Wednesday 28 January 2026: Busy day

We had a bit of a rough night after Storm Chandra made landfall. America freezes and the United Kingdom floods! Is Australia on fire? The worst of the rain hasn’t even reached us yet, but the wind was whipping up during the evening and into the night.

The puppy woke me up at 5:30am, but when I opened the door he came running back in again. It’s a sliding patio door and the rain blew in as I slid it open. We went around to the conservatory, with a regular opening door, he ran out and ran back in again and then straight back to bed and under his blanket. 

Both dogs woke me again at 7:30am, wanting their breakfast. Early. Very early. We’re trying to get them to eat at 9am and 9pm, eventually. But at the moment, the puppy is still on 3 meals a day.

They both quickly went out again, but just as quickly came back in. The poet texted me at 8am, to let me know he was up. Then he called at 8:30am. 

I tried to do some social media work on the tablet, but the internet wasn’t working for some reason. Instead, I connected to our old Sky internet, and that did work. 

By this time I felt like I’d done a day’s work, but I had a full day ahead of me. When I got to my desk, the internet wasn’t working there either, and I found out via FB that there had been a very brief power cut in the village in the early hours, so that probably knocked out the internet. I reset it and got back to work.

First of all I withdrew that book review from the Medium publication. Three days for something like that is quite long enough for one of the gazillion editors to respond. Don’t forget, last week’s submission was accepted for publication within minutes of me hitting send. 

The problem is, with a big publication, because it was an imported story, the date was fixed at Monday. And that means that whenever it’s published, it will still be slotted in between other stories dated Monday. And that means it would already be on something like Page 8. 

No one is going to wade through pages and pages to read a book review by little old moi. So I withdrew it and published it to my own page. It will still appear in book reviews, and it will still have Monday’s date, but with less to wade through before readers get to it.

The roofer rang me up to let me know he’d be here today at 8:30am, weather permitting. He knows I have another hospital appointment this morning, so he said he could wait for me to get home so he could get around the back as he had plenty to do still around the front. It’s likely he’ll be here before I go out, though, so I can unbolt the back gate then. I just hope the dogs don’t trash the place with a stranger crawling all over the house while we’re not in. 

The former Upwork client, who’s now an Upwork client again, sent me through an extra book to proofread on top of the ones we’d already agreed, asking if I could do this one first. I wrote back with the fee for this extra job and told him when I thought I could start it. 

I finished yesterday’s blog post, chose the image, and posted it everywhere. Then I started today’s blog post.

I still had catch-up work from Monday, thanks to the afternoon appointment at the hospital, but it was already brunch time, so I paused to make that. I emptied the dishwasher and filled it again, with a view to turning it on. But it wasn’t full enough yet to justify turning it on and I resigned myself to perhaps having to hand-wash at least one dish before tea time.

Back at my desk I opened my TickTick, but had to wait while that updated. I didn’t have to, actually. I could have asked it to update later. But I try to do this one as it comes in and it doesn’t usually take very long. And I ticked off all the jobs I’d done that hadn’t yet been ticked off. Then I fired up Week 1 of the applied depth workshop revision I should have watched on Monday. 

There are 7 workshops in this initial bundle to learn depth, and I’d already done the actual work for the depth in writing workshop, the advanced depth workshop, and the applied depth workshop. Those were the 3 workshops I wanted to revise before moving on to the remaining 4. We also had an extra lecture at the start of the advanced depth workshop. The remaining classes are depth three: research classic workshop, the born on page three problem pop-up workshop, how to create automatic depth pop-up workshop, and depth in action workshop. 

Since starting this bundle, I think my stories have become richer. I have much more leisurely openings, rather than jumping in with action. And the stories are coming out longer. The poet prefers these to the numerous others I’ve had published in magazines, and as I’m no longer targeting those magazines, I can afford to write what I want rather than what they want. The stories are still selling, so I must be doing something right. Most importantly, I’m enjoying the learning and I’m enjoying the practising. 

I bought 2 bundles in a half-price sale: focus bundle to learn depth, and focus bundle to learn beyond simple depth. Once I finish the revision, I’ll be at the halfway point of the first. 

The storm was still raging outside but the puppy asked to go out at least once every 45 minutes or so. At least he did something in the garden every time, even if he was out there for the minimal time possible before galloping back in again. So he’s getting much better with the house-training. Only once did he take the spaniel’s favourite ball with him and the spaniel, bless him, humoured him, even though it was obvious he didn’t like being out in the squally rain. 

The box of copier paper I ordered the previous day was on its way and when it was just 1 stop away, according to the tracker, I went into the front room to watch for the van. I could see it outside the house next-door-but-one and I unlocked the side door in anticipation…only to watch the van go sailing past. I checked the tracker and I was still the next one, and then the front door went. (Of course it did.) (Me already unlocking the other door…) The poor driver hadn’t realised how close he was at my neighbour’s and had struggled with the box in the pouring rain to my door. 

Going back to more of Monday’s missed work, the next job I did was publish the next book on the list. Valentine’s Date, Flash Fiction #16, will be published on Monday 9 February. While I was there, I created a new cover for Take Your Pick, Flash Fiction #11, and uploaded it to Draft2Digital and Google Play Books. The original cover was too white and needed a nice contrast background colour.

Two jobs for the price of one!

Finally, once I’d fed the dogs and put my own tea in the oven, I started a short story I should have started yesterday. At least I was doing a Tuesday job on a Tuesday. I didn’t finish it, but I got the bones of it down so I should be able to rattle off a quick draft today before submitting it to 12 stories in 12 months. I have until 9pm tonight, I believe. But it needs to be off my desk way before then.

I don’t seem to have got a lot done, but I do feel as though I was raving busy for the entire day. 

The roofer will be here this morning and I have to go for hospital appointment #24. 

This post appears on Words Worth Writing, Medium and Patreon.