Diary of a Tiger: Fri 9 Dec 2022

Chapter 58: Friday 9 December

It’s the last few days of Diary of a Tiger, which is both refreshing and scary. Refreshing because it’s a year old and I need to do something, well, fresh. Scary because, well, what do I do next? I’ve already done some loose planning and I think I have a working idea. Nevertheless, the weekend will consist of further cogitating as I wrap my head around it all.

So I skipped a day yesterday. I don’t really know why, other than I didn’t stop work all day and yet I don’t seem to have achieved anything. Or not much at any rate.

Two big things I did do were: (a) I published a new Christmas story, due out on Monday 19 December; and (b) I finally sent a newsletter out – so if you haven’t received yours, do check your spam folders. I sent the new story out as this month’s free story. Christmas is included in the tale and it’s a nod towards part of my late father’s childhood.

Because it’s been a couple of months since my last newsletter, I had to remind myself how to lay it all out again and where to position blocks of text and blocks of images. I really do dislike this block editing everywhere seems to be going mad over, and I dislike it with such a passion it’s the main reason I switched from blogging on the free WordPress.com platform and moved to the paid for WordPress.org platform.

Even so, it does look as though block editing is the future, and I suppose I just need to suck it up and get on with it. For now, though, and while it’s still supported, I’m still using the old Classic editor on here, for which I have a free plugin.

What else did I do yesterday? Well, I looked at the ghostwriting. After I already told them that the first instalment falling due in December would be extremely tight, they then asked if I could send the first 5,000 words as soon as they were ready so that they can check I’m on the right track. In the same sentence, they said it didn’t really apply to my writing but they were trying to standardise everything.

And yet they have already chased this first 5k words. When I already told them I was squeezing their work in as a favour.

There are all sorts of things I need to check first, before sending them several thousand words willy-nilly, such as continuity. Frequently I’ll go back to the start of an instalment and tweak it to suit the end. And do they really think that the draft I send them is my first draft? I mean, it *is*, technically, but I still make sure that the words are polished.

The fact that they asked for the first 5k words in the first place, even after we’d agreed an already tight schedule of work, was already blocking me a little. So now they’ve chased it too makes a teeny tiny blockage a little bigger. And I proper feel like throwing my toys out of the pram over it.

So I *looked* at it yesterday but, to be honest, they’ll be lucky if they get it today.

What else did I do yesterday? Ah, yes, we recovered from a late night on a school night. Bad Manners were great on Wednesday night. Before the gig we went to Pizza Express for a meal and we got to the venue at about 8:30pm, having missed the support. At about 9:15pm, 3 members of the band came out to entertain us with some cover songs as Buster Bloodvessel wasn’t feeling very well. They finished at about 9:30pm, but returned at around 10pm, opening with an instrumental.

One of the things I used to love about SKA was the instrumental aspect, and Bad Manners still has a brass section, who were also fun to watch when they danced perfectly in time with each other. It’s an 8-piece group, including Buster, and they made a lot of good noise, playing many old favourites.

We could tell that he had a bit of a throat and he did go off stage a couple of times for more of those instrumentals and for a couple the band sang vocals on. But they went all the way through to the end, throwing in an extra number that hadn’t been mentioned at previous gigs, and finishing with the Can-Can.

Brilliant night, if a bit of a later finisher for us midweek.

Today has been spent opening the ghostwriting file, looking at it, and closing it again – again. I’ve transferred the character information over now too, which makes it easier to write.

There was a security issue with my website, which I had to resolve via a live chat with the host provider. That’s twice now, in less than two weeks, that I’ve had a security issue with the host provider. So once the chat was over, I arranged to backup all of my files in case I find myself looking for a new host in the new year.

I had to break at 2:30pm for a Reedsy video meeting that lasted 45 minutes, and then I had to have a play on all the things I’d learnt and that I hadn’t been able to see until attending this meeting. I also did my weekly computer scan and backup.

I will be working this evening, I think, and all of tomorrow. The poet’s band has their Christmas party gig tomorrow night and they’re coming to collect him, rather than me drop him off and come back and go back, to save me some time. It does mean he’ll be in the pub from about 6pm watching the football with his pals, and the band isn’t due on stage until at least 9:30pm, and that’s only if the England game doesn’t go to penalties.

Then I can choose between working on Sunday all the way through, or on Monday in between two eye appointments and a nurse appointment. We officially break up on Monday for Christmas, but as we’re already losing a chunk of Monday, I can see Tuesday working in my future as well, particularly as I have to complete my tax return. I usually do this in April or May and then sit around smugly for the rest of the year. But this year we’ve both been in hospital and we’ve moved house, so I’m a bit late.

Whatever you’re up to, I hope you have a great weekend. And I’ll see you with the last Diary of a Tiger on Monday or Tuesday next week.

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