As busy as a bee 🐝

28 September 2020 1 Comment writer at work 0 Likes 1157 Views

After watching the weather, the poet decided to go fishing on Friday. So I put together an editing bag and took the work with me that came in on Thursday morning. By the end of the afternoon, I’d finished the hard-copy edits.

By the time we got home, a new proofreading job had landed from the Greek client. And the plan was to finish the screen edits of the Hong Kong job on Saturday or Sunday so I had the week clear to do the proofreading job.

However, on Saturday, we went out shopping. For walking shoes for the poet (as opposed to boots, for those easier-terrain walks), and some leather tie-up trainers for me (as opposed to the slip-on badminton trainers I usually favour).

By the time we got home, the contract had landed for the new ghostwriting gig. So I turned that around straight away and sent it back.

The plan shifted to Sunday, but then we had a major boiler leak and an emergency plumber had to come out. We had to wait for him to watch the Leeds game on telly, but we didn’t mind too much because the poet had been watching that too. The plumber did a temporary repair and he’s coming back later in the week.

By the time I was able to sit down in my office, the first ghostwriting gig had actually landed. And I had planning to do too, on top of the work I already wanted to do. And so the plan shifted once more, to Monday.

That meant that Sunday’s jobs in the end were:

confirm safe receipt of the ghostwriting gig ✅
diary work for the coming week ✅
planning work for the next 6 weeks ✅
prepare & format proofreading job ✅

I’d just like to remind everyone … I don’t work at the weekends … 😇

And the coming week suddenly got busier, especially as there are some workmen coming too:

a gardener (actually a lady) to come and do a job that should have been done before we got here
a painter to finish painting the outside of the house, which also should have been done before we got here ✅
a plumber, to replace an air valve on the boiler
the car hire company to collect the hire car (I presume)

Jobs to do today:

blog post = 500 words ✅
Catch the Rainbow = 775 words
Diary of a Pussycat = 412 words
Ghostwriting Gig #1 = 2,000 words
screen edits for the Hong Kong job
latest proofreading job

I’ve decided to keep these targets every day, rather than have them fluctuate depending on how many words I actually write. If I can write at least these targets every time, I should meet my overall targets sooner. I’ll update them each week. (This blog, for example, is actually 630 words now.)

However, my day was thrown as soon as it started, despite me getting to my desk very early for me indeed.

My word meters stopped working from Writertopia, and the only thing I can think of, after doing some research, is that they need Java and I’m using Edge now, which doesn’t like Java. Apparently. Such a pity, as I do love my little man from Writertopia. 🙁 I was only going to use the simple word meters too. (Sigh!)

Once I found a replacement for the word meters, the next job was today’s blog. The new format for the day is to do writing work in the mornings, starting the ghostwriting job at 11am and working for 2 hours, followed by an hour for dinner, including walking the dog, and then 3 – 4 hours of editing/proofreading for clients.

And now, I work.