We had another long weekend, this time for my birthday. And this time, it was more of a chilled, relaxing time. We saw the poet’s mum on Friday evening, and we saw my mom yesterday. On the way home from seeing Mom, we nipped to Brueton Park in Solihull, where we had a picnic and took the dog for a quick walk around the lake.
Once again, I have been very, very busy. On Friday I worked until almost midnight on the last of a big pile of editing jobs I had in, and I was looking forward to a short week this week of writing – writing my own material, my own fiction.
Catch the Rainbow is stewing in the background. I keep thinking I have the structure intact, and then something else happens. There is currently an inquiry into the pub bombings that is ongoing in Birmingham, and every day more evidence comes to light. Some of this evidence, and some of the supposition, seems to support my own interpretation surrounding events at the time (November 1974). And that’s … scary.
So I need to get it written and circulating, and that was what I was going to work on this week … I’ve not yet received the contract for the new non-fiction book, and I won’t be starting that until the contract does arrive. (Call me old-fashioned …)
However, during yesterday, another new editing job came in, and it’s another that needs doing by the end of the week.
The work is good, don’t get me wrong. The money is very useful. But I wanted to work on Catch the Rainbow this week …
… so I’m working on it of an evening.
Evenings and weekends are usually sacred to us. We are often so busy, and often running around after others, that we still cherish our down-time together. But while I work on the novel, the poet is going to finish a painting he started at the weekend. I also started a new cross-stitch project, but I need daylight for that, and he’ll be using our project lamp for his painting. I can write in ordinary light.
I also have another non-fiction book of my own to complete that’s almost done – it’s been almost done since about last September. And I have several book reviews that need writing up, both for NetGalley and for 52 Books in 52 Weeks. This coming weekend, the Alphabet Adventurers will be finally doing “I is for …” (weather permitting). But I also don’t want the client work to stop coming in.
It’s nice to be busy, but with a 3-week holiday coming up in April, I would like to get the current outstanding work of my own done by then.
