The weekend
Saturday was tied up with just shopping and more workshop catch-up, and we took the dogs for a short walk. On our way home from the supermarket, we went to buy bird food, and when we got back the poet topped up the bird feeders and the food buckets.
When he came in, he moved my new calendar down on a wall in the study. I usually have a double length calendar with a picture at the top and the month below, but this one is a week at a time and all on one page, and I couldn’t see it very well in the high position where the picture usually is. So he moved it down for me.
I was quite happy to do it myself, all I needed was a hammer and a nail. But he just moved the existing picture hook down and either tapped it in with something or pushed it in with his thumb. Either way, he didn’t make a lot of noise and I didn’t know he’d even done it.
On Sunday the only thing we did was nip in to see the mother-in-law, where the dogs had a play in her garden. When we got back, the poet put the bread machine on while he made ice cream. The ice cream maker was a gift from his mother at Christmas for both of us. He uses it, we both benefit from it. And he made us a roast beef dinner while I did more workshop revision.
I lost a lot of time last week on the workshop revision but didn’t manage more than one week’s worth of videos.
I had a bit of a skin flare-up at the weekend and decided I didn’t want to continue with the light therapy treatment after the end of the initial 10 weeks if it wasn’t going to work. That’s the problem with my skin. Something might work for a short while, but then everything goes back to normal again. I must be eating something I’m allergic to, or they’re putting some kind of additive in something they never used to that I’m reacting to.
The poet suggested I continue with the treatment if they offer it but perhaps not volunteer for it if they don’t. But we shall see.
Monday
Monday was publication day and I thought I’d scheduled all the posts for that. But all I’d done was write the post out in Scrivener and make one of the graphics (out of 2). I hadn’t scheduled it anywhere. My hospital appointment was once again at 11am, but it was only while we were on our way there that I realised I hadn’t posted the news.
The nurse on Monday contradicted the nurse on Friday and said I’d only be allowed to do another 2 weeks if I wanted to. My skin had calmed down again since Saturday and in a lot of places it’s definitely gone, or ‘flattened out’ as they say.
The first thing I did when I hit my desk was do that publication day post and share it everywhere. Then I had to do a load of admin and paperwork for something private that took up the rest of the day. We were supposed to be dropping the paperwork off in town, but it all took so long they would have been closed by the time we got there. So I packed it all up in a large envelope so the poet could take it with him on Tuesday and drop it off.
Once I’d spent too many hours on that, I was determined to get something work-like done, and I caught up on another week of videos for the applied depth workshop.
Tuesday
The roofer was coming on Tuesday and the poet had to be on one of his factory sites for most of the day. So we had an early start. He drove off but had to come back because he’d forgotten the package he was supposed to drop off later in the day at the solicitor’s. I was up and dressed early and had some play time in the garden with the dogs. Then I started work.
Today’s blog post was the first job, trying to remember everything we’d done since last Thursday, and I know I missed out loads. Tuesday’s post was already late, but I knew if I didn’t write this one up soon, I’d forget everything. (I’d already written yesterday’s.) So I started this one before doing Tuesday’s, which would be much easier as it was the month ahead.
I was working through the month of February, what to include, what to postpone and what to remove entirely, when the phone went. It was the roofer letting me know that he wasn’t here (it was 11:30am…) because he’d been at the hospital overnight with his mother in A&E. Thankfully, they’d sent his mother home, and he’d be here on Wednesday at midday instead. I thanked him for letting me know and gave him good wishes for his mother’s recovery.
I updated the submissions spreadsheet, took out the 2 calls for submissions I missed in January, and added February’s 12 stories to the February section. I scanned the story starters in Scrivener to see if any could be paired with the 12 stories theme, found one in calls for submissions for later in the year, and duplicated the document in Scrivener, moving it into the 12 stories folder. Then I made a new T-card for the same story for the Nobo board, only leaving the title blank while I decide on one.
Aside from this, there were 3 other calls for submissions, with deadlines at the end of February, and one on 1 March. I read through them all and decided only one was probably feasible, from scratch. With 3 editing jobs finishing towards the end of the month, I had time to start a March story, and I decided it could be a novella I didn’t write for the great novella challenge. I added that in, then chose a story I could finish and another story I could start and added those in too.
Because the story I could start is actually the novella, I continued on into March filling in the time slots for when I can write this story. The first Lady Mathilda novella is only about 15,000 words, but I’d like to make this one 20,000 words if I can then go back and make the first one the same. I think 15,000 words is more like the length of a novelette and I did a few of those during the great novella challenge just so I’d meet the deadline. I’ll probably revisit them all and make most of them 20,000 words, some 24,000 words, and maybe a couple 40,000 words.
I made the graphics for Hello, February and February Wrap-up, then wrote it up and posted it everywhere.
Finally I caught up on the last 2 weeks’ worth of videos from the applied depth revision. But by the time I’d done that, I was shattered. I’d had another disturbed night, this time with the sciatica pain caused by the spinal stenosis, and by the end of the day I was struggling to keep my eyes open.
I’m keeping these blog posts down to around 1,300 words max at the moment. That’s why they’re being split across the week.
This post appears on Words Worth Writing, Medium and Patreon.
