We had a really, really good start to the day yesterday. The dog got us up before the alarm went off again. Three times. First he wanted out. Then he wanted breakfast. I got up and made him some breakfast, but he didn’t eat it all and went back to bed. Typical! Then he wanted to get up for the day. So we got up and he finished the rest of his breakfast.
I went straight into my reading hour, which now includes surfing social media. If I have something I’m reading that I’m itching to crack on with, the SM gets a lot less time. If the book is something that’s dragging, then I can tell when I lose track on SM. I allowed myself 30 minutes, then stopped and picked up the book. But I ended up skipping most of it to the end and then just awarding it a single star without comment.
The book is supposed to tell us all about book marketing, building a platform, making the most of SM. But I knew most of it already (don’t we usually?), I just haven’t put much of it into practice. Plus, a lot of the author’s advice consisted of following links to his website and blog and FB group, etc. So I gave it the whole star, just to stop Amazon nagging me to leave a review, and deleted it everywhere so I don’t ever have to read it ever again.
Next was the housework hour. I emptied the dishwasher and would have put some washing through, but the poet was working from home and he’d beaten me to it. Instead, I made a fruit crumble for our tea for the next 3 nights, or our puddings. I don’t know why I don’t rustle up a fruit crumble more often, it’s such a quick make. The bit that takes the longest time is preparing the fruit if it’s fresh, and this time we had fresh cooking apples and frozen blackberries, picked from the garden last year.
The blackberries are really, really tart. They were very early last year and there were loads of them, so maybe they didn’t have time to set properly and build up their sweetness. But I lightly stewed them in a tablespoon of sugar this time, placed them on top of the stewed apples, and sprinkled another tablespoon of sugar over them. I’m hoping that does the trick because I don’t really like fruit that’s too sharp. (Did I mention I’m a finick?)
I popped it in the oven, then came into the office and finalised yesterday’s blog post. I thought I’d done it the day before, but I hadn’t. So I topped and tailed it, chose the image, and posted it everywhere. By the time I’d done that, the pudding was cooked. I left it to cool so we could have it with Greek yoghurt.
Next was my publishing hour, and this time it was Book 5 of the Wordsworth Shorts, Happy Christmas, Santa. Because these stories are already written and because I’d already designed the covers, these stories are taking just about an hour to publish everywhere, on D2D, on Google Play, on Kobo, and on Kindle. The checklist makes everything so much easier and quicker. The only thing I forgot to do yesterday was insert all the D2D-specific material after I’d saved the generic epub file.
That’s the first 5 stories republished, and they’ll be released on 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 May.
I went into D2D to see if the originals had fully delisted from everywhere. OverDrive was the last one, and I’m distributing to there via Kobo now. But yes, they’d all delisted everywhere, so I was able to just delete the books from D2D. And because I have the new files all saved in a new directory, I was able to drill down into my computer files and delete all the older versions there too.
While I was doing that, an email came in from our conveyancing solicitor. He was finally satisfied that I’m not laundering money! Yay! Now we just have to demonstrate that the poet isn’t either and we’re good to go. As evidence of the poet’s share of the funds is more accessible, it shouldn’t take too long, and he said he’d do it yesterday afternoon.
But this is such good news. All it needed was for the solicitor to not be convinced and that was our house move and any other house purchase just now completely scuppered. I’ve been dying to start making proper plans, for the garden, for the decor, etc, but I’ve held back just in case it didn’t go through. Of course, it still may not go through. It ain’t truly guaranteed until contracts have been signed. But it’s a massive step forward and I can give myself a bit of leeway with my imagination again.
We had our midday breakfast and took the dog for a walk. When we got back I made a start in the garden and emptied 2 potato tubs of compost onto one of the borders. We’re taking all the big containers with us as some of them are very nice and they all cost money. I wanted to empty a tub a day, starting from yesterday (once we sort of had the go ahead from the solicitor), and I emptied 2. The other potato tub has potatoes growing in it so we’ll see how that one goes before deciding whether to empty it or just take it with us.
While we were out there (it was still within the dog-walk hour), we noticed one of the sweet peas I planted over a year ago is struggling up the bamboo canes in one of the smaller pots. The pot needs weeding, but we might be able to save that one as well.
Then it was back at my desk and starting today’s blog post, and then it was back to the editing…I almost got to the end, leaving just 9 pages to do first thing today. Nine pages of bibliography. But I didn’t finish the blog post until this morning.
While I worked, the poet sorted out that paperwork the solicitor asked for and sent it off. He sent everything he was asked for and it wouldn’t surprise me if this house move suddenly gets a spurt on, after all this waiting for news.
Today, then, I should be getting that editing job off my desk and back to the author, which means I can send the invoice off as well. I think some of the other editors invoice sooner than I do, but if I’ve already been paid for a job it kind of removes the incentive to do the job, and I know this client is good for paying anyway. Excellent, in fact. So I send the invoice when I know I’ve done at least the main part of the work.
I have another book to republish, Careful What You Wish For. I might make a start the 40 Ideas for April writing prompts premium story. But I also have the dog to walk and shopping to do, which the poet might do if I’m still working.
Whatever you’re up to this weekend, I hope it’s a good one! We’ll be making a start on our next big adventure, now we know it’s more likely to be happening.
This post appears on Words Worth Writing, Medium and Patreon.
