Wednesday 26 February 2025: Happy Birthday, Hubster!

I experimented a bit with the cherry crumble topping on Monday night. The poet had already stoned and washed the cherries and I put them on to stew a little while I made the crumble. I usually add 30g rolled oats (¼ cup) to the crumble mix, but this time I added 30g ground almonds (also ¼ cup) instead. We had cheese and mushroom omelette with jacket spuds and we had ice cream with the crumble. Apparently it was delicious!

Later, we went out on a mission to buy some home Covid tests for the poet. Luckily, the first place we went (a) was still open, and (b) had loads for sale at £2 each. He picked up 5 packs (a tenner’s-worth), but fortunately he tested negative. At least that put his mind at ease. He’s still suffering with what must be a virus of sorts, but by Tuesday morning he said he was starting to feel better, although he ended up a bit up and down throughout the day.

I started the day over a dirty cup of tea sharing yesterday’s blog post to BlueSky and Monday’s publication news to Instagram. When I got to my office I did turn the computer on instead of go straight to the editing. 

I finished outlining the short story for today’s deadline (see below) and I did some planning work for the bookazine. I still have one short story, The Ace of Swords, to write for the next one, due out in April, and I have A Mystery at Whitehorse Farm to revise. But the one after that is now fully planned, and the only things I have to finish writing for that one are, erm, Catch the Rainbow, the first of the Rainbow Chronicles complete novels, and the last of the Tarot tales, The Ace of Pentacles. There’s one short story that needs polishing too, current working title Shampoo, Set and Match. It definitely needs a new title.

Panic did start to creep in a little for the novel, until I realised I only need Part 1 ready for July, Part 2 for October, Part 3 for January 2026, and Part 4 for April 2026. That gives me some breathing space to get it finished, but the scenes I still need to write from scratch are scattered throughout and not only at the end of the story. 

I do have a lot of projects on the go in 2025:

• a story a month for 12 Stories in 12 Months
• a story a month for the Great Novella Challenge
• ideally a newsletter a month
• a bookazine a quarter
• a novel a year
• at least the next project management book, but ideally the next two project management books

And I came to the conclusion that while I am so busy, especially when I have a client edit as well, a daily errand might be unsustainable. I definitely want to do a midweek shop, for fresher food and less food waste, and there will be weeks like this one where I have a hair appointment, or next week when I have a hospital appointment and a dental appointment on top of planned surgery. But running an errand a day last week has pushed me right back with my work.

With that percolating, I started today’s blog post, and then it was time for our midday breakfast.

I was briefly distracted by stuff about AI. It was the last day for anyone to send their thoughts to the UK government regarding creators having to opt-out of their work being used to train AI rather than opt-in. I shared details on all platforms, and even made a separate graphic for Instagram. Then I settled down and finally finished Act 1 of The Haunted House Hotel. Only three more to go, unless I can tell the story in 3 Acts. I was either a quarter of the way through or a third.

And then it was time to eat.

I did an hour of editing (or a Pomodoro of editing), then got changed and nipped to the mother-in-law’s with the poet to get his birthday card. We decided he couldn’t go in the house as it was looking likely he had a virus, so I went with him so I could intervene. While we were out anyway, he asked how I felt about picking up a pasta sauce for the pantry pasta bake he was making for tea. I said if we were going to the supermarket to get a pre-made sauce for a home-made dish, we may as well go the whole hog and just get a pasta bake each. He didn’t take much convincing!

We also got him some Lucozade and a ‘comic’ (aka a magazine), and we got some throat sweets and replenished our effervescent Panadol-with-caffeine supply. I don’t like effervescents really, but he’s okay with them and they’re easier on his stomach than pills, and he’s been caning them. The throat sweets were for me…and I made an advance warning call to the hospital that I may have a cold coming, because if there’s the slightest problem with my breathing tubes, they won’t do the surgery next week…

When we got back, he wrapped himself in a blanket in front of the telly (his boss had told him not to go to work) with his comic, and I went back to my desk. I polished the short story I mentioned the other day and added a further 50 words to it. Their sweet spot is 8 – 12 pages, and mine is 8 pages. So off it went on its merry way. Eek! I updated my 12-project spreadsheet and added the submission to my record of submissions spreadsheet.

Because we’d taken an hour out of the day to go to his mum’s and the supermarket, I worked for an extra hour into the evening. I chose to write this month’s attempt at 12 Stories in 12 Months, due in today. I’d already decided to tweak some of the outline for The Ace of Swords and write the bit in the middle. The full story will be up to 5,000 words and I only needed 1,250 words for today’s submission. So I finally started to write this story that’s been hanging around for ages.

Tea was easy so I made it in between writing. I only had to heat up the oven and pop it in. He set the table and served the pudding while I finished my story. Then after tea, I quickly finished today’s blog post, updated the 12-project spreadsheet with the day’s wordcounts, and called it a day.

No rabbit holes after all! Or not really…

It’s the poet’s birthday today. Such a shame he’s not very well, but we’ll make the best of it.