Tuesday 25 November 2025: All quiet in the mad house

The mad house seems to be settling down a bit now, after a few fraught weeks. Then it will all start up again as soon as my light therapy treatments start on 1 December…Ah well, at least we’re in a more sane place now than we have been of late. Puppy has really settled in well and spaniel and he are now quite good buddies. We have a good routine that both are following. All is well in the world.

For now.

Monday began at 7:30am when the puppy wanted out. An hour later, he was ready for his breakfast, and so was spaniel as he’s now in the same routine as the pup. The poet and I both had a dirty cup of tea. That’s tea with milk for him and tea with milk and sugar for me, while we’re both in our fasting window on the 16:8. 

I’ve given up aspartame in a bid to find out what might be causing my rashes and am now back on the sugar. I’ve also lost about 3lb in the past week and a half. Another thing I’ve tried cutting out is bananas. On Friday I was a bit itchy, but I’d only had a banana yoghurt and I wasn’t sure how much banana is actually in it. On Sunday I had a whole banana. And on Sunday evening I broke out in a violent rash on my trunk. Oh, if it’s only as simple as an allergy to bananas…

I had a quiet hour with the pup asleep on my lap and the spaniel asleep on a chair, and I read a few more chapters of my book. Then I went into housework routine. I emptied the dishwasher, emptied the bins, fed the animals, fed the birds, did the dog poo patrol, played with the dogs. Then I made us both another dirty cuppa and did some admin work. 

I responded to some emails, I raised an invoice and sent it off, I did the weekly backup I didn’t get around to doing on Friday, I did some social media rounds, and I finished and published yesterday’s blog post. Finally, I started today’s blog post. 

By then it was time for our midday breakfast.

After breakfast, I cracked on with that editing job, going through to check the author’s amendments. I went through it a couple of times to check for consistency and to check I’d used the right colour for my notes to the designer and the proofreader. Then I accepted everything and sent it off. This was a really lovely job, in every sense. It was a nice read and a straightforward edit, and without much resistance from the author.

That meant I’d finished the job early, though, and I had a whole 2-hour segment yawning before me. I had 2 choices: I could start today’s job yesterday, or I could do some short story planning for the new year. (We have 3 weeks off for Christmas this year, so I don’t have as much time in December as I usually do.) 

Then I remembered that my first short story deadline was Monday 1 December, it was only a micro-story, and I already had a 1^st draft, which I’d done for a Deadlines for Writers 12 stories in 12 months challenge last year. So that is what I worked on.

I did some jiggery pokery first with the schedule on TickTick, this time adding in the ‘quiet hour’ first thing in the morning when I’m able to read while the dogs sleep. I also scheduled in a couple of slots for my tax return. Then I copied the micro short story down from 12 stories in 12 months to stories in progress in Scrivener, and revised it. 

When I was happy with the story, I moved it this time, from stories in progress to micro stories. Then I exported it to LibreOffice Writer and updated my 36-project spreadsheet. By now it was time for our 3pm dinner. (Doesn’t time fly when you’re doing stuff?) After we’d eaten, the dogs wanted out again for a bit of a play. And then I went back to the short story submissions calendar to see if there’s anything more I fancy having a go at next year.

If I can do one short story a month and get it sent out somewhere I’ll be happy. I have a lot of work to do on the novellas to get most of those publish-worthy. I still may be doing 12 stories in 12 months too, as that’s a good discipline so long as I remember not to leave my stories up there for too long.

In yesterday’s session, I identified one more call for submission for 2025 and I added 9 more to next year, giving me 14 stories to hopefully write and submit in 2026. With the 12 stories in 12 months too, that gives me 26 projects for next year, and my project spreadsheet only has room for 36. So that’s another 10 something or other, probably workshop assignments. All of that should give me enough fodder for Words Worth Reading too, which I hope to make a bit fatter next year, but that means at least one complete novel across all issues. 

I created the December page for the 36 projects spreadsheet for this year. Once I’ve automated all the totals, I’ll replicate it for next year. 

I did quite a lot of work in the end, and saw some good progress. But I had to pack up because I had a pudding to make that should last for the next 3 days at least. Today I also start this month’s entry for 12 stories in 12 months, the last one for this year. Thankfully, it only needs 300 words, so if I can make it fit, the micro fiction contest I’m working on this week will hopefully come around again next year and this one will be earmarked for that.

I also have the new edit to start.