Friday 12 April 2024: Late up!

Oh my goodness, what a late start we had on Thursday.

We’d had a really rough night with the dog. He was all right in the end, but from 2am until 4am, he kept asking to go out. The first time he stayed out for 20 minutes. The second time, he started to eat grass. The third time, he only went onto the patio. The fourth time, he sat looking at the outside, then looking at me, then looking at the outside, then looking at me.

In the end, I put some trainer mats down for him, in case he wanted to be sick, and we went to bed again. Eventually he settled down, but we lost a few hours during the night and we were both already knackered from getting up early 3 days on the trot. Fortunately, the poet was working from home, so he had no long drive anywhere.

I did some more reading before moving to my desk, where the first job I did was a new blog post calendar for the next month. The one I started with is something I discovered in Canva. But I have to go into Canva to update it before I can save it and print it, which is 2 steps too many. Instead I chose a weekly editable calendar available online in Word. I can fill it in as I go along and print off a month’s worth of planners.

Then I turned once again to the cosy mystery template I’m building in Scrivener. I’d already built the structure for the whole 4 acts, with 5 chapters in each and 2 scenes per chapter, for now. I’d also calculated how many words each scene could be. But I wanted to include guidance notes too and I’d already started those as well, but had only done guidance notes for the first Act and the first 5 chapters.

I did the guidance notes for the second Act and for Chapter 6, but then I turned to guidance notes for everything else: characters, settings, themes, suspects, victims, supporting cast, motive. I think if I spend the rest of this week on this (i.e. today), it will be finished by the weekend. I’ve just had to put other things on hold while I get it out of my head and onto paper.

There are so many of my stories I could apply this structure to, and quite a few story ideas that could be turned into cosy mysteries. For example:

• the tarot/Horvale tales are cosies (Stevie Beck – 45,000 words)
• the Nettie Campbell tales are cosies (Whitehorse Farm, et al – 30,000 words)
• my Lady Mathilda Investigates Regency series are historical cosies
• the sci-fi near future stories I’ve been writing for 12 STORIES IN 12 MONTHS *could* be (much shorter) cosies
• the D.I.Wordsworth collaborations with the poet *could* be cosies (if we ever get around to them)

I think the Marcie Craig stories still need to be gritty, and the Cider Chronicles stories need to be a bit political (CATCH THE RAINBOW, HATTIE’S HOTSHOTS, etc). Also, the D.I.Wordsworth collaborations might also work better with a bit more grit, but we won’t know until we start those.

I had to stop faffing with that, though, as I was cooking tea yesterday and I had to start it by 6:45pm. I got as far as importing the guidance notes for Chapter 7 (Act 2) to Scrivener before closing it down and finishing today’s post.

Historically, when the poet has been to band practice, he’s bought a takeaway on the way home. But by the time he gets home, we’re eating far too late for my hiatus hernia and it keeps me awake all night. (As though I need something else to keep me awake all night1)

So we’ve decided that when he’s at band practice, I’ll start tea to be ready for around 7:30pm, which is the latest we think I should be eating. And if he’s not quite home yet, then his can be kept warm, or warmed through, for when he’s ready. Yesterday we had pork and rice with mixed vegetables, followed by the last of the pear crumble with custard.

Have a great weekend!