Mornin' all

I've definitely got my first cold of the year 'cos I've been sneezing and waking up my carer each time since I woke up, which is just what I don't need.

 

I've taken my morning pills and made a hot drink for Steve that he put on one of his tables and promptly fell asleep, so I'm predicting right now, at 6.41am that I won't be having a proper lunch for the 5th day this week, despite Steve's determination and promises yesterday that he'd definitely cook today.  I'm making an additional prediction, at 6.43am that today will be a purely liquids day 'cos I stupidly finished off the biscuits yesterday.  I've just remembered about my vegan cookies though, so that's lunch sorted if my carer doesn't fancy cooking for the 5th time this week... apparently he makes all my meals though <shrug>

NaNo is gonna be the ideal opportunity for Steve to put in 5 hours of care every day 'cos I won't be making any of the meals or drinks, so in theory he'll be able to get credit for doing that for me... in reality though, it'll be purely liquids for literally the first 2 weeks of November 'cos of Steve's meat-filled delivery on Tuesday and the menu we've come up with that takes 2 weeks to finally get rid of it all.  In theory, starting on Tuesday, Steve'll be eating 42 meals and I'll be eating 0 with my only calories coming from ideally hot chocolates and 1 J2O a day but it remains to be seen if I get anything at all other than water and the J2O if I've earnt it.

Not sure if I'll hit the 35 hours of care per week while I'm writing, but it's only 20 days a year that I have off from caring for my carer for 2½ the minimum so I'm not too worried - especially as I don't even get the 35 hours in half the year, let alone each week.

Have I said that I've taken my morning pills?

Woops!  I forgot to publish this over 2 hours ago!

Let's see what I've been up to:

I've managed to do some writerly stuff after last night, thanks to the notes I took and I've asked for feedback on it.  I've published my Facebook memories and I've just made my carer's breakfast for him along with my second hot drink of the day, so I've got at least 330 calories into me if Steve decides against cooking yet again today.

He's almost finished his breakfast (as in he's scraping the bottom of the bowl) so I'm gonna publish before I forget again, then keep caring for my carer until lunchtime.

 

I've just started my daily virus scan almost 3 hours after getting up too lol

BFN

Already over...

...10 hours of care today, so 12 hours is pretty much in the bag and I'd only need to care for my carer for an extra 54 minutes to take me to the magic 85 hours, but that'd be after my bed time and I'm determined to have an early night tonight for a change.

I'm predicting that when I weigh myself in the morning, I will have lost some weight after only eating 3 or 4 proper meals this week and only having two slices of bread all day today.

I will hopefully be able to have breakfast tomorrow 'cos that'll either be wheat biscuits or Granola, depending on what my carer wants 'cos the loaf of bread is used up now, so as long as I'm safe enough to make two breakfasts in the morning, that's what I'll do.  It's supposed to be vegan spag bol tomorrow but I'm predicting that my carer will find an excuse not to help me to do it so I'll have to do it alone again.  It's just tomorrow and Friday that I'll need his help for, 'cos they will be meals that involve doing things on the hob instead of in the oven and then mixing it all up and I'm just not confident doing that yet 'cos I've only done it once so far (today's stew for my carer) so I just need him there for safety/confidence reasons.  I'll be doing the other 5 meals totally alone again, I just need him there in case I've got any doubts or questions or I become unsteady or collapse or whatever.

I've got something happening with SCBWI both days of the weekend so three of the 5 meals will just be instant soup but that's more than I've had for the majority of this week!

Last pills of the day taken and...

...I need to order more of one of my prescriptions next week so that I don't run out of them.  That's me appropriately dosed up so far this week though - haven't missed a single pill (I took my twice-weekly one last night by accident, so didn't take it this morning) and I'm about to jinx it, but I'm cautiously hopeful that I'll keep remembering to take them until Sunday so that I have a completely empty pill organiser which very rarely happens, but I feel so much better when I'm appropriately dosed up each day.

Time to start closing all my programmes and apps down so that I can get ready for this SCBWI thing, then I'm off to bed pretty much as soon as it finishes 'cos I'll be barely able to keep my eyes open then 🤣  I'm already yawning 🥱

Very much doubt I'll post again tonight, so I'm gonna say nite nite to you all now and I'll see you bright and early in the morning.

That's the birthday boy's tea eaten...

...so I've spent £50 on his food for today, plus up to another £250 for his glasses is £300 for his birthday, and all I got from him was a home cooked meal that I bought the ingredients for and paid for the electricity for the oven too, so basically he spent about half an hour cooking for both of us and spent bugger all money on me, yet expects me to spend hundreds on him.  He wants me to pay off the arrears on our mortgage too, so that he can start rebuilding his credit score and paying off his three credit cards instead of the £1 a month which is apparently all he could afford, yet he's more than happy to pay for podcasts and patreon things and stuff like that... good job I've got enough to cover it in my savings innit!

I've got a SCBWI thing on tonight and I discovered that I've got 24 bottles of J2O in the kitchen, so that should hopefully inspire me to write 5,000 words a day for NaNo and JanNo and still have four left over to celebrate with at Yule.

I've put a butternut squash onto our next grocery order so hopefully when I have that, Steve can make a dent in his chicken breasts to use up the Korma sauce that I can't have thanks to an allergen.  We're hopefully gonna have something eggy tomorrow and "it'll prolly be a light meal 'cos I'll still be stuffed from today" so yet again we are going by how hungry or otherwise he is, despite me only having breakfast today.

I give up.

That's the tomatoes watered and...

...it's a beautiful and warm day out there, so I've left the back door open to let a bit of fresh air through the house.

 

I'm glad again that I'm a member of SCBWI and that I joined the waiting list for something when I did 'cos I got first place on the waiting list and I'm having a call with someone in the industry to go over one of my manuscripts, so that's awesome and I can't wait to be shot down in flames lol  Nah, seriously, it'll be good to see where I'm going wrong and why I haven't snagged an agent yet... I just hope I remember what the manuscript is about so that I don't make a lousy impression on this person - I'm trying to remain positive lol

So far today, I've managed to...

...achieve a decent amount.

 

Had breakfast (as predicted, not porridge, but I had sultanas and an apple insted), gave two things to Freegle bods, did one set of news, took my day-time pills, potentially found a way to get rid of Steve's barely touched books, almost finished a second set of news, had lunch (spaghetti and meat-free meatballs), finished off the second and final sets of news, "studied" (it's in quotes 'cos all I did was keep pressing the 'next' button so that I could take the first assessment today), passed an assessment first time, with literally no knowledge of the course and now I'm gonna veg out and eat biscuits and surf the 'net and stuff for the rest of the day.

When the creative stuff goes tomorrow and the news has been sorted, I'll hopefully be able to spend the rest of the day properly studying at a different site 🤞

Steve had a telephone appointment with a doc this morning, who has sent him a link to an NHS talking therapy place to see if that helps him with his grief over Mitzi.  I will, of course, do my best to support him too, but having someone trained and who didn't know her so won't get upset too, will hopefully help him to cope with it a bit better.

I also got told that self-published authors (like me with my NaNo book) could submit to a SCBWI member exclusive (UV2020) which is awesome and gives me something to motivate myself to get one of my MS' knocked into the best shape it can be before then.

Overall, I've had a really good day today, which I'm sooo thankful for.

Time to do my daily exercises now and hope that it wipes me out so that I can have an early night tonight.

Virus scan finished, exercise done, backups started...

...just gotta be patient with the backups and remember to charge up my Fitbit this afternoon, after the appointment is out of the way.  It usually takes all day to do the news, let alone the Wednesday virus scan and backups so I dunno what's made it so quick today!

If you decide you want a Fitbit Inspire too, there's a new version (Fitbit Inspire 2) out that has double the length of battery charge than my Inspire has, so I'll have to save up my pennies after I've paid for Patrick's insurance and my SCBWI membership this Summer.

Time to take my Calcium now, before I forget.  BBL.

Opinions please!

Hello again everyone

Sorry for the second post so soon after the previous one, but I just want to ask your opinions on two things before I forget again.

1)  Do legs bleed more than boobs and fingers❓

and

2)  Are jpegs better to use online than gifs❓

Lemme explain:

1)  I'm a spot/scab pickerer - always have been, prolly always will be.  I've noticed that the blood that is produced on my legs is more profuse and takes significantly longer to stop than the blood that is produced on my boobs, fingers and hands.  I can easily stop a finger/hand/boob bleed within less than a minute by wiping the blood away a few times after going a bit deep with my picking/having my blood taken/even having the canula taken out when I leave hospital.  

 

My legs, OTOH, the blood is running down my leg after a few seconds and I have to put significant pressure on the wound for at least a couple of minutes, as well as a plaster for at least 24 hours before the blood stops.

Is that the same for you and everyone else or is my body just weird please❓

 

and now for the second explanation:

2)  For the 20-odd years I've been creating graphics to use online, I've always thought that .jpgs lost quality the more they were viewed, but three people (Steve who's a web developer, and two online courses) have said that it's the other way around and that .jpgs don't lose quality at all, but .gifs do... who's right please❓  

 

I know from personal experience that in the early days of my web/graphic creation back in 1999, .jpgs definitely did lose quality, but that's over two decades ago now, so have things changed and I need to readjust my knowledge because .jpg's don't lose quality the more they're viewed now and because the file size is smaller, it's quicker for them to load on websites too, or have things significantly changed now and .jpg's don't lose quality any more please❓

 

Back to learning about using Facebook for traffic driving to a website now, while I have my lunch (instant zoop and buttered bread)❗ 

 

It's taken 6 hours, but...

...I managed to pass the course eventually, so I'm gonna upload the appropriate pages and get ready for the SCBWI thing now.

 

Gave up on this morning's first course 'cos...

...I found it incredibly dull and didn't hold my interest at all, so I've had my lunch (minestrone zoop and bread) and I'm gonna try a different course this afternoon - I just hope it's more interesting than this morning's one❗

 

I've taken all my daily pills and I've got a SCBWI event this evening, if the link ever comes through 😃

Where on Earth has the morning disappeared to?!

Afternoon all.

 

The morning has totally slipped past me today.  I've taken my morning pills, run the daily virus scan, checked my emails, coded and uploaded a couple of photos and a video of the puppy dog to my homepage, almost bought a couple of courses from the New Skills Academy, but I can't afford it until tomorrrow's groceries have been paid for, added another course I wanna take to my navigation page and queried 3 agents after the SCBWI online party.  I've had a busy morning, but this afternoon will hopefully be quieter 🙄😁

Just taken another video of the sleepy puppy.  She was snoring like a good 'un before and after I started filming her, but not during it... tsk.  I'll code and upload it to my homepage as soon as it's finished uploading to YouTube.

Haven't taken the puppy out for a stroll yet today in case her bottom isn't up to it again.  Maybe when Steve get's back from his medical appointment if the puppy is feeling up to it then though❓

That's my last pills of the day taken, so...

...I'm gonna shut down Firefox in preparation for the SCBWI exclusive this evening... it's the last one though, so I really don't wanna miss it.

 

See you all at some point tomorrow.

Nite nite orl.

Wish me luck!

Just sent Speckles' Diary off to a SCBWI to see what age she thinks it's suitable for and the overall feel of it and stuff.

I wrote it for YAs but after KISS being knocked out of the UV longlist at the first hurdle because it was more suitable for MG than YA I'm not so sure any more!

This year will be my writing year and I won't query agents until I've got every single MS the best it can possibly be during the first half of the year and won't start even thinking about the queries until at least August then I'll query at least 3 agents at a time and work methodically through the Yearbook until NaNo then take it from there.

Got to plan out my next NaNo novel soon too!  lol

Too late to back out now!

Just bought a course of lessons from a SCBWI member that'll teach me how to stop drawing stick men and hopefully well enough to give an idea of what I want my characters to look like in picture books!

I'll never be an artist, I already know that, but I want to be able to draw for my own benefit more than anything!

Impressive stuff IMO!

I've written 31k words since 8 September to yesterday which is only 17 days... impressive stuff or wot!  Couldn't have done it without the SCBWI BI members though!  It's not free to join but just these last 17 days has been so worth it!

16,090 now and that's it for today... more tomorrow though!

Edited a couple of words, thanks to SCBWI and written just over 1k today so I'm going to leave it there until tomorrow now  :-)

14,222 words now and I'm trying to research stuff about vets atm

Been writing 1,200ish words this morning and I'm sorta stuck now because Speckle's Diary needs input from someone who works in a vet's so that I can put in a bit more info about the eldest human puppy's vet job that pays minimum wage and she does things that no-one else wants to do.

A couple of member's of SCBWI have said they know of 2 people so I've sent one of them a Facebook PM because she's a SCBWI member too and I'm waiting to hear about how to contact the other one 'cos she's not a SCBWI member.  If either of them can help me, I'll give them the eldest human puppy's mentor's name as a thank you!

Wish me luck!

I've now sent all my completed manuscripts and the first 4 chapters of the Toni trilogy to an agent.  They are the only agent I'm sending to until I get rejected from SCBWIs UV16!

Wish me luck that either Plum Literary or an agent who reads my Undiscovered Voices submission takes me on!

Gonna work on my MS's now though, if I can wake my muse up!  lol

SCBWI

For some reason my membership expired back in 2012 and I didn't know!  *sigh*

I'm paid up for another year now though so I can get as involved as I like, I just wish I'd known before now though... an email or letter or phone call or whatever?  If there was a way to set up a direct debit then I wouldn't be reliant on my memory and the money would come out automatically without me needing to worry about it!

Hope for terrible drawers

Just uploaded my first doodle for about a decade and a half to SCBWIs Twitter channel thing... it's a hideous doodle even if I do say so myself!  lol