Thursday 4 September 2025: Down came the rain

Saturday was a working day for me, or a semi-working day. Because of all the IT shenanigans, I’d lost a lot of time in the week before and I only had 2 days to finish Novella #10 for the great novella challenge. So I allocated a few hours on Saturday to finish writing it, and an hour on Sunday to get it proof-read and submitted, although I’d been cycling back and proofreading it as I went along.

So far, so good.

The story I’d chosen for this novella was Fallen Angel, a pastiche on the afterlife in 3 instalments: An Angel Without Wings, An Angel in Purgatory, and It’s Hell Being an Angel. This was so I could also release it as 3 separate stories before stitching them all together again into a single volume.

The pastiche part was really difficult for me and required a lot of brain power. The afterlife less-so, once I’d got my first ‘world’ set up. But I’d already managed the first 2 of 3 parts for the first instalment. I’d started Part 3, the ending of that particular story, but I hadn’t finished it.

I was over the hump, though, and knew that if I just settled down I’d easily finish the whole thing. I only wanted 15,000 words all together, or 3 stories of 5,000 words.

Well, I stared at it for much of the day. Did more proofreading and tweaking. Changed a few things throughout, like names. And I kept staring at it, trying to sort out the ending of Story #1 in my head before applying fingers to keyboard. We didn’t have any internet, so no distractions there. And the poet used his ear buds to watch YouTube videos on his phone so he wouldn’t disturb me. When he wanted to watch the cricket on the telly, we swapped and I used my earphones. (I was working in the living room on my laptop.)

I took a break while we went and did the shopping, and then I was back to it, staring, tweaking, proofreading. My critical voice was getting much too far in the way, but I focused and by the end of the day, I was ready to move it all to Sunday and try again, but much more successfully. I had the story sorted in my head, I’d told my inner critic to do one, and I was itching to get back to it on Sunday morning.

And then, first thing Sunday morning, we had the worst news ever about a very good, close friend that completely threw the pair of us. I’m not going into detail because it’s not my story and it’s not fair on the friend’s family, who are naturally still struggling to process it all. It was sudden, though. it was completely unexpected. It was a total shock. And it derailed our entire day.

One of the first things I did was fire off an email to let Dean Smith know I was going to miss this month’s challenge. And while I realised it would be a miss, and I’d be technically failing, I did ask him if I could still keep him as my accountability and maybe send the story anyway in a few days.

We popped out to see 2 other couples, who were also devastated by the news, so the lads could have time together. And we nipped in to see the mother-in-law too.

The reply to my email didn’t come back until Monday morning. It was a holiday in the States at the weekend after all. But he was great. He said he was very sorry, and I was not to worry, not to put undue pressure on myself, that the challenge still stands, and I could send it in a week or so if I preferred.

So Monday morning dawned and I spent half the day faffing with tech and arguing the toss with our internet provider. I was determined to do something, though. So I started to brainstorm the next story for 12 stories in 12 months. It’s only 1,000 words this time, which should be easy enough once I know what I’m writing about.

When I was ready, I sat back down in front of Fallen Angel, but I just could not bring myself to write a pastiche on the afterlife now. In fact, I couldn’t be arsed to do a lot. So I fannied around doing admin and faffy stuff, feeling really bad that I might not finish Novella #10 after all when he’d given me a bit of a stay of execution.

I had a good think and decided I really, really didn’t want to write Fallen Angel. I had a lot of it done, but I just didn’t feel like finishing it. What else could I do?

Well, I’ve done a lot of prep work for The Beast Within. It’s a novel, but could I turn it into a novella for the challenge and maybe expand it into a complete novel later? It had worked for Catch the Rainbow.

I’d started prepping Catch the Rainbow back in the early 2000s but never got around to actually writing the thing and I ended up writing that in 3 parts too: Catch the Rainbow, Over the Rainbow, and End of the Rainbow. They stood alone as 3 separate stories but could also easily be stitched together into one. Maybe 3 Parts are easier to do that for than 4 Parts. But I finished it, apart from an extended epilogue. Could I do that for The Beast Within?

There was only one way to find out.

I needed 15,000 words by the end of the week, and by the time of writing this, I’d managed 9,388 words. That’s a good chunk. But I don’t think I can wrap the first instalment up in 15,000 words. I could take up to 30,000 words, if I can write enough before the end of the week. But that’s closer to half the story rather than a third of the story.

There is a way I can wrap up the first section of the story. For example, I could have Marcie Craig knowing who the killer is but not wishing to commit herself out loud until she has enough evidence. Which is the same as a first Act in a mystery story anyway.

So that’s what I’ll be working on today. And I feel much better resurrecting a Marcie Craig story than I do wrenching out a pastiche I really don’t have the heart to write at the moment.

September started on Monday of this week, and so did the rain. I was so happy to see it, but very jealous when the poet came back from work one day to say he’d driven through a cracking thunderstorm. Yesterday, I got my thunderstorm. Yay! It’s really cleared the air.

Since Monday, it’s hardly stopped raining. I don’t mind. We need it, we really do. And so do all the animals and birds in our garden. But yesterday, it proper banged it down. Biblical, it was. And there was a single solitary stupid wood pigeon just standing in it, lifting its wings to wash under its arms, only hunkering down when it was almost like hail. It got absolutely drenched. But at least it was happy. The pictures aren’t great, but they give the idea.

The poet’s new company car is being delivered today, and they’re collecting his old car too. So that ties us to the house for the day.