Diary of a Tiger: w/c Fri 6 May

Image by Jan Barkmann from Pixabay
Chapter 18: Week commencing Friday 6 May

Friday
Okay, hopefully I’ve learnt from not writing the diary as I go along, so today I’m here, at my desk, reporting for duty.

It seems that the problem I had with the project planner is now resolved. I’m not sure if I fixed it the best way it can be fixed, but it’s working again.

When I’ve done a task, I like it to stay on my calendar, so I can see what I’ve achieved. This was working for all of the one-off tasks, but not for recurring tasks. Recurring tasks save me a lot of time, and another problem I had was getting them to show in the planner ahead of time.

Both of these functions are now working, and it means I can plan my working week around jobs that stay the same from one day or week to the next.

Over breakfast, I continued reading Pirate Queens for NetGalley. I like this book so much that I’ve created a new ‘collection’ on my Kindle called ‘research’, and this is the first book that’s been copied into it. There’s a call for submissions coming up within the next 12 months for pirate stories, so I’ve filed this one away in the back of my mind where it will hopefully percolate.

Daily competitions was next, and in my 15-minute segment, it took me precisely 14 minutes and 38 seconds (tracked on Toggl).

I wrote up Monday’s publication challenge blog post, which included the process I use when publishing the next book on the list. Then the afternoon was spent on the rewrites for GW1 client. I managed to submit Parts 2 revisions, and I started on the revisions for Part 3.

We did the shopping as soon as I finished work, to free up the weekend in case the poet wanted to go fishing. Then I finished reading Pirate Queens for NetGalley.

The Weekend
On Saturday we were out and about buying bits and bobs for the house, such as a new saucepan set, extra frying pans, extra saucepans, and dog food. We also went to the tackle shop so the poet could go fishing on Sunday. When we got back, the poet cut the front lawns.

An email came in from GW1 client with the beta reader comments for Book 9 Part 3. And I started to read A Murder of Quality by John le Carré for pleasure.

On Sunday, the poet went fishing while I consolidated the beta reader comments and my own revisions for Part 3 of Book 9, then I submitted that to the client. I revisited the project planner for the coming week, settling on a schedule that I think will work.

We didn’t get into the garden again. I was keen for the poet to go fishing as he won’t be able to for a few weeks. His band have gigs for the next 3 weekends, then he’s in hospital, then he’s in recovery, and then he’s gigging again. He apparently had a very good day, so it worked out well.

Monday
On Monday, another Wordsworth Collection was published.

Flash Fiction 2: Another Five Very Short Stories is exactly what it says it is. The book consists of 5 very short stories that are too short to publish as standalone Wordsworth Shorts. They’re all also available in Twee Tales More, but this is specifically 5 stories under 1,200 words each.

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.

The first thing I did was catch up with the daily competitions, but fortunately not many had landed since Friday’s session, so it still took me less than 15 minutes. The next thing I did was update my reading long spreadsheet with the book I just finished and the one I just started.

I wrote up the NetGalley book review for The Stories of My Life by James Patterson, bringing the total number of outstanding books DOWN for a change, to 223. I posted it everywhere I could except for Amazon, as the book isn’t due out until 6 June, so I can’t review it on Amazon until then. I scheduled Tuesday’s book review to post on here.

That was already quite a lot of work for one day, especially as I also nipped on to start today’s Diary of a Tiger post. Over dinner I did some date work.

I should be thinking November, writing October and submitting September in May, but I’ve only just got around to thinking October. I got halfway through October, and I also have to do November this month. So there wasn’t a blog post this week, which I would normally write on a Tuesday and schedule for Wednesday publication.

First job of the afternoon was editing work for the Yorkshire client. I should have started the revisions for the bits of Part 4 I’d already written for GW1 client, but we had an errand to run. I should also have started a job for GW2 client on Monday but the rewrites for GW1 pushed everything on a week.

Tuesday
I had an early start on Tuesday, to see the poet off on yet another business trip. Then I made the mistake of going back to bed… I really do need to get back into the habit of getting up with him and staying up, and it wasn’t *that* early. I did go back to sleep, though, so I must have been tired, but a late start then resulted in a bit of a bitty, meh-type of day.

I did some household chores and pottered in the garden for a bit, but soon got bored hand-pulling weeds while I also did the dog poo patrol. (Two birds and all that.) I watered the pots and said hello to the seedlings and plants. I emptied the kitchen bins and took the grey bin to the end of the drive for collection on Wednesday. And I fed the birds.

When I got to my desk, I quickly cleared the daily competitions. It’s about time I won something again, so I had a quick word with the Cosmos before leaving it for the day.

I spent some time looking for a hairdresser.

I have lockdown hair again, even though we haven’t been locked down, and with the poet’s first gig for a while being this coming Saturday, I didn’t want to look a scruff. So I made a few phone calls and found someone who can fit me in on Saturday afternoon.

Then I did nothing. Zilch. I faffed and played with the planner, and before I knew it, it was time to put my tea on. So I did that and made myself a quick pudding (Slimming World banoffee pot), putting that into the fridge to chill.

Because I’d had such an unproductive day, I took my editing into the front room after tea and had a bash at that.

Wednesday
Wednesday started at the normal time, but the first job I did was over breakfast as part of my social hour. I went through Twitter Mobile and hid any posts that are more than one day old, citing ‘this Tweet isn’t recent’. The other thing I did was mute all the people I don’t know who people I do know were simply replying to.

I took some pictures of the garden for Thursday’s post. It was raining, though, so while the plants look nice and clean, there’s not a lot of sunshine in the pictures. Then I wrote up Thursday’s portable garden post and scheduled it to publish on Thursday morning at 8am.

I came in to update this post, but going back to Twitter I saw a nice, shiny thing and ended up following it down a rabbit hole. I ended up writing a big reply to a blog buddy’s latest blog post. It was so long, I copied and pasted it into a Word file in case I want to use the information again.

Over dinner, I finished reading A Murder of Quality and updated my reading log spreadsheet.

Another book landed from NetGalley, causing me to go and have a look at my dashboard to see where these books keep coming from. There I found another 10 books outstanding. These are books I’ve requested over the months and they’ve not been approved. Then, it seems that because I filed a review this week, another one was released.

I thought about withdrawing the requests, but then decided to wait and see what happens when I submit my next review next week. If another one pops up, then I’ll go in and withdraw the requests, I think. Anyway, that means I’m back up to 224…

Most of the rest of the day was editing, and I started the next book for NetGalley: Listen to Me by Tess Gerritsen.

Thursday
I was so grabbed by the Gerritsen that I had to read more over breakfast and at every break I had throughout the day. Once I’d done the daily competitions, I prepared and published the next Wordsworth Short. Then I cleared a few more pages of the editing job.

The blog was taking a long time to load, so I did a quick website speed test and it came back at 2.6 seconds to load. Apparently, the optimum to aim at is just under 2 seconds. I did some research, found another plugin to plug in, and it seems to have done the trick. When I did the speed test again, it came back at 1.5 seconds.

I had a book request declined at NetGalley. I’m still at 224, but now there are only 9 pending approval.

By the time the poet arrived home from his business trip, I was back on the ghostwriting. He had band practice, so I was able to work a few extra hours.

Today
Today I really need to catch up on the ghostwriting and, if I can, squeeze in some more editing. I’m on the home stretch for the hard copy line edit. I need to shift this one now.

I have a hair appointment on Saturday, but anything else may be postponed…

Have a fantastic weekend!

Diary of a Tiger: Out in 2023

Note: I’m not including links because they take forever to edit out when I’m preparing the final version of the book for publication.

2 thoughts on “Diary of a Tiger: w/c Fri 6 May

  1. I’m back to pandemic hair, too. I need to find a hair salon around here and get it cut. I mean, they EXIST, some even within walking distance, but I’m not sure where to go. Still, in ten years on Cape Cod, I had only two decent haircuts, so I doubt it will be as bad as that.

    1. I had it all chopped off in the end – ALL of it… well, it’s about level with the bottom of my ears now, and completely layered through. Not sure I’ll be going back, though, as I prefer the back-wash to the forward-wash and there wasn’t any choice. Pleased with the hair, though. Good luck finding somewhere yourself. Our hairdressers are still wearing masks, but they’re leaving it up to the customer to choose whether or not they wear one.

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