We had to get up early yesterday morning to take the campervan to our mechanic as he was going to reset the radio code for us. We’d tried everything all the videos told us to try and we couldn’t get it to work. So we asked him if he’d give it a go.
The plan was for me to take the poet to the yard to collect the van, follow him to the garage, then nip to B&Q for some compost for the patio pots. We had potatoes to plant, sweetpeas to plant out, and a cucumber to sow. But when we got there the mechanic asked us to hang around as he doesn’t really have a lot of parking space, let alone for a Ford Transit van. So I sat in the car and read my book while the poet watched and learned.
They got the radio working again, we returned the van to the compound, and we got back home in time to start work. Washing was hung out (2 lots!) and the bird feeders were checked, and the poet even had a dirty cuppa with me as we hit our desks.
Because I was so far behind on my work, I just decided to work down the list in order, and the first job on the list was the bookazine. I collected all of the story folders and saved them to the bookazine assets folder for Issue 3. Then I saved the new book covers I’d made in Affinity into those folders. Once the stories have appeared in the bookazine, the folders will be moved to ‘waiting to be published’ in the short stories folder, but also left in the bookazine assets folder for posterity, and audit trail purposes.
The first story to proofread was Elvis is Missing, but there were still 3 stories that still had their old covers. Two of them are a bit difficult for me to quickly rattle off in Affinity, especially when I’ve already spent so much time this week on admin faff. But the story from the archives is a Wordsworth Short, and thanks to Elvis is Missing, I had a new template for the Wordsworth Shorts.
So I went and collected the artwork from Canva for The Easter Egg Hunt, saved that to both the assets folder for the bookazine and the folder for The Easter Egg Hunt, and quickly whizzed off the new cover in Affinity.
Now I finally had everything in place, I could slowly work through it all.
I went back to Elvis is Missing and gave it a quick proofread. Then I went and collected the last dated file for Issue 2, saved it to the assets folder for Issue 3 as Issue 3, tweaked the front matter (to include a clause regarding AI scraping and training) (or not, as it happens) (not allowed – under any circumstances), then copied and pasted the Elvis story over.
Once the file was safely saved, I copied the Elvis folder to ‘waiting to be published’, made sure it was deleted from the ‘in progress’ folder’, and moved a copy to the ‘done’ folder in the bookazine assets folder.
Yay! That was the first tick of the list. Next up, The Battle of Stubbins Bridge. Stubbins Bridge is a Wordsworth Flash Fiction. I’d already created the book cover template for the Wordsworth Flash Fictions, and I’d already created the new cover for Stubbins Bridge. I made sure everything I needed was in the bookazine assets folder for Issue 3, then settled down to proofread that.
When I was happy with Stubbins Bridge, I had a quick break to share Diane’s Gig List’s post, and inserted the new book cover to the bookazine file. Then I copied and pasted the story file across. But I had some issues with the formatting, for some reason, and it took me a while to work that out. I’m still not sure what’s happened, but I’ll keep a close eye on it.
I copied the Stubbins Bridge folder to the ‘waiting to be published’ folder, and moved it to the ‘done’ folder in the bookazine assets folder. For another bit of a break, I updated the welcome letter. So that was 2 ticks on my list. Then I decided to have a go at creating the new covers for The Ace of Swords and A Mystery At Whitehorse Farm.
These were trickier than the others but, again, I have the template now so they should be quicker in the future. I had to download a load of additional fonts, but The Ace of Swords in particular has a couple of brand-new fonts. That means the first two will have to be redesigned so they all match.
The day ran away with me again, but at least I got quite a lot done this time. The poet went to band practice and I brought the washing in off the line. But already it was time for me to finish work. I have a whole day ahead of me today, with no errands. I’ll carry on plodding down the to-do list and see how I get on.
Have a great weekend!
What an excellent day! Well done!
Thank you!