Although, technically, I had 3 weeks off over Christmas, for the first week I worked, as previously mentioned. That gave us 2 weeks for the actual holiday. However, we didn’t get a full day off until Sunday just gone. We were either running around for hospital appointments, or vet appointments, or other appointments, or shopping or cooking or visiting or meeting up with the family to go for a walk.
Yes, folks, over the entire 3 weeks, we had 1 day off. On Christmas Day we were 5. On Boxing Day we went for a walk with the kids and we were 5 again for tea. And the Sunday before last, we went to Cleethorpes for the day.
One writing related job I did over the period (I can’t really call it a holiday) was the Happy New Year post. Yup, that was the only one I was able to find time to do. Oh, and the December wrap-up post. Monday’s publication day post was done on Monday. And yesterday’s month ahead post was done yesterday.
To go into detail about how the weeks panned out would take for ever, so I’m going to start afresh from this week.
Monday
The week began with a trip to the hospital for the first of this week’s 3 visits to dermatology. When we got back, we had to go straight out again nearly for one appointment in the morning and then another appointment in the afternoon.
In between, I rattled off Monday’s publication day blog post and I carried on with workload planning I’d started in drips and drabs while we were ‘off’.
I updated my TickTick by marking task parents as done. It’s a bit off when I do that because instead of them appearing as done on the relevant day on the calendar, they appear as done on the day I mark them as done.
I also had a play with a new project tool I’m trying out that’s a sort of a cross between a Trello board and a Gantt chart. It works better as an app on the mobile phone or on a tablet, but I found out there are things I can’t do on the android that the iOS users can do. Just to re-order groups of tasks, I have to use the web version, which I hate as that’s cloud based. I haven’t found out yet if it works offline, but if it doesn’t, then it won’t be in my own personal tool box for very long.
That doesn’t look a lot, but 3 errands in once day, all with 2 hours allocated to them? That’s a big chunk of time out of an 8-hour day.
Tuesday
Tuesday was pretty much back to usual pre-hospital appointments. The day started with the dogs first keeping me awake for half the night, then getting me up to let them out, then getting me up to feed them. The poet can sleep soundly through an earthquake, I reckon, but I didn’t want to wake him unnecessarily. No point us both being awake for half the night. I was in a very bad mood by the time he went to work, though. Lack of sleep makes me very grumpy.
I had my quiet hour and my dirty cuppa hour at the same time because that’s when the puppy catches up on the sleep he’s missed out on during the night…Then I got dressed and went about my usual household chores. I put a washload through, hung a washload up, put the first washload through the tumble dryer, and put another washload through. I emptied the dishwasher, fed the birds, cleaned up after the dogs – again. The poet had at least done that once yesterday, before going to work. But, well, dogs can be dogs…
Most people have probably seen those automatic ball-throwing machines where a dog drops its ball in a hole, waits a few seconds and the machine fires it across the room or garden. Well, we have an automatic ball machine, but it’s also known as a 4-month-old puppy. What he does is grab the spaniel’s favourite ball and then plays ‘chase me’ around the garden for the next 3 days. It’s so funny watching Hawley chase after Alfie after his ball, but they love it so much they don’t need any help now.
Either the puppy stalks the ball off the spaniel and then runs with it, or the spaniel actually gives the ball to the puppy and then starts to chase him. At first, we had to try and throw the ball so Alfie could catch and run with it. But now it activates itself and I don’t have to do a thing. Just keep an eye on them to make sure the game doesn’t get too rough. That saves so much time.
House and garden out the way, I finally made it to my desk. But before I could do 2 of Tuesday’s jobs (this week’s diary and yesterday’s blog post, both carried over from Monday already), I had to finish the planning task for the month. I’d done a lot of it, but I had new stuff to add in. It took me the best part of the day and I worked solid at it.
Aside from scheduling in the Patreon and WMG Publishing workshop time slots, I also had to find at least one open call for submissions I might be able to write a short story in time for. Then, and only then, I was able to finalise the plan for the month and, hence, the plan for this week’s diary.
I’m glad I’ve been able to build in daily study time. Not only is this good for the soul, it also often results in some half-decent short fiction that can go into the machine. With that done, I was able to write the month ahead blog post as well as update this week’s diary. Which I did next.
And then I started today’s blog post in a bid to get it scheduled on time for a change.
I published the next book on the list. A Day at the Races appeared in Monday’s bookazine, Words Worth Reading: Issue SIX, and it’s the next story to feature Marcie Craig. It will be out as a standalone on Monday 19 January.
I made my first entries into the new 40-project spreadsheet for the new year and, in the process, learning how to insert a 3D pie chart showing my total wordcount percentage for the month.
I didn’t get everything on the list done, but it was a busy, steady day and a good start to the working year.
This post also appears on Patreon.
Great start to your week. And the dogs are so funny!
It’s hilarious watching them at times. Ruining the lawn, of course, but at least they’re happy.