Monday 14 October 2024: Northern Lights

We had a late night on Thursday, binge watching something on Netflix. Fortunately, it meant we were still up to watch one of the apparently best ever shows of the Northern Lights. We had 3 visits from the Lights. It was the first time I’d ever seen them.

The first time we could see white flickering and striping, and when we took pictures the sky was pink. The second time it was green. But the third time was stunning. We could see the actual colours with the naked eye, which was spectacular. Immediately after the third showing, and aurora storm was interfering with mobile phone signals.

Friday was a busy day, after a late start. As usual I had to creep around and type very quietly because the poet had video meeting after video meeting. I stayed in the living room for as long as I could, checking emails on the phone and the tablet. But I had to sneak in at some point, and I got done for closing one of the curtains! The sun was shining in, but he needs light on his face for the video meetings!

I had an email back from WMG Publishing regarding the challenge I’d like to join, and it looks like I probably can start it in January. That will give me until Christmas to finish CATCH THE RAINBOW, PROJECT MANAGEMENT FOR WRITERS: GATE 3 and one of the writing with depth workshop bundles I’m already in the middle of. 

If I start in December, THE SECRET OF WHITEHORSE FARM can be the first of the challenges, in time to also appear in the next edition of WORDS WORTH READING, which is currently scheduled for February publication. 

I finished off Friday’s blog post and published it. I shared it to BlueSky and Medium. And I opened 3 stories on Medium to read and react to, reacting to all 3.

I fielded a gig query for Monkey Dust. We thrashed out the details, the date and fee, and had a bit of a laugh while I passed notes to the poet in one of his video meetings. Then I updated the gig calendar.

We have the dog for 2 weeks in November, but while I was in the gig calendar I spotted that we also have a Darts gig in Leeds on one of the evenings we have him. (Darts the do-wap band I used to love in the late 1970s/early 1980s.) We need to ask someone if they can have him for just that evening. 

I started my Pomodoro swing again between tax return and CATCH THE RAINBOW. The only thing that distracted me was Scruffy Magpie. He’s started to hang out with a pair of jackdaws but he also visits on his own. On Friday I was delighted to see that he’s using his dodgy wing a lot more and flying further and higher off the ground.

Finally, I prepared what I wanted to take away with us this week so I have a steady stream of work and no excuses not to do anything. I airdropped Scrivener files for the daily blog post, the master short story file, and CATCH THE RAINBOW. I also had the proofreading to take with me as well, and my short story brainstorming notebook.