August 15, 2017

What I’m Writing This Month

Much of my day is spent writing, either freelance articles, guest posts, or one of my many fiction and nonfiction WIP. Any leftover time goes to marketing what I’ve already written, trying to get the word out to as many people as possible. That includes outreach, responding to inquiries, and exploring new marketing channels.

Since I work out of my house, I like to break my day into three parts:

morning

afternoon

evening

I consign tasks to each portion of the day, stopping for lunch and dinner and a few breaks to pet the dog. Every once in a while, I like to look at what I accomplish on a daily basis with my writing. I don’t count words like some writing efriends. I count what I get done. My writing ToDo list this month includes:

That’s the goal. Here’s what I actually accomplished:

  • continued to work on edits for Born in a Treacherous Time, first in the series about the challenges faced by earliest man, with a hoped-for publication date of next summer. Here’s the blurb:

A band of early humans struggle to survive a world where violence and chaos rule the day. 

  • continued to draft the next in the Rowe-Delamagente series. Pieces are falling into place but the characters and events haven’t resolved themselves yet. This book includes many familiar characters with a highlight on a few that I think readers will enjoy. One surprise: Otto finds a friend. The projected publication date: Summer, 2019.
  • updated many of my tech ed resources in my Teachers Pay Teachers store.
  • started paying more attention to my social media feeds as a way of promoting my writing. I’m posting weekly with fresh content to my Twitter and Facebook feeds (Facebook is a page in my main Jacqui Murray profile) and have signed up on Instagram where I’m also posting fresh captioned images. Finally, I updated my Pinterest account with fresh images of my nonfiction tech-in-ed resources. Most of these are in support of my nonfiction writing but since that’s the greater part of my business, that’s what I do!

Here are images of my social media streams:

  • wrote 3-5 posts on each of my three blogs, WordDreams, Ask a Tech Teacher, and USNA or Bust.
  • bloggingvisited efriends on social media to support them, check in, and learn something new. I use this as breaks in my writing activities. It rejuvenates me to see what the rest of the world is doing.

social media

If you’re curious what other writers do all day, here’s an article on the daily routines of twelve famous writers,  one by a NYT best-selling author, and an interesting personal narrative by a cooperative writer.

More on writers:

What’s My Writing Space Look Like?

14 Things Writers Do Before 8am

How to Talk to a Writer

8 Things Writers Can Do No One Else Can

Jacqui Murray is the author of the popular Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy, and the thrillers, To Hunt a Sub and  Twenty-four Days. She is also the author/editor of over a hundred books on integrating tech into education, adjunct professor of technology in education, webmaster for four blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer,  a columnist for TeachHUB, monthly contributor to Today’s Author and a freelance journalist on tech ed topics. You can find her books at her publisher’s website, Structured Learning.

This entry was posted in Musings.

Jacqui Murray

https://jacquimurray.net