A good & solid week

Image by hudsoncrafted from Pixabay

It’s been good and solid week, work-wise, as I’ve plodded through the ghostwriting gig. I even did some writing on Sunday, and I hardly ever work at the weekend. I wrote 2 chapters in the afternoon and just under 4,000 words.

Monday

On Monday, I stacked up a load of blog posts to schedule, using odd pockets of time I found when I was having a bit of a break. I completed one book review, and two more books came in. And I wrote another chapter for the ghostwriting gig.

The poet got the all-clear on his chest x-ray, which is good. They’ve promised to look into his asthma medication but, so far, they just keep saying “Let’s see how it goes for another month”. I think he’s going to change surgeries this week now.

Now we both wait to be called for our Covid jabs.

Tuesday

On Tuesday morning, I finally reached the end of June for my date work. I’m currently looking at two lots of topical anniversaries, one lot for this year and one lot for next year.

Although it is a bit late to be thinking Feb/Mar of this year, some of the topics are evergreens, and some can still be tied in to other things throughout the coming year.

While I was doing the date work, I was also discussing story titles and possessive apostrophes with a friend, by email, while another friend was asking me about writing an autobiography.

The poet was working away Tuesday/Wednesday, so I was able to spend a little more time at my desk. I scheduled another blog post for next week, and I did a quick run-through of a story for a friend.

Before I knew it, it was 4pm, and I hadn’t done any ghostwriting. I took a ‘quick’ break … but it actually lasted an hour.

When I returned to work, there was an email waiting for me asking if I’d like to be interviewed for a magazine. Of course, I said yes. They’re going to send me some advance questions in the next few days.

I completed another chapter and then retired for the evening.

Wednesday

After a bit of a rough night, Wednesday started quite late.

The first job I did was to respond to some correspondence regarding a support request to the jobs board people. My phone and my desktop have not been synching jobs, and whichever one I’m using, I’ve been missing jobs on the other.

I think I’ve resolved that now, having tried all of their suggestions. The suggestions didn’t work, but logging out of the desktop and back in again and restarting the phone and refreshing seems to have synched both devices now. I’ll have to check that the tablet is synching properly too.

While I was there, I did a quick job search, saved two then discounted them both after reading more. One wanted a(n entire!) ‘free sample’ (yeah, right), the other wanted too much work for the money. Meanwhile, another book came in for review.

I had another grammar e-discussion with my friend and then went to make the cup of tea that’s supposed to trigger me into working …

I’m procrastinating a bit now with the ghostwriting. I hope I’m not burning out. I’ve been doing a lot of research into other ghostwriters over the past few days, and I think after the next one I’m either going to ask for a pay rise or call it a day. Three is a good number if that’s all I do.

Finally, I got going on Chapter 27, and I got so carried away that I wrote too many words. Not a problem, for they formed the first 500-or-so words for Chapter 28, and the finish line came into view.

I finished Chapter 28 and the first half of the epilogue, leaving just the second half of the epilogue and the bonus short story left to do.

Thursday

My ghostwriting deadline was Thursday, so I pulled out all the stops to get this completed.

Unfortunately, I also had to run some errands, and I had to go out twice in the end.

I did, however, get the book finished in time, and I also managed to write the complete bonus short story on Thursday evening.

Today

Today it is the poet’s 60th birthday. If we were not in lockdown, we’d be having a party this weekend to celebrate. We would also have been able to go out and get him a nice birthday present.

However, we are in lockdown, but with restrictions hopefully easing in the next few months, we’re going to do all of that once we can go out again.

Initially, he was a bit disappointed. But he’s had a few cards and some smaller gifts. And now he’s saying that he gets to have his birthday three times: today; when we can go and get his pressies; and when we can go out and celebrate again.

I have the blurb to write for the ghostwriting gig, and I want to find some more paying work for next week. And he has sent the next job over for my appraisal.

Spring is here!

We saw our first lamb last weekend. When we lived on the farm, the farmers said that the first lamb meant it was the first day of spring. The weather has certainly been a little more spring-like this week.

Have a great weekend!