By the end of play on Wednesday, my eyelids were drooping again and I felt as though I was dropping off again. I’ve noticed just lately if I spend too much time staring at a screen without a break, I start to nod off. This has usually only been while using hand held devices. But now it seems it’s happening at my desk too, after staring at the desktop monitor all day. Maybe I need to take more breaks…or screen breaks at least.
I moved from the office to the living room and finished reading my book while the poet did some mixing desk stuff on his computer. He made us a prawn linguine for tea, but we had to throw the trifle I’d made away as the topping had turned yellow. We usually get 3 teas out of a full trifle and we only managed 2 this time. I didn’t know what had happened but knew the topping was a bit sloppy when I made it.
On Thursday I was up on time, but I completely lost track of the days. I didn’t know if it was Wednesday or Thursday. I worked it out in the end, but it took me a good few minutes. I had my dirty cuppa and wrote my morning page, another 207 words.
I’m not sure yet where this morning writing is going. It’s not morning pages free-writing per se, as I can’t abide writing exercises for writing exercise sake. What I write needs to have a purpose, a reason. I’ve been doing this for so long now, more than 40 years, the only writing exercise I need is bum on seat, fingers on keyboard. I’m giving it a dry run this week, just while I get into the habit. But from Monday, I’m going to be using the writing towards something.
If I’m working on a project, I’ll use it for that. If I’m not working on a project, I might write a flash fiction piece. Or I might write a story over 5 or 7 or 10 days. For now, I’m just exercising the handwriting muscle and getting the process fixed into my schedule.
Because I finished a book the night before, I didn’t go straight into a new book for my reading hour. Instead, I made some extensive notes on the Kobo in case it’s a few weeks before I write the review. I decided I’d try and write it yesterday, but I had a lot of other stuff to do first, before I got to the book review writing page in my Scrivener.
Next job from my armchair was to find some books of writing prompts on either the Kobo or the PaperWhite. I found a few that were on both, but of course the one that I really wanted was only on the PaperWhite. I made a mental note to go and get the epub file as soon as I was at my desk and sideload it to the Kobo…IF I had the epub file, that was.
Also during the reading hour, I researched and chose the next book to read. I’ve been reading a lot of tartan noir just lately, apart from one humorous book (book review on Monday), and I decided to try and go a bit lighter. I found the book I wanted, but it wasn’t on my Kobo. Nor was it on Google Play. Which meant either I hadn’t converted it to epub when it came in or I had and I hadn’t uploaded it.
Making another mental note to check once I was at my desk, I put the first of 4 wash loads through and I took the dog for his walk. A shorter walk this time as I had a lot to get through and was already running a bit late trying to find the next book to read.
Back home, I put one of the wash loads through the tumble dryer and went in search of the elusive novel for review. I could see when I was ‘invited’ to review the book, but all other books on my shelf had a download date. Yup. I’d forgotten to download it. I must have checked in January because, apparently, I bought a copy from Amazon. And it had to be from Amazon as it’s in Amazon Select or Unlimited or Prime or whatever they’re calling it these days. And in January I hadn’t converted it to epub, because books bought from Amazon in January couldn’t be converted.
So I only have the book on my Kindle. But I do want to read the series and I like to start a series with Book 1. So I just had to suck it up. I updated my book review cards on Trello and made the currently reading graphic above.
Then I went in search of the writing prompts book on my desktop, and was relieved to find that this one at least was there and already converted. I sideloaded it to my Kobo and got back to household chores. I was a bit behind on these this week, hence the mad washing day yesterday.
I folded a couple of loads of dry washing from the clothes horse and put it all in the bedroom, then hung up the first of the wash loads I couldn’t put through the dryer. Then I started today’s blog post. I emptied the tumble dryer and put another load through, I hung up another load from the washing machine, and I folded the stuff from the dryer, adding it to the piles in the bedroom.
In between I had to play with the dog in the garden a few times, and when the poet got home he had to too. I thought about starting the next job on the list, which was editing, but decided to write up the next book review instead and make the graphic.
Once that was done I shared it where I couldn’t schedule it and I scheduled it where I could.
Meanwhile, another book came back from the client edit to be proof-read and consolidated. I replied to her, saved the file, and had a quick look to see if there was anything major. (There wasn’t.)
By now it was pitch dark and past my ‘home time’. So I called it a day and closed everything down.
Today I’d like to catch up on that editing and the dates work. We don’t plan to go anywhere far at the weekend, because it’s Mother’s Day in the UK on Sunday.
Whatever you’re up to, have a good one!
This post appears on Words Worth Writing, Medium and Patreon.
Busy time of it. It’s always the little fiddly details that throw things off, I find.
Have a great weekend!