That title was a mouthful, wasn’t it? Well, my week is just as insane sometimes, you could say. It’s felt more that way, too, since I moved in with my boyfriend two months ago. Well, the idea of having my own place and living on my own must have triggered the part of my brain that needs organisation, because recently, for some reason I’ve started creating a structure for my week. When I moved, I found an old weekly planner I’d bought from a stationery shop on a whim but never used, and decided to give it a go. I’ve been using it ever since!
So now when I get my shifts for my arcade job, I write them down in my Monday to Friday planner so I can look back over them whenever I like. When my boyfriend says his kiddos are coming over for a couple of days, (usually Wednesdays to Fridays, or the occasional weekend), I write that down as well. And I plan my writing days, or when I know I will have to work on a freelance editing project. Then, recently, I added in Mondays for a book review on this blog, and Wednesdays for a writing-related blog post just like this one. I’ve always had the bad habit of starting things like this and never finishing them, so it’s nice to know it’s actually helping me and it’s a good achievement in itself, too. It helps me feel more motivated, and I will always know when I have a task to do. Besides, I’m enjoying writing these blog posts about the books I’m reading and sharing my own experiences with writing and editing!
My arcade shifts are pretty fun. I always have around 30 hours per week there, and most of them are either short evening or morning shifts (about 5 hours or more sometimes), and then I’ll also get some longer days at the weekend or on school holidays. I love all of my colleagues and the job itself is only stressful when it’s really busy, so I enjoy going in and getting my work done and then going home, or getting my work done in the mornings and then going to work. This is where the weekly planner comes in handy, because I can plan my week ahead. I always know when my boyfriends’ days off are, or when he wants to do something fun in the evenings, so I know I have to work for longer on certain days on certain projects.
I love my freelance editing, which I’ve been doing for just over 2 years now. I’ve had an almost constant stream of new and returning clients, some of whom I consider great writing friends and talk to regularly now. For a full length project of 50,000 words or more, I usually offer them between a week and 10 days turnaround time but I always say I’ll give them any updates on this if needed. I only take on what I can physically do, but a lot of the time they don’t always come in at the same time, or I have a few weeks between projects to get my own writing done.
I still can’t believe how quickly this process of becoming an indie author is going. I recently received my book cover for my first book, and next month I have to send it to my editor so I’m almost at the end of what will hopefully be my final edit before that point. So I’ve had to learn how to prepare my time between working and my freelance edits as well, which I always prioritise, especially if I’ve got a tight deadline coming up. Usually I can get about 40 pages edited on a good day in my freelancing, so if I’ve worked on a lot quite quickly, I’ll either have an evening with my boyfriend watching Netflix, or I’ll have a writing evening, on my days off. As he’s also an artist himself, he likes to have those evenings getting drawings done, or sometimes he will play Fifa and I’ll write. So it levels out quite well.
I’m more nervous about finding ARC readers and the formatting part that comes after editing, at the moment! But we will see how that goes.
April Grace 