Yesterday began with me checking social media and emails while I had breakfast, and then I went straight into finishing the current book for NetGalley. I really enjoyed this one and I’m looking forward to the second one in the series, which I also have from NetGalley.
The night before I’d spotted a big black cat eating the chicken I’d put down for Holly to hopefully smell. And the following morning, something had eaten all of the chicken *and* found the cat lick (cat gravy) that was right outside an open conservatory window, so Holly could at least get back in if the doors were shut. I think it was probably the black cat again, but if it was Holly, then she knows the way back.
When I reached my desk, writing hour had just started on Twitter, so I settled down and joined in with that. I read through yesterday’s blog post and spotted three errors, so went in and corrected those. Then I had to go into Buffer to stop it from posting updates of the post it had already posted everywhere. (There must be a way to do this automatically…)
I had to do some Monkey Dust admin. Due to the poet’s finger injury, they’ve had to postpone this weekend’s gig. (It’s the tip of his finger and he’s a guitarist as well as the singer.) So I had to wait for him to let me know he’d confirmed it with both the venue and the lads. Then I created the poster and made the announcement.
I fired up the podcast and listened to episode 5. These older podcasts date back to 2016, so I have a bit of catching up to do. Fortunately, they were mostly weekly back then and I’m trying to listen to one a (week) day. It’s still going to take me a year and half to catch up, so I might try and listen to two on a day when I’m not very busy.
At dinner time, I went out and replenished the chicken that had gone overnight and when I sat back down at my desk I watched a sparrow go and peck at it. After dinner I had probate stuff to do again and while I was on the phone to my sister the dog went out and gobbled the rest of the chicken! At least the application for probate has gone off now, and we’ve started the ball rolling to sell the house.
I started to write up the review for the NetGalley book and noticed I’d made a massive error in the last book review I’d done: I’d left the title of the previous book in the first line instead of replacing it with the last title title. So before I could do the next book review, I had to go in and fix the last book review – on NetGalley, on Amazon, on Medium, on Instagram, and on the blog!
Nobody told me, including the publisher who used part of my review for their blurb. Refreshing to know no one is actually reading these reviews.
Once all of that was done, I wrote the review for the book I just finished, created the graphic, shared it everywhere, and updated the Trello card. I submitted the book review to Medium as well, to a publication, and it was accepted immediately. Then I went and withdrew the short story The Complete Angler from one unresponsive market and submitted it to another. That one wasn’t published as quickly, but I think it will be published.
I’ve had a few new subscribers over at Substack (Thank you!), so I thought I ought to go and create some new free content there. The newsletter at Substack is all about writing, so I visited my blog post introducing the new power board and replicated it over there, tweaking it slightly.
I want to serialise the project management books on Substack every Monday behind a paywall, but I haven’t had chance to set it up yet, so that job has been deferred to July.
My Facebook page has had a flurry of followers recently, jumping up by around a hundred. I don’t know where they’ve all come from, but it’s nice to see. I also had a new follower on Twitter, which was a nice surprise. Again, since I’ve been doing the 200 Words a Day challenge, I have had the odd new follower here and there. But the one that was a nice surprise yesterday was The People’s Friend. I’ve followed them for ages and I’ve been joining in with their weekly writing hour for a few weeks. But yesterday, they finally followed me back.
While I was on Twitter, I decided to change my handle there after all. To do it, I had to change the new one to DiWordsworth1 so I could change DMWordsworth to DiWordsworth. And then I could change DiWordsworth1 back to DMWordsworth with a placeholder for anyone looking for me under DM and a link to Di. I’ve said before I’m not a huge fan of being called Di, but I’d sooner that than have my middle initial on display.
It means I have to gradually change all of my links everywhere now, but at least the placeholder is there redirecting anyone.
By now the day was almost over and I hadn’t done my 200 words. So I went and put my tea in the oven (lamb chops) and the veg on the hob (baby potatoes, and green beans & button mushrooms), and hauled out Diary of a Pussycat. I revised three chapters and wrote the exercises, but only added 153 words. Current tally = 43,470 words.
I paused for tea, because 153 words wasn’t enough. Mind you, saying that, before I started this challenge, I would have just decided not to bother these past few days, as it was so late.
When I got back to my computer I had an email from Brevo threatening to close my account (formerly sendinblue, where the newsletter comes from). They said I hadn’t logged in for ages but I was on with support only last week AND I log in every weekday AND my last newsletter went out on 18 May. If this keeps up from Brevo, we’re not going to get along for very much longer.
I forwarded the message to support, asking if it was them or a phishing scam. Then I opened up Catch the Rainbow. Or I tried. Scrivener alerted me to my second update this week. This week. So I set that rolling and then had a look to make sure it still worked. It did. I added 648 words. Current tally = 17,059 words.
It rained for the first half of the day and I thought there was another storm on the way, but it passed and the sun came out. The garden looks nicely washed, but the yellow roses have taken a battering these past few days.
All of the chicken had disappeared from the garden, so I had to go out and replenish that, as well as put more cat gravy just outside the conservatory window. And then I settled down to watch telly for a bit.
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Hope Holly returns, or at least you have some news of her soon.
Thank you. I’m going out with leaflets to push through doors later today.
I hope Holly comes back soon.
I’m sorry you’re having trouble with Brevo. I had such a nightmare with them as SendinBlue, but they seemed to work for you. If you need to hop again, I suggest MailerLite. They’ve been very easy to work with and their plug in sign up works well with the WordPress sites.
Have you considered lnk.bio? I like ti better than LinkTree. I substituted the lnk.bio in my Twitter and Insta bios, and then I update the actual links within them as they change. Feel free to poke around in mine and see if it’s something that might work for you. It’s saving me time and effort, which is why I like it. And it’s working well to drive traffic.
I have to catch up on your last few posts. i’ve been so down the rabbit hole with writing, I’m behind.
I had a look at your link thing when you mentioned it before, but it looked a bit too complicated for me to consider properly at the time. Can’t remember if it was LinkTree or Ink.bio. I’ll have another look.
I think I have an account with MailerLite but SendInBlue looked a lot easier at the time. I also have a MailChimp account… and another one I can’t remember. I’ll have to have a look around because I don’t think Brevo is long for my world at this rate.
Being busy writing is the best reason to get behind! We all have days like that. Not necessarily writing, but also days when we just run out of time.
I actually find lnk.bio much easier than LinkTree, and I like that I can add, subtract, and move things around easily.
I used MailChimp for some clients, and found it was good for tradtional business type email, but limiting on other stuff. Your other one might be Constant Contact? Used them for clients, too, and didn’t like the templates. I used Robly for a client and liked it for their work, but it couldn’t do what I wanted/needed.
Oh goodness! I hope Holly comes back soon. I remember years ago when my dog escaped the backyard on a very, very cold winter night. I drove all over the neighborhood looking for him with no luck. He finally came home and he wasn’t cold at all – he had a snack with him, as well. I think he probably went to go visit a kindly older woman or man who let him warm himself by their fire, gave him a snack, and sent him on his way. 🙂
I really need to join some sort of challenge. I could do 200 words every day, I think!
200 words a day is such a low number, I’ve often been doing it when normally I’m too tired or it’s too late to bother. And even at weekends. It’s certainly worth a go. You’ll see the link on my Twitter.
We still haven’t seen Holly. The big problem is that she’s deaf, so we can’t call her.