Not my most productive week, and yet … (#SFWApro)

I did get quite a bit accomplished.
•I rewrote the Boys’ Life story. They accepted it. So that’s very good.
•I put a Facebook page for Philosophy and Fairytales. I’m not sure this will actually result in a shower of sales, but it seems to be de rigeur for this sort of project, so …
•I got slightly more done on Southern Discomfort. The story is continuing to fall into place, though I still don’t have a clear finish for Maria’s personal story.
•I sent off A Many Splendored Thing after a final proof. I also made some very slight changes to Leave the World to Darkness and mailed it off.
•I didn’t complete as many Demand media articles as I’d planned, but as several of them were higher-paying ones, I think everything balanced out.
•And I was finally able to make some calls for my Raleigh Public Record story without losing my voice (though it did get ragged pretty quickly). Still more to do, but if I’m lucky and moderately pushy, I can wrap up the reporting next week.
The biggest frustration was not getting more done on Southern Discomfort. And by the end of the week, the sense of futility (“Well, I’m not meeting my goals, I’ll just stop.”) hit me rather hard. Still, I kept my nose to the grindstone earlier in the week, despite the vagaries of having to call people (the RPR story) and not know when they’ll call back, if they’ll call back or how long we’ll talk.
Which is something I’ve been thinking about—how do I adapt my schedule when things have that kind of uncertainty? My schedule is based around blocking out time and working until it’s done. It’s tough to block out time when I’m not the only one affecting the project. And very easy to get distracted—”Okay, I’ve made all my calls, it took 30 minutes less than planned, guess I can goof off for 30!”
And it’s too easy to let the fiction slide (as I’ve mentioned before) as it isn’t paying the bills.
This week was instructive in that regard, but I’m calling it a day so I’ll have to discuss scheduling (and we know how I love that topic!) later.