Tag: Catch the Rainbow

26 July 2023

Wednesday 26 July 2023: More proofreading

I had a slow start to the day yesterday, hitting my desk just in time to join in with the People’s Friend writing hour on Twitter… or X, or whatever we’re supposed to call it today. We had another lively discussion and I came away with not one but two topics to cover on the blog in future, when I...

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25 July 2023

Tuesday 25 July 2023: Wall to wall proofreading

The most pressing job I have to do this week is proofreading. The entire job is a whopping 527 pages, so I expect it to take the entire week. In fact, it’s been added to one of my planning spreadsheets so I can see how many pages a day I need to clear in order to finish the job this...

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21 July 2023

Friday 21 July 2023: Back to normal for a bit

After the madness that was the previous few days, I took it easy yesterday. I didn’t rush around like a mad thing. I didn’t dash back to what I was doing before it all went a bit wild. I just took it easy. And it was a bit wild, for me. Having to watch videos and commit stuff to my...

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14 July 2023

Friday 14 July 2023: Horror stories give me nightmares

The last thing I did on Wednesday night was read another short story from the first set book for the fantasy thriller writing workshop. It was a horror story and I don’t really do horror stories. I thought I’d scanned the worst of it, but when I woke up on Thursday, the poet asked me what my nightmare was about…...

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12 July 2023

Wednesday 12 July 2023: Multi-tasking

I had a really good start to the day by remembering the People’s Friend writing hour on Twitter. So I got up and dressed in record time instead of languishing in bed. Over breakfast I read another chapter of set book 1 for the fantasy thriller writing workshop before moving to the office. I did a few admin-y things, but...

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11 July 2023

Tuesday 11 July 2023: A bit behind

The poet was up with the lark on Monday morning because he had a long drive south for a two-day business conference. And he really was driving to the bottom of the country almost. I did get up with him to see him off, then I went back to bed and set the alarm from just over an hour. I...

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10 July 2023

Monday 10 July 2023: Down came the rain

We were both really tired on Thursday night. Probably the previous few weeks catching up on us. I struggled to get up on Friday and was Very Late to my desk. I did catch up on social media and emails over breakfast, as well as read another chapter of one of my set books for the fantasy thriller writing workshop....

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7 July 2023

Friday 7 July 2023: 200 words a day

Wednesday didn’t turn out to be one of my better days. I hardly had any sleep Tuesday night and after my emergency run to the vet, I came home and crashed out on the bed. I didn’t wake up until the poet came home from work. It was already quite late by then and I hadn’t done any work. All...

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5 July 2023

Wednesday 5 July 2023: Cranking up the machine

I was having a slow and leisurely start to Tuesday, until I remembered it was the People’s Friend writing hour on Twitter at 11am. Usually I’m late or in a rush to get there or I completely forget about it. It *is* in the diary now, as a weekly event. But if I don’t check my diary, I still forget...

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4 July 2023

Tuesday 4 July 2023: Happy Fourth of July!

Happy 4th of July to all of my American friends and readers. Have a super day. Saturday On Saturday morning I hung out some washing, wrote our meal plan for the week and the shopping list, and off we went to get the shopping. We started at the butcher and moved on to the supermarket. When we got home we...

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29 June 2023

Thursday 29 June 2023: Lots of reading

There was one thing I was struggling with on Affinity Publisher that I really wanted to sort out in my head. I couldn’t get the background of my magazine cover to go translucent. I’d found the transparency slider and an opaque slider, but nothing was working. Overnight, while I slept, I must have had a bit of a brain murmur...

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28 June 2023

Wednesday 28 June 2023: The machine worked but the tech got me

I finished playing with Affinity Publisher on Sunday evening just as Elton John was finishing his set at Glastonbury. I will definitely use Publisher and I have used Affinity Photo in the past, when it was still called Serif. I’m not sure I’ll get much use out of Affinity Design, unless… I can use it to create maps of my...

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22 June 2023

Thursday 22 June 2023: Bumbling along

I slept really well on Tuesday night, and so did the dog. Which is probably why I slept so well. I had to wake him up he was in such a deep sleep. Once I’d done the usual social media and email stuff over dinner, I started to read the next book on my pile. I’m not allowed to discuss...

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21 June 2023

Wednesday 21 June 2023: More rain

Yesterday began with me checking social media and emails while I had breakfast, and then I went straight into finishing the current book for NetGalley. I really enjoyed this one and I’m looking forward to the second one in the series, which I also have from NetGalley. The night before I’d spotted a big black cat eating the chicken I’d...

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20 June 2023

Tuesday 20 June 2023: A thunderstorm at last

We had thunderstorms forecast for the entire weekend and, naturally, I was keeping a close eye on them all via my app. Saturday On Saturday I wanted to go to the Murder in the Rhubarb Triangle crime reading event in Wakefield. We even tentatively arranged for the MiL to look after the dog. But with the new bed arriving on...

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19 June 2023

Monday 19 June 2023: New bed, new bedding

We had to get up early on Friday because our new bed was coming. I asked if they could give me an idea of what time, and they said any time between 8am and 5pm, adding that it might actually be 8:30am onwards. So we got up early, stripped the bed, hung the bedding on the washing line to try and...

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16 June 2023

Friday 16 June 2023: New bed day

I was at my desk on time, having caught up on social media and email over breakfast. I also read another two chapters of the NetGalley book and I shared the gig list post. But I did go out and change the dirty washing hanging on the line. Hopefully if Holly’s wandering in the vicinity, she’ll recognise the smell and...

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15 June 2023

Thursday 15 June 2023: Long night ahead

The weather is a lot more bearable at the moment, despite the storms never arriving. There’s a cool, fresh breeze and that makes a massive difference inside the house when the doors and windows are open and the curtains closed. We have rain forecast next week, all week. But as the thunderstorms managed to go around us every day this...

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14 June 2023

Wednesday 14 June 2023: I found a writing podcast

I don’t know how I did it. I think a Twitter pal has been taking part in their 200-words-a-day challenge and I followed the link from there, tripped slightly, and fell down a rabbit hole… The challenge is three years old, now I’ve been looking for a UK-based podcast for a while, and when I followed the link to their...

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13 October 2021

Less easy

(Image by mathey from Pixabay) After a relatively good start on Monday, Tuesday was harder. I wasn’t as late, but it was more of a chore. I struggled to get up, then I lingered over breakfast. But I did it. The biggest issue was that I only had my work to do yesterday and it was only by reminding myself that my...

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7 June 2021

Pumping up the busy

Image by David Bruyland from Pixabay Phew! This one’s a long read. I’d go and get a coffee if I were you… I’m back at work today, after a week’s holiday and a week of part-time working/recovery before that. I had a lot of time to think about how I want to take my work forward, and I think I’ve...

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8 April 2021

The week so far

This is how my Scrivener binder for the project management series was looking when I started work on it on Tuesday. Tuesday I had a lot to do on Tuesday, so while the intention was to write at least a chapter, I only managed part of Chapter 4. In fact, I wrote 843 new words. And I updated the binder...

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4 February 2021

Publicity

I was having a bit of a rummage through NetGalley to see if there were any new reviews for The Life of Richard Cadbury. I couldn’t see any for that one, but there were a few new ones for the first book, A History of Cadbury. First job of the day for yesterday, then, was collecting 5 of these reviews and creating...

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3 December 2020

Jobs are like buses

So my book is still “temporarily out of stock” on Amazon, both here in the UK and in the US. That’s very odd for a book they’ve had on pre-order for weeks. They’re billing it for release in January 2021 in the States … Hmm. The Beast Within I struggled a bit yesterday with The Beast Within, not least because I...

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2 December 2020

Progress

Monday went by in a bit of a whirl. In case you didn’t notice, my book The Life of Richard Cadbury was finally published. There then followed a frenzy of marketing activity that mostly consisted of creating flyers and mockups in Canva and Photopea respectively. Then I went through Facebook, Twitter and MeWe and added links and images to all the...

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12 October 2020

Hatfield Moor

WordPress was having a bit of a hissy fit today. First of all, it wouldn’t let me create or edit a post in Edge, and then it wouldn’t let me preview a post in Opera or Edge.  However, as I pay for the personal plan, I was able to contact support and they seem to have fixed it for me. ...

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7 October 2020

Again, I write

The picture shows my current workstation.  The lectern on the left currently holds some notes for Catch the Rainbow. These notes relate to the arrests of the Birmingham Six on the night of the Birmingham pub bombings. I think I got the information from Hansard or somewhere like that, as they are the men’s statements. I have the lamp to...

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5 October 2020

One job at a time

I don’t have any pictures to hand today, and I don’t have time to sort one out. So here’s one courtesy of Pixabay.  Today I am not a happy bunny as WordPress have finally taken the classic editor off the WP admin posts page. Perhaps it’s an October thing. It’s not all bad, as there’s a classic editor “block” now....

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