Thursday 27 March 2025: I rescued a bumble bee

The Jessica Brody (Save the Cat Writes a Novel) Zoom webinar was useful. She really is a good tutor. She keeps it interesting and lively and makes you think you’ve got this, you too can do this. And she’ll hang around after the allotted time to continue answering questions. In fact, she encourages people to hang around and ask the questions. I do like her. 

The fast drafting webinar was a freebie to direct people to Brody’s Writing Mastery Academy, of which I’m already a member. The fast drafting course is also already included in the academy, but it’s one I really ought to sit and study to the end. I’ve completed the first 2 sections, but I stalled at the bit where we actually do some work. I’ll see if I can schedule this in for completion in the coming week or so.

I was up with the poet on Wednesday as we had a visitor coming. He went off to work, a 2-hour drive away, but I was awake so I thought I may as well get up. The appointment was initially between 9am and 5pm, but the day before they called to say it would be before 12 noon. 

Before I got around to anything, though, I noticed a big fat bumble bee inside the patio door runner in the dining room. It was quite lethargic and the sun was shining directly on it, so I rescued it on a tissue, took it outside (in my dressing gown), and dipped the end of the tissue in one of the bird drinkers in case it wanted a sip of water. By the time I got to the kitchen, it had recovered and flown away. Yay!

Today’s picture is a butterfly, because it was yesterday’s free image in my Depositphotos email. 

I had my dirty cuppa, fed the birds, read a daily newspaper, shared yesterday’s blog post, submitted the Mavis Braithwaite story, read a couple of stories submitted to the same challenge, and commented on 2 of them. There was a 3^rd, but it didn’t grab me and it already had some comments on. I chose a ‘friend’ and then someone who was quick to comment on mine, favourably.

As I read through my story again, I realised I’d uploaded one that was slightly different to the one I proof-read on Monday. There were only a few words that had changes, but once it was published, I was able to edit it with the minor changes. The person who commented said it had all the makings of a cosy mystery at the start and was turned on its head into something darker by the end, and that made me wonder if Mavis Braithwaite might perhaps get a series of her own…

Out of interest I had a quick look at the fast drafting course on Writing Mastery Academy, just to refresh my memory. Sadly, I didn’t have time to sit down and work though it yesterday. 

I backed up another batch of photographs on Facebook and deleted them. I deleted a load of comments, posts and likes from 2011 too, but I think there’s a limit on how many they let you purge because they stopped working towards the end, leaving 42 likes I couldn’t get rid of. I’ll try again in the next session. 

And then I started today’s blog post.

The poet called to say he was on his way home, and I hadn’t done any writing. So I made sure the Mavis Braithwaite story in my Scrivener was the same as the one I’d changed in LibreOffice, both versions. There’s one in the 12 Stories in 12 Months folder and a duplicate in the Stories In Progress folder. I’m leaving the raw drafts in the 12 Stories folder, but I’ll revise the ones in the In Progress folder.

I still hadn’t heard from the client edit author, so I just got on with the novella.

Here’s yesterday’s task list: 

1. share Wednesday’s blog
2. write and schedule Thursday’s blog
3. continue writing The Christmas Tree Mystery
4. submit Mavis Braithwaite Strikes Again
5. client edit
6. building inspection

And here’s today’s task list:

1. share Thursday’s blog
2. write and schedule Friday’s blog
3. continue writing The Christmas Tree Mystery
4. revise The Ace of Swords
5. client edit
6. share Diane’s Gig List post