Chapter 26: Week commencing Friday 1 July
Who can believe that it’s July already? This year is flying by.
Friday
As Friday was the first of the month, I did have a lot of new month admin to do. I also still had a lot of reinstalling to do following the previous week of hell. The admin consisted of new month spreadsheets and word-count calculations.
The target word-count for July is looking a tad daunting at 121,000, but it does include Parts 2, 3 & 4 for GW1 Book 10 (60,000 words) as well as 10 short stories for CampNaNo (25,000 words). The rest are the other books I’m working on alongside the blog and these jobs: Diary of a Tiger, Project Management for Writers: Gate 2, and the companion writers’ guide for CampNaNo. The publishing challenge writers’ guide is having a month off for CampNaNo.
On Friday, I also prepared next week’s publishing challenge book. And I gave the second client whose work was delayed a nudge regarding my email saying that my submission would be a couple of days late. She replied almost by return saying it was perfectly fine and to thank me for giving them advance warning. Apparently she’d missed my message before, so it was a good job I sent a reminder.
I did have to finish early-ish on Friday as the poet’s band had a gig in town at a new venue to them. It was a great gig, and two of his kids came to watch the band as well. It was nice to see them and their mates. The venue was so impressed by the band that they asked if they could come back the next day! Sadly, they couldn’t, but I think the diary will be coming out for another date.
The weekend
We had a day out on Saturday, which meant an early start on top of a late night. We did it, though, and arrived at Bempton Cliffs just in time for dinner. We already went to Bempton a few weeks ago to see the puffins, but they’d only just arrived and were still out at sea for much of the time. This time our mission was accomplished, and the poet got some lovely pictures of some of the chicks as well.
Pictures from Bempton will be included in this week’s newsletter to subscribers. So if you’d like to see them and you’re not yet signed up, you know what to do. (It’s usually monthly, but I’m sending out extras during CampNaNo.)
All three of the kids had their birthdays last week, so on Sunday the poet and his mum treated us all to a meal out. When we got back, the poet spent some time in the garden.
Monday
On Monday, another Wordsworth Flash Fiction was published.
Meet Me In Glenridding is a very short story I wrote and then didn’t do anything with because it was the wrong length to go anywhere. So eventually I published it myself. It’s now been published in Twee Tales Too, Twee Tales More and Flash Fiction 2.
You can find all of my books on the BUY MY BOOKS tab on the blog, or you can go to www.books2read.com/DianeWordsworth.
Monday consisted of some extra planning work for CampNaNo as I completely ran out of time the week before on stupid tech not doing what it’s supposed to do. I lost so much work time that I’d love to know who to bill for it! I read that some folk are apparently suing MS for updates that are killing their machines. I’m not sure how true that is, but it’s certainly an interesting thought.
I started to write the first draft of a new short story and broke off about halfway through to do some handwriting practice. Then it was ghostwriting for the rest of the day. This consisted mostly of doing the revisions for Part 1 and getting those sent back and then spending the next few hours staring at a blank screen. I wrote a couple of lines, which was something, I suppose. Then I wrote a bit more of the first short story for Camp.
Tuesday
On Tuesday morning I finished the first draft of the first short story for CampNaNo. (Yay!) Then I went through my webmail to do some housekeeping, mostly because I was looking for a specific email and it was buried in among hundreds. I found the email I wanted, moved it to its new folder, and checked the thing I was checking in the first place. It worked this time, but it definitely didn’t work before, so I’m thinking perhaps it’s a bit of a glitch.
I was excited to see that Dean Wesley Smith and WMG Publishing are starting a new Kickstarter later today. I’ll go and have a look at the stretch rewards for that, see if I can add any pop-up workshops to my library. One day, very soon, I want to start writing the story assignments for the first 2 workshops. One will go to Dean Wesley Smith for reading, the other will just be an exercise in writing a story to do with as I wish.
The poet has been full of cold these past 2 days. He’s done a Covid test and so did I, and we’re both negative. So we’re satisfied it’s just a cold. We don’t think it’s an infection as he’s still taking the last of the antibiotics the hospital gave him. I had a letter from the hospital too, confirming a telephone consultation following my onw hospitalisation with pancreatitis a few months ago.
I managed to ghostwrite a chapter for GW1 client, and I edited a few more pages for the editing client.
Wednesday
By Wednesday I was starting to show signs of catching the poet’s cold. I spent the entire day on editing, as I need to shift this job now. It’s starting to block me. Then, of course, ministers started to resign from the cabinet in Parliament and work stopped while I watched that unfold.
Thursday
Due to all of the government resignations (there were 59 resigned in the end, and 1 sacked), I was glued to the telly for most of the morning. We did pop out to get cold remedies, as the poet’s cough was giving him asthma attacks by now and I was starting to cough too. We got back just in time to see the prime minister’s statement. I won’t say his resignation, because he didn’t actually say that in any of his speech. I think they’re going to have to drag him out of No. 10.
With all of the furore out of the way, I finally got down to some work. I did a bit for each, a chapter for each. And I sent out this week’s newsletter to the subscribers (if yours hasn’t arrived, please check your span and junk folders, especially if you have a gmail address). But I pretty much decided I’d be working over the weekend to catch up after last week’s technical issues.
Today
Today I’ll be alternating between the editing job and the ghostwriting job. I’ll also be looking at the schedule again as I have a lot of work to catch up with now, both my own and for clients. I’m working at the weekend and so is the poet, so as we’re both full of this cold by now, I don’t think we’ll be going anywhere else, other than to the supermarket.
Have a fantastic weekend!
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