Thursday 27 June 2024: Success!

The plan was to step away from the newsletter for a day or so and get on with some other work. However, there was one thing I wanted to do: change the subscribe form in the sidebar (it’s at the bottom on mobile devices). I thought it would be easy, and I suppose it was, now that I was familiar with the interface. Nevertheless, it still took time.

But…it is done. I’d like to include it here as well, but I use the Classic editor still instead of the Gutenberg editor, so we’ll just have to be satisfied with a hotlink. Follow this one. Existing subscribers need not resubscribe, but I think the automation is now set up for new subscribers.

If I get chance today, I’ll get started on the newsletter. But I DO have a dental appointment (with the hygienist), and I do still have a lot of other work to get through too.

I started the day yesterday emptying the dishwasher and filling it up again. I fed the birds, tidied the kitchen, and tried to do Just One Thing in every room I was in. If I can put Just One Thing away or clean Just One Thing or do Just One Thing while I’m in a room, then I’m hoping I can keep on top of things.

I made myself a cup of tea and settled down to catch up on the week’s writing with depth workshops. While I wasn’t taking notes, or rewinding the videos, I tidied my desk, in part to stop me opening up the browser on my laptop and going off and surfing the internet. I also started off the weekly tech scan while I watched the workshop videos.

Once I finished the second day (week 2 of the videos), I updated the sidebar on here, adding in the 2 new book-length projects I’m working on: STEVIE BECK AND THE HAUNTED HOUSE HOTEL and PROJECT MANAGEMENT FOR WRITERS: GATE 3 – HOW? Both of these started out at zero words. I also updated the running total for NETTIE CAMPBELL AND THE SECRET OF WHITEHORSE FARM.

Then I started the tasks I should have started on Tuesday for the project management book. As I was on a roll, I did Wednesday’s jobs too for this book. When I’d finished – it was quite quick stuff, front and end matter, that kind of thing – I updated the word-count meters, and I noticed I was still advertising the ebook store there. So I had to quickly remove that as it wasn’t linking to anywhere any longer.

A Monday job I should have done was brainstorm A GUY FOR PENNY. But another story, FIREWORKS AT KILLIECRANKIE, was begging to be brainstormed. So I switched those 2 jobs out and brainstormed FIREWORKS AT KILLIECRANKIE, saving Guy and Penny for next week, perhaps.

I already have one published story from Killiecrankie, THE BATTLE OF KILLIECRANKIE. And FIREWORKS is the next instalment for the Mackenzie family. Also at the back of my mind is CHRISTMAS AT KILLIECRANKIE. Working on the Halloween novella has given me all sorts of variations for different stories, and I think I quite fancy HALLOWEEN AT KILLIECRANKIE too.

These are all short stories and I almost have a set of 5. Book 5 probably needs to be a truce. Or the end of the war.

I brainstormed FIREWORKS so well that my brainstorming was almost an outline. So I finished that job too, which was scheduled (as A GUY FOR PENNY) for Tuesday anyway, before moving on to the next item on the list. Finally, I was on Wednesday, but it was already 5pm, The poet was on his way home from a 3-day business trip, though, so I still had a bit of time.

(He doesn’t stop me working, by the way. I just prefer to spend time with him when I can, especially when he’s been away for a few days. Call me old-fashioned…)

Two jobs fell by the wayside from Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday: the client edit; and pre-writing for the Halloween cosy novella. I was tempted to move all of STEVIE BECK AND THE HAUNTED HOUSE HOTEL on a week, but I’ve been doing that for weeks already and I really need to knuckle down. We have holiday at the end of July too, and I want to finish the first draft by then so I can revise it when we get back.

So Stevie changed from Monday – Friday to Thursday – Sunday. I really, really want to be starting the first draft on Monday and I hope I’ll have longer to spend on it at the weekend. It was too late in the day on Wednesday to start thinking too hard about it. The cosy novella instructor only pre-writes an Act at a time, so all I really need done by Monday is Act 1. I’ve already done most of the character and setting work.

I’d caught up with quite a lot, but I’d also run out of steam. So I called it a day and packed up.