Flourishing Friday

I'd love to say that it's been a fun week (it hasn't really, it's been a bit weird.) We lost our heat on Wednesday - couldn't get the boiler started, and I'm pretty sure that Edwin used my disabled status to get someone to come out at 8:30 Thursday morning [which I hate] because I don't see myself as that disabled. Anyway, we had heating all yesterday and last night - which the cats adored. Edwin's still partly worried and partly furious - he lost two jobs because of his injury and may lose the third which makes our finances very dodgy. I'm applying for remote jobs and I'll let you know how that goes. I believe I can make a difference and that my skills should be worth paying for. Plus the fact that Percy (our Cat) has been diagnosed with struvite crystals in his bladder and now needs to be on a special food which costs roughly about £40-£50 a month and there’s a part of me that can’t help thinking that because we brought him to this flat we have caused his condition. I’m beginning to think that Guilt is my default condition.

When I was younger, and hell of a lot more naive, I used to watch a lot of Murder She Wrote and Jessica Fletcher was a successful Mystery Novelist who made oodles of money; both from her books and presumably from assisting the Police in solving murders. She had her house in Cabot Cove, and even an apartment in New York, and still had time to mentor lots of young, aspiring writers. So, growing up I thought that’s what I want to be, a writer anyway, I always wanted to write, but the idea of being rich as Croesus, really, really appealed. Of course, now I know that Self-Publishing is unlikely to make me very much money (if ever!) But one could describe it being young and ever so slightly foolish. I recently read a review of my first Romance Novel which was a little upsetting to say the least. Personally I disagree with this particular person because I don’t think I made my heroine a 21st-century woman, I made her feisty, and sassy and unwilling to take any sort of crap from anyone, especially the male of the species. This reviewer seems to forget that this is a woman of independent means, she is certainly aware of rank, which is why she is unwilling to engage with the Host and Hostess of the first Ball that she and her sister attend. But I probably shouldn’t get hung up about it because there’s no way you can please everybody all of the time. And I have learned, albeit unwillingly, not to respond to trolls. I made that mistake once when I wrote a sort of addendum to the final Terry Pratchett novel and the reviewer want me to fall naked into a cactus patch – and like a fool I replied. As you might imagine, this encounter did not go well.

On the plus side I’ve made another couple of books, the first of which has turned out reasonably okay; the second, well, not so much, the signatures are great (the signatures are the block in between the covers and endpapers) and they sew up really well using a kettle stitch and look really good, and even applying the glue and clamping the signatures down so they form a solid block works brilliantly. But making the cover, applying the endpapers and getting everything to sit properly is proving harder than you could possibly imagine. The ones I did for friends for Christmas presents have turned out (or rather did turn out) really well and I’m pleased because I could not have sent them Journals that I did not make the best of my ability. Maybe I rushed it with this one, or rather these two. I glued the signature block and then didn’t wait for it to totally dry, and then tried to rush applying the PVC glue to the card, and then didn’t take the time to spread the paper properly over the card and smoothing down (I was also panicking a bit which is not good when you are making any part of the book. One should always think more haste less speed.)

Things are okay here, admittedly my writing seems to have gone to the dogs since mid-June of last year for the very obvious reason that my Mum suddenly passed away and it seems that she took my writing ability with her – I been able to write some Fan Fiction, but as for Original Fiction and Poetry there’s nothing. Most people have said that it will come back, but it is getting frustrating. I have tried writing some poetry, but with limited success and all of it sounds trite and uninteresting and doesn’t have the ‘Wow’ factor that I thought I captured when I won first prize at the Perton Show. I’m beginning to think that perhaps it never will, although everyone I’ve spoken to, either online or in person has both expressed sympathy and said that if I give it time it will come back. But then I never was the most patient person in the world.

I have started an online Proofreading/Copyediting Course and passed the first module with flying colours which I’m fairly flabbergasted about because I suspect that most of my answers were guesses. At least this course seems to be staying online. I have undertaken three courses up to now – this being the fourth – and on each of the previous three occasions all of them have either gone bankrupt, gone redundant or just disappeared into the ether and must’ve spent over £500 on the past three courses just to get a Proofreading qualification in order to make myself more appealing to employers. Hopefully, everything will work out this time. Well, that about wraps up this week, I haven’t done an awful lot in any of the various Lockdowns simply because well there hasn’t been an awful lot to do. I’ve exhausted most of my DVDs, even to the point of finding old Disney cartoons and watching them. Edwin goes to get his Covid-19 jab on Saturday and hopefully it won’t be too long before I’m summoned to mine. First port of call when Lockdown eases is a trip to a hairdresser!