Image courtesy of Deposit Photos
It’s free image day, hence today’s picture. I liked it, so I used it.
How can I be writing Thursday’s blog post already? It seems like only yesterday we were still on our week off.
I started the day with a lot of reading. I have not one but 4 books on the go at the moment, and I wanted to dip into all of them. (More on that below.)
Once at my desk, I wasn’t able to get on with work straight away because those pesky birds came flapping at the window. We’d run out of mealworms, so sunflower hearts went in the mealworm feeder, and I had to top up the songbird food. But I filled all the feeders and washed out and filled all the drinkers too. Our friend the robin came right up to me and didn’t fly away when I tossed some seed at him this time.
The first visitor to the mixed tray was a blackbird, and by the time I got to my desk, he was scratching away at it with his feet, chucking seed all over the place. I went and got the binoculars to have a closer look, and he was picking out all of the suet bits and stuffing several at a time in his beak. We definitely need to get suet bits next time we stock up.
I added some structure detail to THE SECRET OF WHITEHORSE FARM and I did some more work on the Scrivener template. But the early mornings were catching up with me. I’d almost stayed in bed Wednesday morning, but that won’t reset our body clocks. We have to get up and work through it, and the poet doesn’t really have a choice when he has meetings to attend.
I had a bit of a faff, a bit of a play. But I wasn’t really feeling it. So I finished what I was doing and retired to the living room for more reading…perhaps it’s the reading that’s making me tired, or at least contributing to it.
Our next adventure
I was supposed to be finishing early anyway because we were supposed to be going out to have a look at something that will be the start of our next adventure. But the person who was meeting us couldn’t make it after all. Hopefully another time, preferably this week.
My learning this week
I forgot to do this yesterday, but aside from Monday, I haven’t really done a lot. On Monday I watched Step 8 of Jessica Brody’s 15-step course over at Writing Mastery Academy, and I’m still to apply what I watched to THE SECRET OF WHITEHORSE FARM.
WMG Publishing launched another new Kickstarter on Tuesday, and for as little as $5, the stretch rewards include pop-up classes I don’t already have. So I’m keeping an eye on that and will back it once they’ve hit a few targets. Within hours of the Kickstarter opening, they’d already funded the project AND hit the first stretch reward.
The 2 books I bought earlier in the week are also ones I hope to learn from, but more on those below.
My reading this week
I have not 1 but 4 books currently on the go this week.
G IS FOR GUMSHOE by Sue Grafton
I’m loving the road trip in this story, and it’s one of my favourites.
JUST EAT IT by Laura Thomas
I was starting to get annoyed with this book because the author seemed to forget that there are very many other reasons people have to watch what they eat, or want to watch what they eat, that aren’t anything to do with dieting or restrictive eating. However, as I draw towards the end, she is redeeming herself by including medical and ethical reasons in her narrative.
There’s a lot of psycho-babble around self-love and self-esteem, which I suppose many yo-yo or perpetual slimmers need to read. I don’t need to read it. The only reasons I’ve historically wanted to lose weight are medical or to do with health. I’ve never really walked into a room and compared myself against every other female there. I can see all I want to see by looking in the mirror.
But the author also does make a lot of sense in the scientific aspect of her work and she does come up with some nifty tricks to silence the food critic within. And I’m looking forward to reading the companion book on how to apply everything I’ve learnt to date regarding intuitive eating. (I can’t get on with calling it mindful eating, I’m just not that kinda gal.)
WRITING COMPELLING FICTION by Shirley Jump
This is the first of the 2 new books I bought at the top of the week. It popped up on my Kindle as a ‘you might also like to read this’, and once I read the introduction, and the reviews, actually, I decided that yes, I might quite like to read it. Already, though, I can see that some of the links aren’t working properly. But I’ve found my way to the author’s website where the freebies are still available.
Shirley Jump is a Harlequin author, who writes under the same name, so a lot of her stories are romance. Nevertheless, she’s covering pretty much most of the stops regarding other genres. And besides, other genres also need emotion, they also need compelling writing, and they also need, at times, a bit of romance. I’m learning quite a lot about depth and character and can’t wait to put it into practice.
HOW TO WRITE A COZY MYSTERY: STEP BY STEP by Natasha C Sass
This is the second of the 2 new books I bought, and I absolutely love it to death already. I’m also already applying the author’s suggestions and I’ve already downloaded the freebies. (Gosh, so many alreadies!) If they weren’t so expensive, I’d even consider one of her courses. But I think I’ll try to apply what she advises whilst reading the book first, see if it’s worth me forking out the extra dosh.
Natasha C Sass writes cosy mysteries as Julia Koty. I had to find this out before buying the book because as Sass she has only written this book and I wondered what her credentials were. She also wrote children’s books before turning to cosy mysteries.
Sounds like an excellent day! I do love G.
M came in before L, so I’m on pause until L arrives.
I faffed too much early in the week, and am paying for it now.
That’s the beauty of being freelance. You *can* take time off and make it up later without beating yourself up over it. It’ll eat into the weekend, probably, but if you need to take time out, you take time out.