Friday 3 October 2025: Silly billy

Gosh, this is a long one. Make your favourite drink and pull up a chair…

Monday

The poet was up bright an early on Monday morning to head off down south again for another 2-day trip. 

For a brief and silly moment, I thought I might be able to start my day at 7am, so I could fit everything in without working into the night. But that’s a bit early for me, especially after a bad night with a medium-sized dog taking up most of the bed. I’m not naturally an early riser at the best of times. At all. So I went back to bed and got up again at my usual time.

What a silly billy I am.

When I did get up, I did my social media over my dirty cuppa. I fed the dog. And I fed the birds. Then I did a half-hour stint on housework, and a half-hour stint in the garden. I realised that an hour on each would be way too long, but this way I get 2 ticks in 1 hour-long slot. I emptied the dishwasher, put a wash load through, and managed to dust the ceilings and walls in 3 rooms. In the garden, I pruned 1 rose bed and collected windfalls. And I played ball with the dog in the garden for a bit. 

JetPack seems to have done its job for a couple of days now. I didn’t have to re-share it on Monday or on Friday. So that was good. Even better, there was a JetPack update waiting for me, which I installed. Hopefully they’ve ironed out a few bugs.

At my desk, the first job of the week was this week’s diary, once I’d changed all of those silly 1-hour housework and 1-hour garden sessions to half an hour each. The next job was to share the day’s publication news on Instagram, as I can’t schedule that without making my profile public again, and a public profile attracts far too many weirdos who I don’t know. And then it was to publish the next short story on the list, Bonfire Surprise, well in time for Bonfire Night.

I should have then moved onto Novella #11 for the great novella challenge, but instead I did some planning work for Patreon, just so I know I have material lined up until the end of the year at least. I started to populate the calendar with articles too. And I had to plan the stories so they post in a certain order.

If the story is brand-new, then it should be Patreon first, so that paid subscribers do actually get an exclusive look at anything before it’s published. Then the bookazine, then on the website, then as a standalone, and then in the newsletter. This doesn’t include collections. If the story is already published and out there, then it will go on Patreon next and then the website. Just so everything appears in the same places in the same order, or as near as I can get it going forward.

I brought the washing in before it got too damp and put it all on the clothes horse to air. I wrote and scheduled the blog post for the book I published earlier in the day, which will be out on 20 October. And I wrote and scheduled the September wrap-up that posted on Tuesday.

I had a few hours updating the great novella challenge flyers. I kept thinking I had the final book covers, but then I found something newer. I really ought to start deleting the old versions. I like to keep them in case there’s a problem, but once the replacement cover works, the old ones need to go in the bin.

Grand-doggy #1 went home again, and I settled down to do some more work on the novella, and I worked until midnight.

Tuesday

I was tired Tuesday morning. Probably because I worked until midnight the night before, and then I couldn’t get straight off to sleep because I’d eaten a light meal. I was starving. I hadn’t been hungry at all at tea time so I only had bread and jam (jelly) for my tea, knowing full well I’d be hungry later. The annoying thing was this meant I was eating in my 16 hours of starvation. But I wouldn’t have slept at all if I’d gone to bed hungry.

I had a 25-minute Pomodoro doing housework, and I had a 25-minute Pomodoro in the garden. These are my new housework and garden half-hours that have replaced the daily flylady whole hours. In the garden, though, when my pinger went off, I hung around for a bit longer as I wanted to pick some good pears and the last of the apples. 

It pushed me along for the rest of the day, but it was a job that needed doing. There was one apple left on the tree that I could see, but I couldn’t reach it. I saved it for the poet to do when he got home on Wednesday after a 2-day trip. He uses his fishing landing net to get the high fruit.

First job of the day at my desk was to brainstorm the next short story for 12 stories in 12 months. I jotted down a lot of ideas I’d like to include in a story, including the title, and then cherry-picked what I wanted to keep. It’s a Marcie Craig story, it’s going to be 1,800 words, and it’s called Crazy Diamond. (Sort of by Pink Floyd, but I didn’t want a law suit for nicking their entire song title.)

Next job of the day was graphics work. I created a new currently reading flyer, and shared that everywhere, and I updated my reading spreadsheet. And I created the new hello and wrap-up monthly flyers, at last.

I moved a few jobs around a bit so I’d have a good, solid, uninterrupted run at Novella 11, and the next job I did was my monthly finance transfer early. By then it was time for my midday breakfast, and I made sure to grab and wash a pear from the garden and have it with my banana after my cereal. We’re going to have to bottle some of these pears if we don’t want to throw or give them all away.

After breakfast, today’s blog post was next on the list. That also involved a bit of jiggling things around in October and, in fact, to the end of the year. My next free time slot now is on Monday 19 January! Wow! The jiggling around and starting today’s blog post took me over my next time slot, and it took me through to my dinner break at 3pm.

It looked like I’d be working into the evening again to finish Novella #11. Friends on Facebook, Instagram and BlueSky will already know if I managed it or not…

Wednesday

Well, I worked steadily through the night but finished at just before 2am. This meant I was a waste of space for much of Wednesday, but I did manage to get the newsletter out.

I also outlined Crazy Diamond, the story I’d brainstormed the day before for 12 stories in 12 months. I updated today’s blog post. And I updated the 36-project spreadsheet for October’s word- and page-counts.

For much of the rest of the day I just faffed. I didn’t even feed the birds. But I did empty the dishwasher, after all, there were only a few things in there with me being on my own.

Ah, yes. I did get the newsletter out. It’s the first one since January, so that’s a long one as well. The short story that comes with this one is The Most Scariest Night of the Year, a story that grass roots Patreon subscribers got last week. It will also be available on here for 1 week only before it’s taken down again. So if you want to grab a copy for ever, do go and check your in box, or sign up here if you’re not already a newsletter subscriber. I also worked out how to save a pdf and I uploaded it to the newsletter archive for the newsletter subscribers.

The poet came home from his 2-day trip and went straight to bed for a nap. On Monday he’d worked all day and with the night shift too, and he had a very long drive there and back as well, stopping off in the midlands on his way home.

Thursday

When I got up on Thursday morning, I was just enjoying my first dirty cuppa of the day and about to start scrolling down social media, when the phone rang. The new internet provider alert was showing that our house can now be connected, so the salesman chappy called to see if he could come and arrange the full order. In about 2 hours. Of course I said yes, but I had to finish my cup of tea, get dressed, etc, and have the house looking relatively tidy before he got here.

The house is relatively tidy anyway. There are, after all, only 2 of us. But I emptied the dishwasher, filled it up again, got the kettle and coffee ready (I forgot to add his 2 sugars the last time he came and I felt bad about that for, ooh, hours after.) And I did a quick tidy round. I had time to feed the birds too, and I shared the gig list on FB. I also started proceedings to dismantle and cart away our old greenhouse, as the glass is all broken and the structure is in danger of collapsing. We may also have the same bloke back who came and cut all the hedges down 2 years ago.

The internet guy was here for about an hour, but we’re all set now to be connected on 16 October. Or that’s when the new hub will be fitted. They’ll have to instal the new fibre optic too, for which they also need access as it’s in the back garden. We get the first 6 months free, then it’s £39 a month (apx $52) for 500mb/s. We’re currently paying £46 per month (apx $62) for 15mb/s if we’re lucky. I’m expecting great things.

I had my midday breakfast and had a quick look at the competitions page. This Grand Designs event at the NEC in Birmingham is something I won. We’ll have to fork out for parking, which is raving expensive at the NEC. If I could win enough to cover that as well I’d be sorted.

We got a call to see if we could have the dog again overnight, so I went and sorted his things out again. But the only other job I managed yesterday was editing. Yay! I finally got around to doing some editing.

Today it’s more editing, and I also have 2 of the weekly admin jobs: weekly finances and weekly backup. I want to upload a Friday Fiction to the Patreon too and then schedule that to appear on here in 4 weeks and 1 day for 1 week only. Bonfire Surprise is also in Words Worth Reading: Issue FIVE, which comes out on Monday, and it’s published as a standalone later in the month.

Whatever you’re up to, have a great weekend!