After a lovely break in Stratford last week, yesterday was back to normal, apart from having grand-doggy #1 with us to get us up on time. We were both exhausted and didn’t want to get up. But the poet had meetings to attend and I still had a raving long list of work to plough through. Plus, the dog wanted out.
I fed the dog, fed the birds, and made us both a drink. The poet took a black coffee with him while I had my regular dirty cup of tea. And when I was dressed, I was at my desk, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and ready to get to work.
Not.
Well, I was at my desk, but not the rest of it.
First job of the day was this week’s diary. This used to be a Friday job, but I have so many other admin jobs to do on a Friday, I’m starting to spread the love a little. I checked I could meet this week’s schedule, I made a couple of things shorter by an hour so I could bring over a couple of things I didn’t finish last week, and I transferred it all to the tangible diary for this week.
The second job of the day was fleshing out Act 1 of Christmas at Whitehorse Farm and transferring the notes to the Scrivener file. Hopefully these will prompt me to get going on Act 1 today.
The third job of the day was yesterday’s blog post. I should have done it at the weekend, really, but we didn’t get a lot of time. I also hadn’t moved all of the photographs to the desktop, so before I posted it, I had to grab at least one of the pictures from last week and trim it to fit. Then I posted it all.
I uploaded the Stratford pictures to Facebook, Instagram and BlueSky, and by then it was time for my midday breakfast, which is now only 30 minutes instead of 60 minutes while I do some catching up. When I don’t have client edits in, this will probably go back to a leisurely 60 minutes.
It was all going so well, and then it went downhill a bit.
I started on the next job, which was the cover for the next bookazine, and that took me the best part of the hour allocated as I had to collect the new cover images and artwork for Catch the Rainbow. I also had to create a graphic for ‘new serial starts today’, and that took me a few goes before I found one that looked right. The Rainbow book covers are staying on Canva for now because I don’t know how to change the shape of the frame in Affinity. As soon as I find out, if it’s possible, then those will all be moved across.
So far, so good…
But then I ended up going down another book cover rabbit hole because I didn’t have the Affinity cover yet for Christmas at Whitehorse Farm, which is Novella #9 for the great novella challenge. I’ve started this story a few times and ended up writing something a bit quicker. But as I’ve been able to start work on it from the beginning of the month this time and I still have the rest of the month in front of me for it, I’m bang on time with it as far as the schedule is concerned. But I do like the cover in place and ready to go.
It wasn’t easy just replicating the Canva cover in Affinity, though, as again I had to go and collect the artwork first. I did get it as close as I could, and then I uploaded it again to Canva for the great novella challenge graphic.
And before I knew it, poof! There was the day gone again. And there was a load of work being carried forward again too.
We had my favourite for tea, fried egg, chips (fries) and baked beans. The poet even had a go at making chips out of a sweet potato we’d bought. (It was a Very Big sweet potato.) The chips were scrummy and easily as nice as the pre-packed frozen ones we buy. Better, in fact, because his had less oil on them. For pudding we had meringue nests with 0% Fage, raspberries, blueberries, and a drizzle of runny honey.
After tea, we took the dog for a walk around the block, as our closest reservoir closes the gates at 6pm. And we watched The Gilded Age and Person of Interest. We’re up to date with the first one, but we’re binge-watching Series 1 of the second one.
The magic bakery
A few years ago I stumbled across a book called The Magic Bakery by Dean Wesley Smith. Originally written in 2017, this book turned on a lightbulb inside my head and enabled me to see copyright in a whole different glow.
One of the first things I did, after reading this book, was start my own magic bakery. And in one 12-month period, I published around 56 books: short stories; collections; novellas; novels; and non-fiction books. Fifty-six of ‘em. I’ve added to them since, but those books now provide me with a steady trickle of income. Passive income.
Well, the magic bakery is back, but this time Smith is updating it, chapter by chapter, first on his website, then in a class, and then in a new and updated book. Here’s chapter eleven.
I’ll carry on linking to the chapters, as they appear, so that you guys have some understanding of what I’m banging on about when I persist in talking about my magic bakery. And I’ll repeat this bit of blurb every time for first-time readers.
For those of you who’d rather read them as Smith posts them himself, rather than when I get around to it, you can go straight to his website here.
It’s so frustrating how files don’t tranlate properly between programs. Urgh. And covers always take longer than one would like.
There are more colours in Affinity, and much easier to colour match with the eye dropper thingy. I can also just create the cover in Canva, then download the jpg or png and upload it into Affinity, but it’s a flat, uneditable image. I copied the cover sizes across, so the dimensions are good. And I’ve seen that I can change the shape of the frame now, but it involves grabbing corners and dragging them around, so I’ll play with that when I have more time.