Diary of a Tiger: w/c Fri 1 April & Fri 8 April

Chapter 14: Week commencing Friday 1 April & Friday 8 April

Friday (1 April)
I remembered to come in and start the post on Friday this week, instead of try to remember it all the following Wednesday or Thursday. Even then it took me a while to get here as the day was set with problems, it seems, and none to do with April Fools.

It started when last Friday’s scheduled post failed to post. I didn’t notice until about 11am, and I was still on my phone. So I had to log in on the phone, make the post a draft again, and then post it. Even then it didn’t post first time, I had to have 2 goes at it.

I did some ghostwriting and then decided to go and collect all of these online workshops I’ve been rewarded for backing various kickstarter campaigns. I went to enter in the first coupon code, and it took me straight to the ‘thanks for your payment’ message. Yup, for some reason I didn’t see anywhere to add my coupon code and the payment hit my bank account straight away.

There was nowhere on the screen or in my account where I could cancel the payment, so I fired off an email to the website and then contacted my bank to cancel the transaction. But my bank couldn’t cancel the transaction. Apparently I have to wait for the vendors to take their money and then ask for it back.

Well, the next thing I did was fire off a complaint to the bank, saying that we should be able to cancel a transaction, just like we once could do before banking was apparently made more secure for us. Pah! This isn’t the first time my bank has let me down recently, so I’m literally *this close* to telling them to stick it and to taking my business elsewhere.

Then I sent an email to the owner of the online workshops, just in case the email to the website got lost in the the ether. As both the site and the workshop owner are in the US, I then had to sit back and wait… oh, and transfer some money into my account to cover the accident.

I was so annoyed with myself for not checking before hitting that button. However, the vendor did in fact respond to my emails later that evening, and he arranged an instant refund.

I finally got back to my ghostwriting, but the day was almost over and my deadline was on Saturday. I sent the client a quick email, and promised it would be with him by Sunday… Oh, what famous last words…

The 1st Weekend
We did the shopping on Friday night so I could have a good run at the ghostwriting. We were supposed to be going out for the day, to see puffins at Bempton, but we hadn’t decided whether to go on Saturday or Sunday. The weather was better on Saturday, but Sunday was after my ghostwriting deadline.

As it happened, the poet was sniffing and coughing and struggling to breathe once again, and though he might have gone fishing on one of the days, he decided that it wasn’t a good idea ahead of his operation as, if they came up with a date quickly, he could jeopardise it all. For the same reason, we decided not to go to Bempton Cliffs as well.

So, most of Saturday was spent on the ghostwriting and I continued Sunday morning…

…or I started to.

I wrote just over a thousand words, and then I started to feel ill. Rather than go into it all again, or if you missed it, here’s the link to what happened next. I took the whole of the next week off… or, rather, it forced me to take it off.

Monday
Despite my illness, the book publishing schedule was still underway and on Monday, a new Wordsworth Short was published.

It Wasn’t Me is a story I wrote but never sold, and it features a cheeky little boy who loves chocolate.

I spent all of Monday in hospital.

Tuesday
I was still in hospital for most of Tuesday, until they finally discharged me and let me come home.

Wednesday
I took it easy on Wednesday. Did nothing all day.

Thursday
Thursday was a trip back to clinic, for an MRI scan. Otherwise, I did nothing.

Friday (8 April)
I was starting to feel better on Friday. The poet had some work to do and a few meetings to attend, although he’d cancelled pretty much everything else. As soon as he was done, we ventured to the supermarket. At least if I felt ill, I could go and sit in the car while he finished the shopping.

The 2nd Weekend
By Saturday I was feeling well enough to have a potter around the garden. We started work on our new portable garden (see Sunday and Thursday‘s posts), or rather, the poet did the work while I directed. Fortunately, the weather held, and we continued working outside in the fresh air on Sunday.

Monday
On Monday, another new Wordsworth Short was published.

The Easter Egg Hunt was one of my greatest successes. I came up with the idea overnight, furiously wrote the first draft the following morning, quickly proof-read it and sent it off, and it was accepted by return. All in one day.

You can find all of my books on the BUY MY BOOKS tab on the blog, or you can go to www.books2read.com/DianeWordsworth.

Monday morning was spent catching up on publicity flyers and blog posts. With it being Easter this weekend, I realised that I have two Wordsworth Shorts now as well as the two Cadbury books that can be linked to chocolate and Easter. So those are the flyers I worked on.

These are the Twitter flyers:

And these are the Instagram flyers:

Tip: If you’re reading this on a hand-held device and the pictures above are too small, try turning your device on its side, if you have that feature activated.

All week, these flyers have been appearing on Facebook, on Twitter and on Instagram. Talk about chocolate overload.

I started to look around at an alternative project manager. There are things Asana is supposed to do, and which it brags that it does in its advertising blurb, but either you have to pay for the premium version, or it doesn’t work and they’ve not responded to their users’ requests for two years or more.

They also have no qualms in referring you to another, third party, premium product that links to theirs, when many of the users are already paying for a premium product – and quite a lot of money in my opinion. (Starts at £9.49 per month, or apx. $12.)

I did find one, but at first look, it seemed to be quite different. I saved it, though, to have a look at when I have more free time… (Free time? Excuse me while I larf… 😆) It is a work tool, however, so I do need to put some time aside for it.

Going back to Asana, I checked the upcoming publishing schedule and added those new books to the sidebar, as well as update the graphics at the top of the sidebar. (The sidebar is at the bottom on mobile devices.)

The next job I did was update my multi-project monthly word-count spreadsheet. This simply meant filling in columns of zeroes for the past week. In March my final word-count target was 61,917 words, and I wrote 66,368 words. (Yay!) My target for April is currently 88,100 words, of which I’ve written 12,938 words so far. (Edit: 19,747 words now.)

Then it was back to the ghostwriting. My client had been very understanding and patient, but I still owed him Part 3 and I still had 5 chapters to write. In the meantime, the revisions came in for Part 2, so I decided to start with those first, especially as the beta reader made a really good suggestion I wanted to incorporate.

I took a break to have tea, and finished work at about 8pm.

Tuesday & Wednesday
I didn’t get a great deal done on Tuesday and Wednesday other than ghostwriting, and even then I had to keep taking breaks. I got there in the end, though, and delivered the third instalment on Wednesday evening.

In between I had another look at that new project management system and liked it so much the poet bought it for me. Clickup does have a ‘free forever’ subscription, but I wanted the few extras you get for the $5 a month sub (apx. just under £4) and, in any case, they had a 30% sale. So instead of it costing $60 a year (£45), it cost $42 (£32), bringing it down to $3.50 a month (£2.70).

Much better value for money, in my opinion.

I also prepared and published the next two books in the publishing challenge. One will be published on Monday, the other will be published the following Monday. They’re both Wordsworth Shorts (numbers 19 and 20, so there will be another collection of ten stories out soon).

Thursday
On Thursday I did a lot of faffing work, catching up on emails, updating blogs to be scheduled, etc. And then I actually finished work early, in time for the bank holiday weekend.

Today
It’s Good Friday today, and Easter Monday next week. I’m taking the long weekend off. We might even get to see the puffins…

Have a fantastic Easter weekend!