Friday 3 Mar 2023: Busy Thursday

Oh, my goodness. I had such a busy day on Thursday.

I had a full and good night’s sleep for a change and could have quite happily got up an hour earlier than I usually do. But the poet was having a late start after a long week already and if we didn’t need to be up with the larks, then we didn’t have to be. By ten-to-nine, though, I couldn’t stand it any longer. I was wide awake, I was full of energy, and I had a list as long as both my arms to get through as far as work was concerned.

So I got up. But I didn’t start work straight away. I started with household chores. I fed both of the animals and I fed both of us.

Once he went off to work, I put three washloads away and put another load in. Then I put a wheelie-bin liner in the wheelie bin, emptied the kitchen bin and emptied the recycling bin. The kitchen bin had something nasty in the bottom, so before I put a fresh liner in I gave it a good wash and left it outside to dry.

(Bear with me…)

I emptied the dishwasher, put the crocks away, and filled the dishwasher up again. I needed to do this so I had room to clean the cat litter.

The cat litter was next, which was filthy on the outside because we’d left it out while the cat was on her adventure, to try and entice her home with the smell. And this was the first chance I had to give it a good clean. So I changed the litter, thoroughly cleaned the cat litter tray and hood inside and out, and put the tray outside to dry. I brought the kitchen bin in and put the fresh liner in and brought the litter tray in too and filled that up.

Once all the dirty stuff was done, I went around the sink area giving that a good clean. The first wash load was done, so I hung that up and put another wash load through. And then I fed the garden birds.

Then it was time for a nice cup of tea and a sit down, and I wondered where the entire  morning had gone. (This is why I’ve written it all down now, to remind me.)

I couldn’t understand why I was so busy. I was a lot busier than I’ve been in a long while on a Thursday, or at least as far as the housework is concerned. And then I realised… I was so busy because I didn’t have the research to do or any writing for the ghostwriting gig. With that gone, for now at least, I suddenly found time to do all the things the poet’s been doing after he’s been to work all day. And he was doing them while I was still working.

And therein lies the point of today’s blog post.

While I think a good and full night’s sleep had a lot to do with it (the dog was VERY late getting up on Thursday morning), this is also definitely something to bear in mind in the future.

Because I’ve been so busy working on the ghostwriting, often late at night and sometimes throughout the night, I’ve not had time to do anything else. I still have to arrange a load of personal appointments for us both and I haven’t had time to do any of that since… November.

I have to find an affordable hairdresser to cut my unruly mop. We both have to go and have our eyes tested. We’re both way overdue a checkup at the dentist. And we both need to be registered at our local doctors’ surgery. We’ve been here six months already and we still haven’t done that.

At the time of writing, the ghostwriting client hadn’t been in touch. It’s possible he’s had enough of my excuses, or he may also be considering AI, which I won’t have anything to do with. (Call me old-fashioned, but I’d sooner work with real people and watch them learn and grow.) But I think I’ve pretty much decided anyway that twelve books is enough and it’s time for me to do other, better-earning work. And even some of my own writing.

I’m also considering dropping down to a 4-day working week (aside from my own writing, which I’ll still do as often as I feel able), and that extra day would give me time to do all the kinds of jobs I spent the entire morning yesterday doing.

I carried on with the household chores throughout the afternoon as well, but I also managed to do some work.

First of all I actually started today’s blog, then I wrote up yesterday’s product review blog post for the Novelist app. I copied & pasted that into Medium, reformatted it, proof-read it again, and submitted it to Synergy. I updated my Trello board and my record of submissions spreadsheet. Then I copied & pasted it again, this time to Vocal, where I reformatted and proof-read it again, and I submitted it to 01. And I updated my Trello board and my record of submissions again.

By the time I’d finished all of the admin, the Vocal submission had gone through the system and was published. Another story was published right after mine, but then it vanished. I think it was removed by one of the mods. Within seconds of that, I had a like and a favourable comment on my story. Perhaps product reviews are the way to go on Vocal. I updated my Trello board again, and then had a quick whizz through the daily competitions.

I did a quick search for some editing jobs and one that I fancied needed 3 x 3,000-word samples including tracked changes. Well, have you tried to do anything in Word these days with tracked changes on? It takes an eternity. And it kept on freezing. But I did what I could and then closed down for tea. The poet was at band practice and my hiatus hernia doesn’t like eating too much too late. So I had my tea and when the poet got home I made him his. And we called it a night.

Hopefully today will be more successfully productive.

Have a great weekend!

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