It was the cat’s turn to wake me up on Thursday morning. She came into the bedroom at around 4:15am and promptly started to throw up. Then, when she’d finished, she went out of the bedroom again! She didn’t even stay after I’d cleaned it up. I put the dog out at the same time in the hope he wouldn’t wake me up again in an hour or so. He at least waited until right before the poet’s alarm went off, and this time the poet took him out.
Under the circumstances I was really surprised to be up again before 9am, checking social media and catching up on emails. I thought it would be another late start, but I was at work on time after starting the next book for NetGalley over breakfast in the device-free conservatory.
Once at my desk, I decided which books I’ll be taking on holiday with me. Of course, this just means making sure they’re at the top of the Kindle and on both the Paperwhite and my phone. I’ll be taking the laptop too, but I only read on the laptop while I’m eating dinner at my desk. The tablet and the fake Fire will be staying at home.
When I decided which books they’d be, off I went to grab images of the covers so I could create the ‘currently reading’ flyers. And then I plumped them all together on one ‘holiday reading’ flyer. I have a mix of historical, mystery, a ‘feel good summer read’, and a historical mystery.
The poet has started listening to audio books, so I’m hoping he won’t be commandeering my Paperwhite like he usually does on holiday. He has his own, but he always says he won’t be reading so he won’t load any books, and then he nicks mine so I can’t read if it’s too bright to read on my phone.
I checked that Paper Roses had been published on Deadlines for Writers (it had), and then I had a look to see if the next prompt was up. It was, and the June story is 1,200 words. I made a note of that before updating my reading log spreadsheet.
I hung out a bit of washing that we need to take with us on holiday.
The newsletter was next on the list. I had to go in first to update it with a change of ‘currently reading’ and I had to change the ‘to’ list because I had a new subscriber yesterday. (Hello, new subscriber!) I’d started this earlier in the week when I had one less subscriber and I thought it might pick up the new person. But it didn’t. So I had to clear the ‘to’ list and then do it again, and this time it included everyone. Off it went, into the pale blue ether, and I had a quick look around to see what else I could do with it. I can apparently share it to social media, but when I tried that and looked at it, it showed me the entire newsletter, and the short story is for subscribers only. I deleted it again. It’s possible that it could see who I was and that it was okay for me to read it all, but until I know that for a fact, I won’t be sharing it on social media.
The newsletter was a massive tick off my to-do list and it was so much easier this time as I’d already started it and only had to tweak a couple of things. I know what to do in future now.
I had another look at Paper Roses, now online, and noticed two typos. Fortunately, once it’s published we can go in and edit it, and that’s what I did. I printed off a clean copy, punched two holes in it, and added it to the short story ring binder, moving everything along one so that the old number 2 was now the new number 1 and the old numbers 1 and 2 were now numbers 9 and 10, ready for me to work on them again in case they need to go to a different market.
Then I had another look at The Kite Festival to see if I could lose those last 8 words. I did, but somehow managed to add another 4. It was close enough, though. I reformatted it, printed it out, punched two holes in it, filed it in the ring binder, moving everything else along, and submitted it. I added it to my record of submissions. Job done.
I shared one of the graphics on social media, the one at the top of this blog post. Then I opened up another blog post so I could review the book I just finished. The book review blog post will appear on Monday (said she hopefully). Today’s catch up may actually take over a week as I’m going to be very busy today running errands:
- I have a hair appointment at the crack of dawn
- I’ll collect the poet’s repeat prescription on the way back
- we have to go and collect the dog’s drugs so he doesn’t run out on holiday
- I have to try and get some photo ID certified at a post office for probate
- I have to send certified photo ID, Mom’s death certificate, and a bank statement off for probate
- there’s a shopping list to do
- we have to do the holiday shopping
- we have to do the holiday packing
IF I have time, I may also squeeze in some actual work.
Depending on connections, etc, if I get chance I’ll post some pictures from our holiday. Otherwise, I’ll see you next week!
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Sounds like fun!
I would suggest loading some books onto the poet’s Kindle so he doesn’t swipe yours! Explain to him the importance of back up books, and having extra books available all the time.
Ha ha ha, we did do that in the end. And, of course, because we did it, he hasn’t looked at any of them. He has been taking photographs and processing those, and he’s done some painting, and he’s done some music production work. But so far he hasn’t even looked at his Kindle!