One step forward …

Image by happyveganfit from Pixabay

… one step back. Or that’s how it feels at times.

Yesterday didn’t start as well as the day before, but the day before was better than the day before that. If that’s the theme, then today will be better than yesterday. Fingers crossed!

I had a bad night, to the extent that when the poet got up to attend two video meetings, I stayed in bed to catch up. Then when I did get up and weighed myself, I was horrified to see that I’ve put on so much weight again that I’m only 2lb below my heaviest weight ever.

I’m trying not to diet. I’m trying not to fund the diet industry. I’m trying to get back to a good, healthy diet with some regular exercise. But this did mean that the sweeteners came back out to go in my tea (even though I’m down to only 1 sugar in my tea now), and the Truvia came back out to go on my Weetabix.

It isn’t helping that we’re still eating Christmas to a certain extent. And while we might be down to the last 2 mince pies, we still have the best part of 2 family packs of biscuits to get through (one of which is shortbread!), and a box of biscuits for cheeses we still need to make more of a dent in.

If anyone’s interested, I have a secret sugarholic blog. Send me an email if you know it or use the contact form on here if you’d like a link. Otherwise, I’m not really publicising that on here.

Ghostwriting

Once I’d updated the aforementioned secret blog (part of my warm-up hour, if you remember), the next job was ghostwriting. But as the poet had just completed his second meeting of the day, he popped into my office to give me an update on what they’re officially doing at his place.

Basically, he’s working at home unless he truly has to go to a site. And then they’re testing at the sites. This is good. Not only is he not being furloughed, but he’s also being kept safe, he’s being tested and, more importantly, I have a work buddy again! ❤️

So, back to work …

I sat and stared at the blank screen in Scrivener for a good few minutes, about 5 minutes at least. Then I flexed my fingers and typed the first sentence. With 20 words in the bag, I sat back and admired it for a while.

After I’d typed around 450 words, which is almost a quarter of a chapter, I made tea for us both and took a plate of biscuits to the poet. I, myself, had an orange. 🍊 Well, a satsuma. I think he enjoyed the biscuits more than I enjoyed the orange. 😕 (The orange is still Christmas food.)

The next 200 words were slow, and before I knew it, it was dinnertime. I ‘showed’ the bread some low-fat cheese and butter and had a yoghurt, and I read out the first 600-odd words of the book to the poet, just to see how it sounded. It sounded okay.

Then we took the dog to the duck pond and back. Five peafowl were sunbathing on a wall. There are around 40+ peacocks, hens and juveniles in the village, but we don’t see them very often.

The remaining words for Chapter 1 were very slow indeed, and I kept on being distracted with pretty, sparkly things (i.e. the internet). However, I finished the day with 2,201 words for Chapter 1…

And that’s all I managed because I got embroiled in a discussion in Diane’s Gig List’s Facebook group. I didn’t do any proofreading. And I didn’t do any work on The Beast Within, but at least I have plenty of words already in the bag for that one.

Oh yes, and after years of trying, I finally found the en-dash in Scrivener. That was an achievement in itself! (Well, not so much in Scrivener, but the keystrokes that work in Scrivener.)

Today needs to be much better.