Wednesday 5 November 2025: Bonfire Night!

I love Bonfire Night. It’s one of my favourite times of the year. I love the bonfires, the fireworks, the sparklers, the hot dogs, the jacket potatoes, the smell of gunpowder. I love it so much I’ve written and published 3 short stories for bonfire night, 2 of which came out as standalones only last month.

I think I ought to consider giving Stevie Beck a Horvale mystery novella around Bonfire Night too.  And retired ninja assassin Mavis Braithwaite would probably make a good adventure story too. Marcie Craig has Burn, which I tend to share at this time of year. But it’s not really to do with the time of the year.

So, where did I leave you? Ah, the weekend…

We didn’t do a deal at the weekend. 

Our main concern was keeping an eye on the puppy and trying to grab him every time he looked like he was about to miss a training mat and either plant him on a mat or dash outside with him to a patch of lawn. After we had our breakfast, I went and did the shopping while the poet was on dog duties. 

When I got back, we both put the shopping away and the poet made like it was a great adventure seeing what I’d bought for us this week. 

This week’s short story went live, so I nipped on and deleted last week’s short story. They’re only going to be up here for 7 days before vanishing again. There aren’t many planned for this year. I need to do something more organised next year, in line with the Patreon. I was just trialling it for now, and putting some content on the Patreon 4 weeks before any of the stories appear on here.

Throughout the day, we both took turns playing with the dogs in the garden or giving the spaniel spaniel-time away from the puppy.

Sunday was pretty much the same. The poet put 2 chicken joints and a gammon joint in the slow cooker and we had the chicken for tea. I was supposed to make a plum crumble but didn’t get around to it. 

On Monday, the poet was up early because he had to move the cars around on the drive before heading off for an early start at work. The puppy was a little shit all day. The spaniel was okay, if a bit needy. 

I didn’t do any work-work other than browse the WMG Workshops page on Teachable. Dean Smith had responded to my 12^th submission for the great novella challenge and told me to take my pick from the ‘lifetime’ courses, classes, lectures and workshops. I could choose any of them other than the ‘everything’ bundle. I already have the study along lectures on a lifetime membership. This time I chose the workshops lifetime membership, which includes all that have gone before as well as any new ones that come along in the future. 

There are some good workshops in there. Some I already have, but if I want to follow along any of the workshops live in the future, I just have to let him know and he’ll let me in.

I see a lot of study in my future, or in my near future at any rate. I’m hoping the assignments and the stuff I learn give me lots of fodder to keep me in short stories for at least the next year. 

We had another contractor coming, this time to look at the guttering that’s discharging onto the conservatory and causing rainwater to collect and come in. He was coming after 1pm, but at about 11am he called to see if they could come over now as they’d finished their previous job early. When they got here, the news was not great. They can fix the guttering, but it will be a very temporary repair. The house needs a complete new roof, including gutters, soffits and fascia boards. And that’s before they even get to look at the roof rafters and joists inside.

Oh dear…I have been warning them…

The newsletter was supposed to be done on Monday, but I didn’t get around to that either. It will be something I’ll have to squeeze in later this week. 

When the poet got home, he made us a broccoli quiche for our tea. I still hadn’t made the plum crumble…so we had mince pies for pudding. The mince pies and tarts have been in the shops for a few weeks but we don’t mind. We like them and don’t think mince pies should just be for Christmas. Just like pancakes aren’t just for Pancake Day.

On Tuesday, I finally made it to my desk to do something that at least resembled work. The spaniel was still sulking, but the puppy at least had stopped being such a little shit. I’m starting to read him a bit now, and by the time of writing this on Tuesday, we’d had our first day, so far, of both no accidents and no use of the training mats.

If he’s just woken up, he goes outside. If he’s just had something to eat, he goes outside. And if he’s just had a bit of a play, unless we’re already outside he goes outside. He also goes outside whenever spaniel asks to go outside. The puppy’s mostly going to the same area now, so we also know to pick him up when he’s sleepy so we can just drop him there and he seems to be getting the message. Yay!

Now all we need is for him to ‘stay’ while we’re preparing his food, which he is doing now, and wait until we say he can eat it. I’ve never done that with a dog before, but the spaniel has been trained to ‘wait’ until he’s told he can eat his dinner. So we’re trying to get the puppy to do the same. It will be a great discipline if we can pull it off. The puppy is at least sitting now while we put the spaniel’s dinner down first, but he’s still jumping up as we’re putting his own bowl down.

Hey, he’s not even 3 months old yet, or 12 weeks. He’s doing great.

He’s just a bit of a little shit when he wants to be, and those puppy teeth are sharp with a capital Ouch!

I made another set of graphics for another ‘perfect partners’ pair of flyers. This time for Bonfire Night. And I decided to use that for today’s illustration as well.

I had some playtime with spaniel. He was quite funny, as he’d been in a bit of a sulk all morning and when I opened the patio door to go and play with him he got half-way through his usual spinning celebration and bark before remembering he was supposed to be sulking. He quickly adjusted, hung his head in his poor-me pose, and skulked off on a sniffing mission around the garden. He couldn’t help it, though. As soon as I started to throw the ball, he started to chase it, and puppy joined in too. Or at least with the running part he did. 

Back at my desk again, I started today’s blog post. And then I stared at my calendar for a few minutes as I have to rejig it all again, I think.

I have my main physiotherapy appointment in a couple of weeks and I haven’t started the exercises the triage physio gave me yet. I must schedule those in, along with the other core- and leg-strengthening exercises. I also have to schedule in playtime with the dogs. And/or walk time when the pup’s a bit older. This on top of housework and garden work, which has already been lumped together as ‘house & garden’. 

All of that doesn’t leave much time for work, either my own writing work or client editing, and it looks like I’ll be having fewer slots available for those. 

I’m really glad that the frantic-ness of the great novella challenge is finished now. It was a terrific exercise, but I pretty much went from speed-writing the ghostwriting novels to speed-writing the novellas, with no other work in between. Yes, I had a year off, and yes, I eased myself back into work when it was time to come back. Now I’m looking forward to being able to spend time developing stories properly.

I’ve started by re-reading On Writing by Stephen King. I also have a few genre-specific books by Paul Tomlinson to either read again or start from  scratch. Other than Plot Basics, Character Creation and Writing a Series, his other books look in depth at writing mysteries:

• Modern Cosy Mystery: How to Write Cozy Investigations & Cosy Thrillers
• Mystery: How to Write Traditional & Cozy Whodunnits
• Crime Thriller: How to Write Detective, Noir, Caper & Heist, Gangster, & Police Procedural Thrillers
• Suspense Thriller: How to Write Chase, Spy, Legal, Medial, Psychological, Political & Techno Thrillers

I also have one of his other genre-specific titles, Romance: How to Write a Romantic Novel, but I won’t be reading that one this time.

Another series I have is Writing the Killer Thriller by Ron D. Voigts, one of which, Captivating Characters, is one of my favourites for creating characters. I’ve mentioned this series in the past, and now they’re all on my Kobo, my Google Play Books and my Apple Books as well:

• Great Beginnings
• Plotting the Murder
• Places, Clues and Guilt
• Getting it Right, Getting Paid

These books, coupled with writing workshops from WMG Publishing, will form the basis for my writing over the coming months.

But first, I had to schedule it all in…as well as keep the existing schedule for the client work. And that’s what I spent the rest of yesterday doing…