My review against plan for September is as follows (the plan took into account that I had to hand-in a 20,000 word portfolio and a reflective journal for my nature-writing course which came to an end mid September):

  • Re-do the book proposal for book one ready for sending out. Yes, book proposal redrafted and I’m close to finishing a 55,000 word first draft of the book.
  • Deliver my two commissioned articles, and begin research for an article due in October. Yes, two 1500 word features delivered and research started for my October commission.
  • At least one new pitch for a feature article to a magazine. Yes, pitched two this month, but not a sniff of interest to date
  • 1000 Twitter followers (up from 984) – Nearly there at 996.
  • 90 followers for this blog (up from 89) – 93 followers, yippee!
  • Learning – focus on aquatic plants and gull id this month. To be entirely honest, not a lot of gull stuff but I went to an aquatic plant workshop – it was great – nailed down some introduced pavement plants – fleabanes – and mini-twitched a pectoral sandpiper at London Wetland Centre.
  • Writing residency – I’ve begun the planning and promoting the workshop on Saturday 16th October and my September Suburban Wild Diary is up to date, and ready to start shaping. I’ve also planned a Thumbnail Nature writing workshop to deliver in October to first year MA nature and travel writing at University of Bath Spa.
  • Regulars – yes, weekly blog on track, but didn’t manage to get a newsletter out this month.

My plan for October is as follows:

  • Send my book proposal for book one to publishers.
  • Deliver my commissioned article.
  • At least two new pitches to magazines.
  • Cross that 1000 followers line on Twitter (up from 996)
  • Cross the 100 followers for this blog (up from 93)
  • Learning – birds, birds, birds this month with some more mini-twitching.
  • Writing residency – the big focus for this month with two workshops to deliver, some outcome monitoring to do and the writing network and reading events to plan.
  • Regulars – weekly blog and October newsletter.