Wednesday 22 November 2023: Immersing myself in science fiction

The hedgehog returned on Tuesday night. I still thought it looked a bit small, so I asked the poet for his opinion, and he assured me that it’s a fully grown male. I must have only seen very big females in the past! I also asked him where he thinks the hedgehogs are living, and he said he’s pretty sure they’re under the shed. We left it alone to have something to eat, and when we checked later it had gone again. So we think he’s okay.

Speaking of the poet, he’s very interested in this science fiction endeavour. So I added the books I bought to his Kindle too. I didn’t think we could ‘send to Kindle’ any more, but it seems that only applies to mobi files, and even then it still works, they’re just dropping support for mobi files. However, we can still send epub files to Kindle. That’s easier than connecting every device we own to the laptop via cable and copying files across.

We were watching the end of Payback on Tuesday night when he suddenly said, “When can we watch all of the Star Trek films?” It took me a split second to realise he was referring to the recommended films that go with the course. But there aren’t any such film recommendations for the course that starts in January, only those I found in an earlier version of the course. (I have a lifetime subscription to all of them, past and present.)

However… yesterday morning started with me watching Week 4 of the classic science fiction workshop, and in the middle of all those videos came a recommendation: ALL of the Back to the Future films. We watched BttF1 a few weeks ago, and I know I’ve watched BttF2. But I haven’t seen BttF3. So I fired a text off to the poet hoping to make his morning… although I still think he would have been much happier if it had been Star Trek.

(Both Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch have written for the Star Trek franchise.)

We’re not supposed to discuss these books and films with anyone, even family members. I think we can both manage that, if we try very hard.

I watched all of Week 4 of the course, and the first video for Week 5, then I remembered it was Tuesday and, therefore, the People’s Friend writing hour on X. So I closed down the tablet I’m watching the videos on and joined in with writing hour from the phone. I also read the next chapter in a so-called cosy mystery so I was closer to starting the recommended reading list for the sci-fi mystery course in January.

Why so-called? Because the title has the word ‘death’ in it, but we’re halfway through the book and everyone is still very much alive and well.

I moved into the office (eventually) and started today’s blog post. I searched for and selected today’s image, but I had a funny feeling I may have used it before… I had a quick whizz around social media, then returned to work and uploaded the next chapter of Diary of a Scaredy Cat to Substack. Caught up on some blog reading and discovered that a balloon went up at NaNoWriMo in the last week or so, so off I went to see what I could find out.

I got the gist of it, but they’ve taken a few of the forums down and of those left, some comments and replies have been removed. I didn’t really have time to go way back to December 2022. But I got the gist of it. However, I didn’t find out enough to justifiably pass comment, so I won’t.

I brainstormed a short story currently titled The Midnight Labyrinth, I did some plot work for The Secret of Whitehorse Farm, some character work, and I added a whopping 99 words. I’d managed to get a bit stuck with this, but some deep thinking over the past week or so and the plot and character work helped me out of the fugue. Hopefully I’ll be raring to go today.

Finally, I found out the two stories I sent to market earlier in the month weren’t successful. I won’t be sending them anywhere else now because I want them for January’s Words Worth Reading.

Oh, and the poet replied to the Back to the Future text: “Brilliant!”

I have the asthma nurse this afternoon. I’m hoping it doesn’t interfere too much with the day’s work and that I’m in and out in a heartbeat. I already have to drive to one of the nearby villages, which means extra time out of my day.