Friday 13 October 2023: Friday the 13th!

I don’t actually mind Friday the 13th at all. To me, it’s nothing special. It’s just another day. I know people who fear it and I know someone who welcomes it with open arms. But to me, it’s just another day.

I was up bright and early yesterday, so I was ready in good time to join the Zoom class for NaNoWriMo prep. I had it all set up and ready to go while I had something to eat, and I really took my time getting there. I didn’t rush, I didn’t panic, I didn’t expect anything to go wrong…

…but the sound didn’t work.

Zoom wasn’t installed on my laptop. I usually use the web link. But the sound didn’t work. The worst thing was, they could all hear me trying to get the sound to work, but I couldn’t hear them and the host had to mute me. In the end, I left the session, installed Zoom (against my better judgement – microphone access, webcam access, etc), and it worked! So I joined but I was about 5 minutes later than everyone else.

It was a good session with some good advice, most of which I was already aware. But I did pick up a couple of tips and I jotted quite a few things down in my A5 journal for The Secret of Whitehorse Farm. I counted that as work on the story.

I’ve done a lot of stuff in the last couple of days, housekeeping, admin-y kinds of things. I’ve created a shop in Ko-fi. I’ve updated the content on Medium. I’ve started a paid-for book serialisation on Substack. And I added a Ko-fi widget to the sidebar on here (it’s at the bottom on mobile devices).

Yesterday was also spent changing photographs – cover/banner images and profile/avatar pictures. I also started to write a NaNoWriMo diary – by hand, so no one will see it unless I decided to publish it after the event.

A job request came in via Reedsy. I’ve not really had much luck there as yet, but I do respond to job requests. This is the first time I responded by return. Usually I don’t see it for a couple of days as they often come in over the weekend. I’d just closed it all down again when the email came through saying my offer had been accepted. So there’s a lovely little filler job for me next week.

I shared the Thursday gig list post on Facebook. And I remembered to order my prescription! (Yay!) Mid-afternoon I turned the computer off. It was far too much of a distraction and I still had work to do on A Winter Promise and the Vietnam book. So I closed down so I could concentrate on those.

I had a good editing session and I did some more swotting on writing cosy mysteries. I’d love to have a proper go at the genre but I’m not witchy or magical or anything, apart from still learning the Tarot, and magical seems to be one of the most popular sub-genres. I could do small town and I could do animals, which are also both sub-genres. But I think if I tried witchy or magical, readers might pick up on my inexperience.

I had a bit of a brain murmur at 6:30am about swapping out the dining room and the office. I think it might work, but I’ll have my back to the window because the poet needs a lot of wall space for his studio. He was awake too, so we discussed it, took measurements, and semi-dismissed it, but I think it might work.

We don’t use the dining room for as many hours as we/I do the office so it makes sense to me to make the office the bigger of the two rooms. Plus, I might be able to bring my reading chair back in. I do miss having a reading nook in the office and when the poet’s away, I usually spend most of my time in the office anyway. A reading chair would mean I could also, well, read.

I was up again fairly early, catching up on social media and emails. But I was late arriving at my desk.

Here are today’s jobs:

• today’s blog post
• The Secret of Whitehorse Farm NaNoWriMo project (novella)
• A Winter Promise call for submissions (short story)
• weekly backup
• next week’s diary
• the Vietnam book

Monkey Dust have another gig on Saturday and there’s the usual meal-planning, list-writing and shopping to do. If the weather’s fine at least, we might do some work in the garden or we might manage a day out.

Have a great weekend!