Tuesday 23 January 2024: Full steam ahead

I had some catching up to do yesterday as I’d lost a lot of time on Friday. First of all I’d had to wait around for a delivery, then I had a hair appointment, and in between I was setting up the ebook shop on here. Nothing got ticked on my jobs list. No writing. No tech admin. No diary work. Bone idle, that’s me! But it did mean I had some catching up to do.

Actually, I had started the tech admin. It just hadn’t finished by the time I closed the office door on Friday, and when I opened the door on Monday, there it was, just finished. It was the weekly backup and it takes a long time because it’s overwriting all of my critical data with the latest versions. So I started it on Friday, I just didn’t officially finish it until Monday.

The first job I had to do was write yesterday’s blog post. I hadn’t even started that as I went along as I usually do now. Then I had some jiggery pokery to do on the shop. I had to add in ‘go back to ebook store’ and ‘go to checkout’ links, as the plugin didn’t include those. I was disappointed when I saw that at first, but then I had the brain murmur to just go in and add the links myself.

Stripe wasn’t working properly, so I took it off and put it on again. Time will tell if it still isn’t connected right. The other thing the ebook store seemed to have done was add a load of SEO stuff that made my dashboard look weird. So I removed those plugins I didn’t ask for that must have come with the ebook store.

The plates came back on the nasty editing job for their 9th or 10th proofread. I still found one little thing, but left it to the client whether she changes it or not. I signed off the plates from my end, saying she could easily sign it off if she decided to go with the change, or sign it off now without the change. Hopefully that’s one part of the job I don’t ever have to see again. (NOT the client’s fault, at all.)

I scheduled in two more jobs on this edit, both of which I promised to do just as soon as the designer was ready for them. Well, it seems the designer is ready, so I’d best get on and do them.

I’ve had a few more books come in for review, so I downloaded those, converted them to epub and mobi, and uploaded them to Google Play Books, FB Reader, and Kindle. Then I added new T-cards for them in Trello, and updated the checklist and the labels. I’m not requesting any books for review any more, but if they still come in, then I’ll have a look at them.

While I was on the internet, I looked for an image for the ebook store and added a couple of widgets to the top of the sidebar. (They’ll be at the bottom on mobile devices.)

I did some quick Monkey Dust admin. I only really need to do this once a month now, but as it’s their first gig of the year on Saturday, I thought I may as well do a couple of reminders. I didn’t have to create a poster or an event, though. I only had to share what I’d already done earlier in the month.

The next job I should have done on Friday was my diary work. This consists of looking at the calendar for the month that I write on, reviewing how it’s gone so far, specifically last week, and deciding how to go forward this week. I moved things around on TickTick first to make sure they all fit, then transferred them to my diary – my bible.

And finally it was today’s blog post, which didn’t take as long because I’d done it as I went along.

Today, it’s full steam ahead on THE SECRET OF WHITEHORSE FARM. I’ll check Medium for anything that might be suitable for NOTES FOR WRITERS, but that’s the only time I’m even touching this one this week. Then I’ll crack on with the first remaining part of the nasty edit. I’ve allocated 2 hours per day for the last 2 remaining chores for this job. At the moment, they also have only 2 days each (at 2 hours a day).