The first thing I did after hitting my desk yesterday morning was, well, hit my desk. It was so untidy I took a picture of it to remind me not to leave it like that ever again. It really has a negative effect on me and is something I’ve always disliked in all my working years. Perhaps it was brainwashed into me at an early age to never leave an untidy desk overnight. Especially when you work in an open plan or unlocked office.
Of course, I don’t work in such places any more, but even so… it still irked me when I opened the door and was greeted by mess. So I took the picture, blogged about it as I itemised what I’d left out and how long it had been left there, and I tidied it into a single pile… leaving the massive proofreading job right at the bottom…
I wrote and posted the blog, quickly checked emails and social media, and went off to see if the reading list is ready for the romance ghosts writing workshop… and there it was, gone!
The workshop. It had vanished.
Now, I know they weren’t doing an in-person workshop on this topic in September as they didn’t get enough sign-ups, but I did think they were still doing the study along. So either they’ve changed their minds and they’ve taken it down, or they’re currently recording a special version just for the study alongs.
The next study along is for science fiction mystery writing. I already have the classic mystery writing workshop down as my next one and there’s a classic science mystery workshop too, but there’s no reading list for either of those. The plan was to change the existing ‘collect reading list’ to the next one, but I deleted it instead. The next study along is in January so I might have worked out a different working routine by then.
I spotted a news story that Kindle Publishing have included a new clause in their contracts regarding AI-generated material and another partial clause on AI-assisted material. The notice claimed that the latter included any kind of AI assistance for making things like covers too, and I wondered if Canva could be considered AI.
I spent some time reading up about it but couldn’t decide, although I did see that Canva claims anything produced is its own IP. So I started to think about creating my own covers and flyers in Affinity. I do have CanvaPro, but I’m starting to get a bit squiffy about anything that doesn’t belong entirely to me.
Perhaps in the future, I’ll use any money saved from not having CanvaPro to buy image licenses. That’s just shy of $100 a year. I can probably get a few images for that. I found a video on how to create book covers in Affinity and subscribed to the channel.
Throughout the day I did another page-worth each of admin on Google Play Books in between catching up on regular jobs I should have done on Friday, such as the weekly tech scan and backup.
I did the quick and easy share of Diane’s Gig List and sent them a quick correction to the site text. Then I had a play in Affinity to see if I could replicate or improve the Monkey Dust poster. This is what I came up with:
Obviously, I still need to play around with sizes and I need to relocate the font I have somewhere, but I think the new version is more vibrant than the old version. I was happy with it for now and went ahead and created the event on Facebook. I added it to Diane’s Gig List, thereby completing my Monkey Dust admin for this week.
Two books came in from my new favourite publisher for review, so I collected and downloaded those, and I converted them straight away and uploaded them to Google Play. Feeling a bit smug that everything seems to be working, I called it a day… I will try not to get too smug, however, as karma has a nasty habit of sneaking up and biting you on the bum.
I’ve removed the subscription forms from the bottom of posts now. If anyone wants to subscribe, use the links in the side bar (at the bottom on mobile devices).
Busy day! I’ve been trying to clean off my desk, too. I need to keep current projects out, or my subconscious marks them as “done” but I’ve got a few too many stacking on top of each other, so it’s back to colored folders.
How weird that the workshop just vanished!
So far everything has been put in a pile and shoved to one end of my desk. I really don’t like working at a messy anything and always have to clear space wherever I am.
I’ve got rid of my desk! For a number of reasons, it wasn’t working for me. We’d moved it into our ‘office’ where John has a desk and sits for many hours. It seemed an obvious thing to do. However, it seems that John feels a compulsive urge to speak to anyone who happens to be working! He admitted he knew he was distracting me and tried not to do it, not very successfully. This meant I was carting my laptop off to the kitchen or the dining table (on the rare occasion I was writing). My desk was slowly turning into a dumping ground. So it went to the Charity shop and now I happily sit quietly at the dining table! There is the added bonus as there is never any mess, everything has to be put away. I purloined a couple of cupboards and drawers in ‘his’ office, for my use! Sorted!!
Oh my! I couldn’t imagine not having my desk.