I finished the latest book for NetGalley and will be writing my review later this week. I really enjoyed this one, so much so I (a) bought a copy of it for the poet’s Kindle, and (b) bought the author’s first novel immediately after I’d finished reading this one.
I printed off the latest version of The Fool to date, in case I needed something to read out at the writers’ group, and because I like to see the full, latest version in my file. I also printed the rest of the current editing job, which arrived Monday morning.
Just as I was closing down the computer to get ready to go out, I was hit with a bit of a brain murmur. A local crime story has been in the news recently, and the poet did a “what if …?” And so I expanded that “what if …?” and jotted down a few words for a short story idea.
I wrote 129 words for just this idea – a whole page in the ideas notebook. That’s always a good sign. And then, for the drive to the library, the story wouldn’t leave me alone. When I can bear it no longer and I’m itching to get it down, I’ll go straight to first draft, without an outline, I think.
I think this one could be a 3,000-word crime story to go in the collection (The Suit of Wands) to accompany The Fool. I already have The Ace of Wands, which is around 3,500 words and needs to come down to 3,000 words. This one can be The Two of Wands.
How exciting. 🙂
As expected yesterday, I was on my own at the writers’ group. There were some kids sat at “our” table, doing no harm, being nice to each other and polite to other library users, and doing some reading. Exactly what the library is there for.
But seeing me sit down at a different table, a librarian came over and asked them to move to the children’s section, which they did without complaint. I didn’t mind them being there at all, but the librarian cited “people wanting to work in peace”. The kids weren’t making half as much noise as the adults on the computers …
For a full ninety minutes I sat and worked, getting through several chapters and quite a few pages. As I was packing up to go home, an email came in (to my phone) from Friends House in London, confirming that we could go along for a visit next week to look at some primary material. In the ensuing e-conversation, we covered photography, reproduction, licensing and permissions, as I always do whenever I first contact an organisation.
For the rest of this week, the only work I intend to do is client work. I still have two books that need to be gone by the end of Friday, but I still have Thursday out and now I have another appointment booked for Friday lunchtime with the bank. I want to see how far I get with the editing job before returning to the proofreading job.
Baldy was almost first out of the chicken house this morning, but she was straight in with her head in the food dish. And then she was scrounging at the back door along with Blondie. I’m hoping this is a sign that she’s feeling better now, or at least a little bit.
The sunburn on my nose has stopped itching now. Fortunately, it wasn’t very bad. I should have taken a sunhat to the races on Saturday, but the sky was filled with purple clouds instead of fluffy white ones when we left, and so we just took anoraks with us. And bucket hats. But no sunhats.
Tut, tut.
