Friday 19 September 2025: Skipped a day

So I got out of sync and missed a day, but thought it was fine. I had plenty of time to climb back on board before Friday…and then I ran out of time on Thursday too. And now I can’t remember what I did in what order on Wednesday or Thursday…

Rather than try and guess and work it out from my diary, which I didn’t keep this week either, I’ll just do an overview of the week.

I’ve been working on the next edition of Words Worth Reading. This entails gathering all of the assets together, and that also entails making the cover.

This is where spreadsheets come to my aid. As I write a story, it moves across the Nobo power board until it’s finished, and then it jumps from the Nobo board onto the spreadsheet. But, and here’s the thing, as soon as I have a title for a story I’m writing, it also goes onto a publication schedule and I try and time it so the stories are coming out at the right time of the year.

I also have the bookazine on this spreadsheet, with the list of (usually) 6 items that go in there. Four short stories, one complete novella, and a serialised novel. In most cases, the complete novella is the basis of the artwork for the cover. When a new serialisation is starting, then that book forms the basis of the artwork for the cover. This time, for Issue Five, the complete novella forms the artwork.

So the cover was done. The stories were all written. I just had to gather it all together and read through it all to (a) give them another polish, and (b) format them all for consistency, etc, as I mentioned earlier in the week.

I also have to write up a welcome letter, the credits, and the coming next time. And, of course, I have my standard front and end matter that’s kept up to date as I go along, the title page, the copyright page, the catch up with Diane page, the about the author page, and the also by page.

And all of this is in the Scrivener file in the order it appears in the bookazine. All I had to do was go through and do the (a) and (b) above and the 3 new regular pages. The coming next time is easy because they’re already on the power spreadsheet. The front and end matter is easy because I only have to add in the latest publications to the also by page. But the welcome page and the credits page take a bit longer as I have to go and collect the latest information for that.

The only other extra job is the intro at the top of each story, the story behind the story. That takes a bit of creative time and energy too. And memory. But I do that as I work on each story.

This week so far, I’ve done all of the above, apart from the novella and the serialisation. I have those to do today. I have to write an intro for the novella, but I can copy the intro for the novel over from the last time and just tweak that a bit. Even the coming next time is already done.

But…the novella and the novel are, of course, the 2 biggest files. The novella currently sits at around 15,000 words. The novel extract is about the same. So that’s 30,000 words of reading I still have to do. Today.

I’ve also published a book this week, written 3 blog posts (4 including this one), and we’ve had the dog. A new editing job came in from the editing client. I have to get back to their work very soon, but it won’t be this week.

Or next week, as I have Book #11 to write for the great novella challenge and I don’t even know what that book is going to be yet. I don’t know whether to carry on with the pastiche I started and abandoned last month, get going on the Lady Mathilda series, write a new Stevie Beck story, or have a look at Part 2 for The Beast Within.

Also next week I have a dental appointment (2 in one go – check up and hygienist), a hospital appointment (light treatment education for dermatology), and a funeral. That’s at least 3 half days, and the funeral may be longer.

I may be working at the weekend…

In other news, I finally took the plaster (Band Aid) off the cut finger. When I did this before, the cut was still open and weepy and I had to keep it clean and protected. The cut has now, happily, closed up and is healing.

Oh yes, and I had tech issues this week. I had trouble with every browser I used. I had trouble with the internet signal and resorted to using my phone as a hotspot for some of the time. I had to do some housekeeping on the desktop as it was running sluggish and slow. Share attachments weren’t showing on FB posts, again, so I had to report that, again. And I had an appointment with a new internet company guy.

We’re getting super fast full fibre in about 13 days! Yee-haw! (Although I am trying not to get too excited about that.)

Fancy almost forgetting about that!

And that’s it for this week. Whatever you’re doing at the weekend, I hope it’s a good one!