
(Note: I did a tap dance once to I’M BUSY DOING NOTHING, and wore a pair of dungarees my mom’d had made for the occasion. Hence today’s picture…)
I seem to have spent most of yesterday being very busy doing nothing. But I must have been busy doing something, because the day disappeared and I was at my desk for most of it.
The first job I got out of the way was yesterday’s blog post, which I should have done on Friday but ran out of time. That was okay in the end, though, because it meant I could include a bit about the weekend too.
My next job was a good look at my schedule to see what I could fit in when this week around 3 hospital appointments. It was challenging, and I did have to move some things to next week and, as a result, some future things were moved on a week or 2.
Once that was out of the way I was able to finalise my diary for this week. I also did my 5-minute tech declutter on Twitter and on Facebook, which turned into more like an hour. And I had some very quick Monkey Dust admin to do. They have a gig this weekend and I had a venue post to share. I’d already done the band’s last week or the week before. I also shared yesterday’s blog post to BlueSky and to Medium.
I was delighted to see Scruffy Magpie return to the garden after a week away. I’m not sure if that’s because we had the dog here or because the builders in the garden at the end of ours were making a lot of noise. He was here yesterday, though, bossing all the other birds around.
After dinner, I had to nip up to the compound to see if the poet had left his wallet in the van. The last time we both remember seeing it was Friday afternoon on our way out when he grabbed it in case he needed his National Trust membership card. (He didn’t.) Fortunately, his main bank card was with his phone, but his driving licence, his other bank cards, and more membership cards were in his wallet. So I went to the compound to see if it was there, and it was.
Finally, I had the weekly market information to process to see if there’s anything I fancy targeting. I weed out the non-payers first and those that require a submission fee. (Erm, they’re supposed to pay me, not the other way around.) Then I checked to see which demographics I didn’t meet (living in Canada, LGBTQ+, people of colour, under 19-year-olds, etc) and deleted those too.
This left me with about a dozen that I simply added to the bookmark favourite on my browser for now. There are 2 that I definitely want to have a go at and possibly another 1, but I had to shelve them for now as I have other stuff to do.
I didn’t get around to today’s blog, so I’ve had to do that today. And before I knew it I was popping jacket potatoes into the oven again for tea and the poet was on his way home.
Looking back at the above, I suppose the day wasn’t as much of a write-off as I thought it was.
Today is the first of my 3 dermatology appointments. I wonder if they’ll actually do something this time…
Exactly. I am paid to write. I do not pay to write. And I’m tired of detailed submission calls for plays, expecting the playwright to write for the theatre — without a commission fee. Blech.
Makes me so mad, I just have to shake my head and walk away at times. Of course, it’s people agreeing to this for the exposure that makes it practically the norm these days!