Today’s free image was so cheerful and energetic, I just had to use it. I love yellow.
The poet was up bright and early to head back to the midlands. The dog went out at the same time, then we both went back to bed for another hour or so. I fed the dog, fed the birds, fed me, then we went for a quick walk to the letterbox to post a couple of letters. If the postie had already been, then I was on standby to drive to the post office in the next village. But he hadn’t been, so that saved me a trip.
Back home I threw all the windows open and a pair of shorts on. It was so warm, but it was earlier than the day before, so not too hot on the dog’s pads yet. Once in the office, he crashed at my feet. I started today’s post before getting on with the first job of the day: Week 5 of my advanced depth workshop.
Over breakfast I’d actually done some pre-work for this, reading the opening chapters of the 2 bonus books we got. I didn’t do the rest of the assignment, but I at least wanted to know what he’d be going on about when he did the response video to the live attendees back in the day when the workshop was videoed.
I finally decided against the PULPHOUSE Kickstarter special workshop. I still have plenty of courses and lectures to work through so I think I’ll wait until the topic grabs me. If I think Ooh, yes, that looks interesting, then perhaps I’ll give it a go. I did, however, subscribe to the magazine for another 6 months. At least then if I fancy submitting a story in the narrow window(s) then I can. I still get the anthologies too.
They’ve done very well, exceeding their ultimate target by more than 2 grand.
I could feel my eyes start to glaze over during yesterday’s workshop, but that may be because the topic was fantasy, hot on the heels of science fiction, neither of which I usually read or write. I have a few more courses included in this current bundle and I do take the weekends and holidays off. But I may have a break at the end and maybe do one of Jessica Brody’s workshops for a few weeks before coming back to these.
I manoeuvred a fan into the hall so it was aimed at both me and the dog in the office, then cracked on with the next task on the list: THE HAUNTED HOUSE HOTEL. I transferred the workings for Scenes 1 and 2 from the exercise book to Scrivener, and I read through Scene 1, tweaking it a bit to suit the new outline. Then I remembered to turn on my Pomodoro! Hey, HAUNTED HOUSE got extra time!
Now I had the outline for Scene 2 in front of me, I read through what I’d already written, tweaked that a bit as well, and then finished writing the scene. I changed the job for the killer to one that was more likely (I hope) under the circumstances, and brought them into the scene rather than just have 2 characters talking about them.
I updated my wordcount spreadsheet and added the total to the sidebar on here, then paused for something to eat. After dinner, I turned to the editing job, clearing 29 pages. I finally got in the swing of this, after faffing and printing and sorting and straightening pages, but I went back and read through Chapter 1 again to make sure I was setting the consistency in my memory.
I’d run out of steam by then, so I dropped by the 12 STORIES IN 12 MONTHS website to read and comment on some stories. I don’t think I did any last month and I’ll get done for not joining in.
There’s more of the same on today’s schedule, then a haircut and a dog walk this evening. The dog goes back to his humans on Sunday, but we may take him out somewhere nice tomorrow.
By the way, meet Hawley, my companion this week. Isn’t he handsome? Best game in the world EVER – ‘ball’!
Have a super weekend.
He is so adorable!
We had him for an extra day!