully I was only about 30k into the edit, and although it affects the first couple of chapters the rest of that 30k won’t need as thorough an edit as I had to do yesterday.

I had wanted to be done with this draft by the end of this month, but even without this little set back I don’t think it’s practical. When I look at work shifts, family time, and the days left of the month editing about 100k words properly isn’t going to work. I’d end up rushing it, missing things, adding things that aren’t needed and still not wrap it up on time. So I’m thinking the middle of May might be a more realistic target to aim for.

I’m ninety percent done with a short story for a submission call. I’ve written it, edited it. I printed it off and red penned it as I read it aloud, and my primary beta reader has been over it. All I need to do now is make the tweaks and submit it.

I really like this story, folks. I feel I hit a few strong notes and shows some growth as a writer. Hopefully the editor will agree.

I’m feeling more organised at the moment. I’m taking into consideration my work shifts, and what sort of rest I’ll need if I have an early but don’t sleep well the night before. Like today, a 0500 start with a 1330 end. Now once I get home and shower and do this and that it’s going to be pushing 1530, and considering I slept okay I should be able to get some word wrangling done. I definitely want to get these edits in the short story sub done. Once that’s done I can tick it off and send it off. But I have to consider the early start I’ve got tomorrow as well.

Something I’ve known for a while but am having trouble executing is I need more sleep, and the best way to get that is an earlier bedtime. Last night I was head down by about 2200. Okay I had a movie playing but it was one I’d seen a million times before and I nodded off about three quarters of the way through I guess. I’d also napped for an hour or so earlier in the day. But I’d like to not nap and just aim at sleeping at night if I can. This is just down to me, I do game a bit too much. If I go back to giving myself a time frame, like an hour, and shut if off at that point. Then I think I’ll be able to get a better sleep structure going. A problem over gaming is that some nights I just do not sleep. I can do everything right leading up to bedtime and end up awake for hours. Sometimes I know why, there might be a particular worry I’ve got, but many times there’s nothing. It’s got better in the last year but still isn’t great. Seeing as it has got better I’m hoping I’m moving on the right direction with it, but we’ll see.

Right, it’s clearly one of those days where I could ramble for hours, but I need to get into work.

Have an awesome day, folks!