Monday was a busy day. The day started with me catching up with jobs I hadn’t finished by the end of Friday. So while I ran a couple of backups, I decided on my workload for this week and moved it all to the diary.
Once I’d caught up, I watched Week 5 of the applied depth workshop, and then I watched Week 1 of the Christmas cosy novella workshop. I hunted for the recording of Friday’s Zoom call for the Christmas cosy, but all I could find was in the private FB group that people had been sat in a ‘waiting room’ and couldn’t join the call.
I have no idea what that means, as I didn’t realise Zoom even had a waiting room. But I made the assumption that the workshop leader thought no one had turned up, and so there was no Friday Zoom call. I may be wrong, it may appear later this week. But so far, I couldn’t find it.
There was a major distraction in the garden. Two new magpies and their proud parents came to visit and spent much of the day playing and fighting and exploring and begging everyone and anyone to feed their wide-open mouths. They were adorable. We also think that Scruffy has spent much time in the nest preening his/her new feathers, as one of the adults was acting just like s/he did, not flying very well, hopping and skipping a lot, and with one wing definitely not as good as the other.
I forgot to mention before that I watched one magpie last week burying something in the lawn, then going and getting a rose petal (pale yellow, if you’re interested) and placing it on top of the stash. I don’t know if it was to hide the stash or as a marker, but it was very sweet to see.
I finished the pre-writing for Act 1 of Christmas at Whitehorse Farm, I brainstormed the story for this month’s 12 stories in 12 months, I did more project management revision, and made the necessary changes to the Scrivener file, and we had something to eat. The the poet took me for my dental appointment with the hygienist, who was very pleased with the improvement this time. She still won’t give me a toffee, though.
When we got back, I spent a little time on the client edit, but we’ve decided to try having tea a bit earlier, so my day finished at 7pm instead of 8pm.
On Tuesday, the poet was up with the lark and away across the hills to Manchester for a business meeting. I hit Snooze once on my alarm, then got up and fed and watered the birds. By the time I was supposed to hit my desk, I was still in my dressing gown. So I made my dirty cup of tea and watched Week 6 of the applied depth workshop on my tablet while I drank the tea. Excellent use of time and it ensured I wasn’t so easily distracted by shiny things on the internet, as I usually am at my desk.
I was delighted to see that the workshops I’d pledged for in the last Kickstarter were now live, so I had a quick glance through those. There are 2 of them, each with 2 start dates:
• 50 murder mystery prompts, starting 10 & 24 June
• 50 crime mystery prompts, also starting 10 & 24 June
We’d already received the workshop and books stretch rewards and I was starting to get a bit antsy, as yesterday was 10 June and I hadn’t seen anything yet. Of course, I needn’t have worried, and I did keep telling myself that these people definitely know what they’re dong regarding Kickstarters. So I hadn’t fired off any emails enquiring, and so avoided making myself look and feel a bit stupid.
In the past, live workshop videos have landed several hours later than expected for me, as I’m in the UK and, I think, 6 hours behind. So I’d actually scheduled this week’s workshop in for today, rather than yesterday. Now I had to do some jiggery pokery with my diary so I could watch the workshop videos yesterday and, therefore, give myself a bit more time to do this week’s assignment.
I’m starting the first workshop this week, and I’ll start the other workshop on 24 June. Both have weekly assignments, and I’m assuming the word-count for stories will start at 3,000 words, which is a lot for me but doable.
Looking ahead, there’s a study along time travel workshop currently planned for October, which will be live. But there’s also a classic time travel workshop I already have, plus an archive study along time travel workshop. I need to work backwards to schedule both of those in before the next live study along, as I’m sure we’ll be directed towards at least the classic workshop in the live workshop this year. If I’ve already seen both of them, that should hopefully save me some time in October when I’ll have assignments then too, if they go ahead. (If the live class doesn’t get enough in-person attendees, it won’t be viable to run.)
The next workshop in my writing with depth focus bundle is a classic workshop on research. I’ve not seen that one, yet, so I’ll have to schedule that in too. I have 7 classes included in my first writing with depth focus bundle, and another 7 included in my second writing with depth focus bundle. Lots of learning in my future and, hopefully, lots of writing too.
While I ummed and ahhed about doing the 50 prompts workshop yesterday or today, I made another dirty cuppa…and then I watched the first week of workshops. It wasn’t what I expected, but it still got me jotting down ideas, notes and prompts of my own. I would’ve dearly loved to have carried on with the classic mystery writing workshop, but I had work to do and not a lot of time in which to do it all. So reluctantly, I stepped away from the writing workshops and put my notes away to percolate.
A message came through from the Christmas cosy mystery workshop. Zoom was playing up last week, so she’s come up with a new link and we’re to use that in future. It means nothing to me and went right over my head, but I’m glad she seems to have fixed it. I’ll probably watch this week’s call once the recording is up.
For much of the rest of the day I faffed around a bit wondering what to do next – you know, off my great big massive list. In the end I gave up and started to watch the mystery writing classic workshop.
There have been all kinds of ZOOM issues lately.
ZOOM often has a “waiting room” where participants log in, but the presenter is still testing different facets/shares, etc. Once they are ready, they or the tech person clicks the name to allow them to “enter” the main ZOOM space for the class/webinar itself. But sometimes it doesn’t show up that anyone’s in the room. Or the presenter hasn’t been told that’s how it’s set up and/or doesn’t see where it flashes (it doesn’t always show up in the same place).
Of course, it’s been worse since the last “upgrade.”
urgh.
Your birds are hilarious.
A number of people complained that they were stuck in the waiting room and the course leader said she couldn’t see anyone in the waiting room. She had a few glitches last week. Perhaps it was a thing.
The birds are far too distracting…