Welcome to Jon's author diary for the week ending, July 14, 2019.
I’ve had another productive week. I’ve been working on my first draft of Blind Reset, my follow-up to Blind Gambit. I'm just about to write the final six chapters, so I should have a first draft of this book ready by the middle of next week. Consider I abandoned this book a year ago, it feels great to know I’ve nearly got the story out of my head.
Miracle mornings
I’ve continued to get up at 4.45am every morning to get the writing done. What’s surprised me is that having just a few hours of focused time where I can get into a flow state has almost tripled my production. The numbers don’t make sense, but I’m not going to complain!
I’ll admit that I’m starting to feel tired. It probably didn’t help that my son decided to wake me up at 1.30am on Tuesday morning. A few author friends of mine who have done something similar told me that the next couple of weeks are the hardest, but then getting up becomes a habit.
Because of the school summer holidays, I have three more full writing days left until September. I’m going to continue getting up early, but my writing time will only be those brief windows in the morning. This is why I’ve been so focused on getting first drafts of linger projects finished. My hope is that by the time I’ve finished writing The Ravenglass Chronicles, I’ll have no other projects to do, so I can focus on a new flagship series.
Since June 16, I have complete first drafts for:
- The Ravenglass Chronicles book 11, Justice.
- Cleric of the Wasteland, Wasteland book 4.
- Black Death: Outbreak.
- Black Death: Survival.
- Black Death: Apocalypse.
- Black Death: London.
- Podcasting for Authors.
Next week, I will add Blind Reset to this list!
Of course, I’ll have my work cut out for me in terms of re-drafting, but five of those projects have been hanging over me for a year or more. So, it’s a massive psychological boost to feel like I’m moving forward.
Reading
I read a very cool non-fiction book this week called Creative Thinking by Jonathan Firth. It was an advance copy and I think it’s set for release sometime in the next week or so.
In the book, a cognitive psychologist goes deep into how to be more creative. It was full of great tips and tricks, and I’ve been introduced to the idea of taking a ‘nappuccino’—essentially drinking a strong coffee before taking a power nap. It tried it on Friday and it worked really well.
I’d recommend to anyone who wants to boost their creativity, whether its art, music, coding, business, I think this book will be very beneficial.
Do you have any great productivity tips? Hit reply and let me know.
The Sci-Fi Roundtable.
On this week’s episode of the podcast, we had our biggest roundtable to date, with five authors, recorded over three continents, to discuss artificial intelligence and artificial life.
I think I might have been the most pessimistic about the future of AI and what how it will change what it means to be a productive person, so do check that out.
You can subscribe wherever you download podcasts, or listen at sfrtpodcast.libsyn.com.
Yours,
Jon
