Wednesday 3 September 2025: Organised chaos

Thursday and Friday were a bit chaotic.

Thursday

Thursday began with my dirty cuppa and with me doing what I could on the limited mobile signal on the mobile phone, which usually connects via the internet. Once at my desk, I started work on Assignment 3 for the WMG workshop on creating your own short story markets. It was for a short story this time, a 3,000-7,000-word short story. No theme, no prompts, just a short story.

I anticipated this assignment the week before when I had a little bit more time. I knew I’d be busy last week, but I didn’t realise at the time how busy I would be, chasing up incompetent companies, being lied to over and over again, and being ignored. So I thanked my former self for making things a little bit easier for my future self.

I’d started with 1,500 words, though, and I needed it to be double that. So I rewrote it, put back a lot of stuff I’d deleted to make it fit another short story requirement, then stitched it all together so it was hopefully seamless. It did take me most of the day, in between other things. But I did have a relatively finished piece by the time I closed the office. And I left it to cool overnight.

At a few minutes to eleven, I put big girl clothes on and went out to our Master’s House in the village. Originally built in the 1600s, it was the first school in the village. And when it became too small, a second building was built behind it and the schoolmaster moved into the old building and made it his home. It all stopped being a school a long time ago and the doctors are the current occupants of the old school building, the Old School House. But the Master’s House is a community-run asset managed by trustees.

Now, this building was being offered as somewhere for me to squat for as long as the internet is broken. But in the upstairs room, there is so much memorabilia from the villagers about the village I can see me having a right old nose. It all looks so interesting, and there are old photographs on display too. But the main thing is they have wi-fi, which is what I was currently lacking in the old home.

After meeting a few other villagers for the first time (we’re *only* in our 4^th year here, just 🙄), I headed home in time for my midday breakfast before getting back to work on the assignment.

When I’d done all I was likely to on the story, I had my afternoon dinner and moved onto Novella #10 for the great novella challenge. This was initially going to be the first Lady Mathilda novella, but I want that to be at least 24,000 words long, if not 30,000 words long, and I already knew I wouldn’t have time to write that many half-decent words between then and Sunday. 

I could, however, probably manage 15,000 words. So I turned instead to the 3-Act Fallen Angel, which will be a trilogy of short 5,000-words stories that will work as a single story as well, featuring the same main character and addressing both her character arc and her full storyline. So I moved that up in the pecking order, and moved Lady Mathilda back down again. One day Her Ladyship will get her own series, just not yet.

I wrote last Friday’s blog post and squeezed some signal out of the mobile hotspot so I could schedule it. While I was online, I shared Diane’s Gig List’s post. 

And that was it for Thursday. The poet had been away all week and was coming home, so I packed up for the day.

Friday

Friday started with another dirty cuppa and more of what I could do via the mobile phone. First job of the day, though, was having a final polish of that assignment and getting it ready to email.

I had more faffing with tech and incompetents, who first of all went into the exact same repetitive script-reading loop. The poet received a test message from them to say they were aware we still had a problem but they were working on it, and our next-door neighbour had the exact same message. 

I took a walk around to where they needed to be working on it, and took photographs (time- and date-stamped) of them NOT working on it. They weren’t even there. But they had drawn a big white X on the ground where I think is the exact location of the underground problem. It’s literally feet from the telegraph pole and it’s not on the public road. So why they think they need traffic control is beyond me. No doubt just another excuse.

This isn’t a fault that can be fixed by a flick of the switch in some control room. It’s not a case of a plug falling, or being pulled, out of a socket in the exchange cabinet. It’s a hands-on in-your-face feet-on-ground DIG at a specific place. And I think it must have slipped their minds that we can actually see them NOT there. 🙂‍↔️

Back at my desk, and two more very long phone calls later, I had to shift work along a week that hadn’t been done last week and had had a knock-on effect on the following weeks too. Fortunately, I had a week with no work scheduled in towards the end of September, only the regular stuff, so I moved this week’s scheduled tasks to then rather than move all of it along a week. It’s all the same job so much easier to do that way. Then I brought work along to this week’s now-empty time slots that I should have done last week. Very complicated, but I know what I mean.

I wrote yesterday’s blog post, which was the monthly round-up and added that to the jobs to do when I was online. 

Right after midday breakfast, I went to the hairdresser to get new hair, and after there I went to the Master’s House for my first online session. I had a chat with the builders who were putting a new roof on an extension at the back, who were on their dinner break. Then I went and  had an hour on my own in the Master’s House online.

The first job I did was create the Hello, September! and September wrap-up! graphics in Canva, for which I needed to be online. The second job I did was to schedule yesterday’s blog post. The third job on my list was to submit Assignment 3. I was dead chuffed to be sending this off early, but with Novella #10 also due on Sunday, that’s what I needed to reserve my weekend for as it was the longer job. While I was online, I did a quick blog surf and made my replies or added comments. Then I packed up.

The hairdresser called while I was still in the Master’s House to let me know I’d left my shampoo behind. No, we don’t have to provide our own shampoo, but as I seem to be allergic to almost every other skin or hair product in the land, it’s best I at least take a shampoo that doesn’t aggravate my scalp too much. It was good that she called while I was still out. I didn’t have to make the entire walk again as they’re almost next door to each other, with just a pub in between.

When I got home it was almost time for afternoon dinner. So I rattled off today’s blog post first. After dinner, I was on with Novella #10, which was followed by my weekly backup. I saved the blog post for when I’m next online.