I can’t quite bring myself to say ‘good evening’ considering the shit show that is our government right now. Don’t take this as a pop at Johnson or any one in particular. Just the frustrated ramblings of someone who is just fed up of all this drama. Each one, whatever side of Parliament they sit, seems as bad as the other and are only there to fill their pockets and their power. It’s just one big circle-jerk that no matter who’s in charge seems to be the same no matter what. I know there’s good people working in Westminster, there’s good Members of Parliament but the good ones likely will never get to a position where they can do any good because they’re not jerking everyone else off.
What I long for, I ain’t gonna get. A leader who isn’t there to line their own pockets. Someone who isn’t a ‘career politician’, someone who has had a live outside of those circles. And someone who has some fucking integrity.
Anyway, rant over.
This morning I edited 11489 on Black Blood and did a little prep work for Penal Earth book 2.
Here’s some furry family pictures to end the post with.
Good evening folks, Sorry. I’ve got another flash post tonight.
I did a little editing this afternoon after I got home from work. Then did a little gaming and had a nap. When I’ve got an early I struggle to sleep so I find napping to be helpful in making up for that.
It bugged me that I hadn’t done more editing, when I’d first got home. So I cracked on this evening and got the last few thousand words done.
Max made himself comfy while I was working ☺️
7552 words edited, and I wrote 124 on a non-fiction piece.
The next stage is to let this sit for a couple of days and then I’ll get into making the changes that are needed.
Today I have edited 7408 words of Black Blood, adding 87 to the overall word count. That was a little bit of a slog but I got in done in about two hours or so.
I’ve also set up a few posts to go on my Ko-Fi page, including one flash piece which has gone live today. I was feeling a little behind with this so I got a few posts set up so I don’t have to worry about it too much for the next week or two. I do offer a membership in addition to one-time tips. Here I post an original short story each month in addition to bonus content. All for £1 a month!
Something I do want to touch on is that this month is the first that I have worked everyday in a very long time. For those of you who don’t know I have anxiety and depression, amongst a few other mental health bits and pieces, but my medications dosage was recently upped and I’m very much feeling it. Two months ago if I wasn’t feeling like working, I’d not. (when I say working here I mean writing. With the day job I haven’t missed a shift in a little over two years). At the moment I am working each day even if it’s just a few words while on my day job’s break. On days when I’m not at the day job I’m getting stuck into editing and making sure I get a decent start early in the morning and am normally done by midday. I’m making sure I have breakfast on these days and am getting a lot of little bits and pieces done that I’ve been putting off.
When I’m at the day job it’s a little different but I’ve found I’ve still been coming home (after a morning shift) and getting at least a little editing done. That’s normally in addition to writing something before work while sitting in my car, and during my break.
Max is waiting for me to finish so we can go play ball.
I’m feeling much more organised as well. I’m making notes on Black Blood on things like building a chapter to a conclusion to character motivations. I’m also listing what I’ve posted to Ko-Fi because knowing me I’d end up putting up the same story twice! I’m sure most people will be okay with a slight hiccup like that but people are giving me their money so I’m trying to be as efficient as possible.
I have had a hit to my self-esteem recently (I look hideous etc.) but I know how to rebuild that. I’ve done it, with help, recently and I know I can do it again.
Raven helping with editing this morning.
Life is moving in the right direction and I feel like I’m getting to the point where I can able do the things in life that I’ve always dreamt of.
This morning I edited 8510 of a short story that will be posted on my Ko-Fi next month. It wasn’t something that needed a deep edit, just a once over to make sure there wasn’t anything that I’d missed and I needed to make a couple of tweaks that’ll bring it in line with something else I’m working on 😉
This is becoming Dizzy’s spot. She’s gonna be annoyed once that bits done and new flowers are planted!
After that I went out and cracked on with a job in the garden that took a fair chunk of time, I was going to do a little more writing work afterwards but I had a nap!
Raven found me taking an old shed down very interesting.
I felt a little bad for not doing more writing, but not as bad as I used to feel when this sort of thing had happened in the past. Something I’m thinking about a lot is balance. Tomorrow I’ve got an early and I know I’m not going to sleep great tonight. So the nap this afternoon will hopefully balance out any sleep I don’t get later on.
Always time to punt the ball for this great doggo
Right, you lovely people. I’m off to watch Alien Vs. Predator while I nod off. Night all!
My plan was to get up at about 8am. I don’t need to be in work for an early today and I had no other reasons to get up early. So I set an alarm for 8am, which is a lay in for me, and settled in for what I was hoping would be a good nights sleep. It didn’t start well when Max did his guard dog duties and after I checked the house, garden and so forth I decided to let him sleep upstairs for the night. That did the trick and he settled down, and only tried to get on the bed once.
Then, at 5am Raven woke me up by trying to knock items out of my window (could you be any more cliched, Raven?). I removed her from the window and put her on the bed with a “really?” that she paid no attention to.
She jumped off and Max decided to it was time to play with Raven. She wasn’t interested and smacked him on the nose and jumped back in the window. Can you guess what she was doing? I repeated the earlier removal method and this time she ran off down the landing.
Flash forward to a little after 6:30am and I heard something that broke me out of my slumber to find Max with his head on my bed, he had the look that all people with a dog knows. So I let him out. It was this moment that I knew it was time to get up because I was awake.
So y’all get a blog post! 😀 It’s been an amusing morning with Dizzy being the only one of the furry family that didn’t wake me (although she tried to sit on the keyboard as I’m writing this post).
Have an absolutely awesome day, everyone! Here in my part of the UK the sun is shining and I’m going to go out and do some garden work in a bit, I might even sit out there and do some writing.
Today I’ve written 611 words on a short story I’ve recently started during my break and while I was waiting for something this afternoon. I was hoping to have got a good chunk of Penal Earth worked today but a few things came up that I had to see to and although I had time to write it was with pen and paper as I didn’t have access to my laptop.
I liked what I wrote though, and although I’ve got no idea where this story is going I’m enjoying the discovery aspect of it.
I spent an hour or so this afternoon after work in the garden. Partly to play ball with Max as he hasn’t had much playtime due to a lot going on the last few weeks (needless to say he loved it!) but I also needed to top up the bird feeders, do the poopa scooping; both of which I can do while still punting the football up the garden for Max to chase. I also done the cat litter, sorted the bins out for collection tomorrow, and got a load of washing done.
My Ball!
Now, I get this may not seem like much. It’s not really worth noting, everyone does these things. But considering how tired I was I could have easily just got home, let Max out and have a nap. And I feel so much better for it.
It also means once I’ve finished work tomorrow and ran a couple of errands I’ll have a nice chunk of time to get some words edited and then on Wednesday when its my day off I’ll be able to dedicate a bigger slot of time to writing.
This is a level of organisation I’ve only dreamt of for many years!
Evening folks! Just a quick post tonight. I wrote 731 words of fiction this morning, and 695 non-fiction this evening. I got an early start as I knew I was going to be having a busy day. (Most of the day was spent gardening).
I’m feeling more back on it today than I have been for a few days so I’m going to try and get back some momentum.
Right, have an awesome weekend folks!
Spot the Raven! Obviously me being outside meant fetch!
Got a Sunday off so I can do a post this morning. For long term readers of my blog you’ll know that I used to do a Good Morning post every Sunday morning. I’d sit in an armchair with my laptop on my lap, Dizzy sat on the arm of the chair and our late dog Pacey stretched out across the floor at my feet somewhere.
Those posts I’d write what I was planning to do that day, I can’t remember how often I hit those goals because that was two or three years ago now, probably longer to be honest. But I liked it because it was a statement of intent, it was accountability. That is something I’m still trying to find a way to make work. I set out my goals for the month and then into the next seven days. I still feel like I’m not writing to any sort of plan. I know the projects I’ve got to work on and where some of them are but I need to get myself some more organisation and then stick to it.
At the moment I’m trying to focus in on what days I’m productive, and I’ve found there’s often a point in the week where writing does have to ease off a bit. Now do I set out softer goals, or do I load my writing week according to when I’ve been most productive? that is a little difficult as where I work shifts I don’t have that regular working rota. So, I’ll need to play that into consideration each week. I do try to do this but again. It’s something I need to be better at figuring out, because at the moment I know I need to step up. I Need to. It’s that time to do so. I don’t have a choice in the matter. It’s where I’m being pulled.
I feel like I’m moving in the right direction, but it’s a slow journey. I need to find ways to speed that up. I don’t fear going too fast and cocking things up because what I’m talking about is just getting things done. My main three projects are all in different stages of the editing process. I can work on one, then move to the next while the previous one is with a beta reader or an editor for example (I can hear Armand Rosamilia shouting at me about editing by the way!).
It literally feels like I’m one step away from making the next big leap in my writing career. It’s not just time to do that, it’s past time to do that.
I’ve taken a couple of days off from writing. I needed a little bit of a breather to let a few ideas on the current WIP settle a little.
I’m going to get cracking again today now I’ve seen to a few non-writing writing bits, (don’t ask!) and have done a little grinding on GTAV. I’m gearing up to get the next edit of the zombie book done, that should be towards the end of next week and early next month.
Something I’ve noticed is the last couple of days where I’ve not been writing have been good for ideas. Nothing grand but some nice little detail elements for ongoing works.
Peter Germany's World 