Friday 18 October 2024: Home again!

I was a day behind all week on my blog posts, so when the poet finished his work on Wednesday and we decided to head home on Thursday, I didn’t get a chance to write a post for Thursday. I thought I might get around to it some time Thursday afternoon, but it was teatime by the time we landed and we were both shattered after the long drive and a few days away on a lumpy mattress.

On Wednesday, after I wrote and published the blog post, I stripped out the bit on the Great Novella Challenge and started a new Scrivener binder for writing challenges. I created a new book cover on Canva, because, well, I always like to have an image of the book in mind in case I ever finish it.

I don’t see the point in spending time creating an entire book and then struggling to find a cover that fits. Fortunately, I already had a series of writing challenge book covers on Canva, so all I had to so was make one for the novella-a-month challenge.

For the rest of the day I proof-read the pdf for the Holocaust book. I didn’t finish it, but I got a lot done. 

The Great Novella Challenge

On Thursday morning, after breakfast, I did some planning work on my phone on Trello for the novella challenge. I’m a bit scared of running out of substantial enough ideas, but I already had a good list.

To start with, I already had the 5 Whitehorse Farm/Nettie Campbell stories on there:

• The Secret of Whitehorse Farm
• Book Festivals Can Be Murder
• Death on the River *English river name*
• Halloween at Whitehorse Farm (working title)
• Christmas at Whitehorse Farm (working title)

I also have a bit of a tentative title lurking in the back of my mind:

• A Wedding at Whitehorse Farm (working title)

Another series of novellas I’ve been percolating feature my Regency amateur sleuth Lady Matilda McKenning. I currently have 4 of those:

• Lady Matilda Investigates…The Last Pirate of *Famous-British-Pirate-Port*
• Lady Matilda Investigates… The Last Invasion of Britain
• Lady Matilda Investigates… The Case of the Freshwater Pearls
• Lady Matilda Investigates… The Murder of *3-syllable-first-name 2-syllable-last-name* (very working title)

I’m also thinking of a generic series starter:

• Lady Matilda Investigates

So already that’s 9 definites and 2 possibles. 

I also have tucked away no less than 12 written outlines for Regency romances that I’m toying with setting in a different era. I think that at least 2 of those could be handed over to Lady Matilda, but I don’t have titles yet and I’m still umming and ahhing.

I have 2 standalones:

• The Secret of the Old Annexe (inspired by a short story I started to write)
• Welcome to the International Tundra Space Hotel (also inspired by a short story I started to write)

And then I remembered my time-travelling brother and sister duo, Toni & Bart, stars of Mardi Gras. I’d shelved the next 2 novellas in the series in favour of other more pressing stories. But if I add those too, I’ve also got:

• City of Ghosts: a Toni & Bart time-travel tale
• The Silk Road: a Toni & Bart time-travel tale

Which gives me 13 definites and 2 possibles, which in turn gives me at least 3 backups.

On top of that, I still have the remaining Regency romances-come other-historical-era romances, of which there are 10, plus the longer Stevie Beck/Horvale mysteries, that will still be based on the major Tarot arcana (22). 

So I’m telling myself to stop panicking…

Back to today

I have a lot of rejigging and planning and scheduling work to do as well as the proofreading I want to finish. But we’re going shopping this afternoon and I can’t settle. So I’m planning to work at the weekend.

The poet is feeling much better, but his voice still isn’t back, which is starting to worry him a little. They had to cancel this weekend’s gig, something they don’t like doing and now they’ve cancelled 2 on the trot. But he has another fortnight in which to rest his voice before the next one, which is the last one rescheduled. 

True to form, I’ve had his cold creeping up on me over the past 2 days. On Thursday, when we were driving home, I was aching all over and had to take some tablets. I see more tablets in my near future today.

Have a good weekend!