It was Shrove Tuesday yesterday, and that makes it Ash Wednesday today. I wrote a short story a long time ago called Ash Wednesday. It was broadcast on BBC Radio Devon and then later, much later, I published it as a standalone. I struggled to find a picture for the cover then too. So please enjoy this Ash tree on this Ash Wednesday.
Yesterday was a bad day. I couldn’t get going at all and was a bit out of sorts for much of the day. I’d had a disturbed night. Not the dogs, It ended up with me waking them up and making them go out just so I could do some chair pilates while I waited. My sciatica was in full throttle and it had nudged me awake and then kept me awake.
Once stretched and pain-free again, I went back to bed. But would those dogs let me go back to sleep? Not a chance. I’d woken them up and forced them to go outside in the middle of the night, so they were going to make damned sure they got their own back.
For the rest of the day.
The poet was up and off early. He did give them their breakfast before he went, hoping they might settle down again with full bellies. But no. I didn’t even manage another 10 minutes. So I was in a right grump with them (the dogs!) and I got up.
The day didn’t get any better. As I say, I couldn’t settle to anything. I did a couple of easy jobs, like share yesterday’s blog post to Instagram and import it to Medium. I sat through Week 2 of my depth in action workshop and made a note of the assignment, but I didn’t attempt the assignment.
One of the client authors had sent their proofreading report back and that had landed the night before, so I had a quick look at that and fired back a quick reply to (a) acknowledge safe receipt, and (b) address a couple of his queries.
I messed around with my Plottr, because when I opened it, all the files on my menu were unavailable. I had a mild moment of panic but remembered Plottr saves and backs up to my hard drive now. So off I pootled to look at last year’s Plottr directory, and there they all were! Phew! I copied the directory over to this year, then noticed I’d already done that. All I had to do was go into the current fiction folder and there was the Plottr folder. With everything intact.
I opened them all up, just to put them into my history and to ensure they were all in my dashboard again. Then I jiggled between 2 of them to decide which story I could write for this month’s 12 stories in 12 months.
I’d kind of pegged Marcie Craig for this one, but I settled on a Stevie Beck story instead as I’d fleshed out the outline a lot more in Plottr. The wordcount for this one is 1,250 words, which is the maximum length for one of my flash fiction stories. I want both Marcie Craig and Stevie Beck stories to be long enough for the Wordsworth shorts, though. But if I can get a draft of it down in 1,250 words for 12 stories, I can still add more scenes and deepen the story if I want to at a later date.
And I started a short story, a new short story, Stevie Beck and the Craft of Murder. And I wrote a whopping 81 words.
Plottr isn’t AI, it’s a plotting tool. They do give you templates to start your plotting off if you want, but I created my own basic 7-point story outline and I use it over and over again for short stories, regardless of length. There are little reminders for each point to help with fleshing it out. I could just write it directly into Scrivener, but I like the linear layout of Plottr and I can import it into Scrivener when it’s done.
Sometimes, when I feel like a challenge, I’ll use one of the templates and see if I can come up with a short story for that. I already have a Save the Cat template for novels, but I want to create a cosy mystery template too. I also have an old version of my power board/Nobo board/power spreadsheet on there. I had a play with using Plottr before settling on the Nobo board and the spreadsheet. But it’s nice to look at and addresses that linear, touchy-feely, bright and colourful sensory desire I seem to possess.
I looked at the client proofreading job and didn’t feel like starting it. The dogs were equally big and little shits between them all day, still getting their own back, and I just couldn’t stay focused on one thing long enough to get it done. So I closed down and took my book into the living room where, lo and behold! they both curled up on their favourite seats and went straight to sleep.
By the time the poet got home, they were snoring their heads off and he said I must have been imagining it. He was joking. He knows what they can be like throughout the day once they’ve got one on them.
Let’s hope today is better…
This post appears on Words Worth Writing, Medium and Patreon.
Some days just get lost. Hope today is better!