I still wasn’t in the right place to do any work on Wednesday, so instead we tackled the office. The office was a bit of a dumping ground when we first moved here. We had to get rid of so much stuff anyway, but the stuff left over was distributed between the shed, the garage and the office. We carved space out in both the garage and the office so they could at least be functional, and the poet’s been using the dining table for his Teams meetings.

After a semi-disastrous September start to my new working year, October will now be the time of great resetting. I had a few days away from the computer, away from work, while I decided what’s a priority for me, what’s less toxic for me, and what I can do away from all the tech noise that’s beyond my control. And that’s why today’s post is a little later than usual.

September is usually a really good month for me and my work and my productivity. September 2026, however, had other plans. The poet was quite poorly, causing us to come home early from our holiday, and he ended up being hospitalised. It was while he was in hospital that I succumbed to a shocking cold that had been nagging at me for weeks.

September is usually a really good month for me and my work and my productivity. September 2026, however, had other plans. The poet was quite poorly, causing us to come home early from our holiday, and he ended up being hospitalised. It was while he was in hospital that I succumbed to a shocking cold that had been nagging at me for weeks.

Monday was a flurry of activity and I got a lot done. Tuesday was less great. Much less great. I just couldn’t get going. Instead, I fannied and faffed around, aimlessly doing nothing, pretty much. The big distraction was the Labour Party conference in Liverpool. I’m not usually bothered about the party conferences, but this one was special as it was our new prime minister’s maiden speech to conference.

The poet was very good yesterday. He managed to get up only a few minutes after his alarm went off. I, however, chose to have a further 45 minutes! It meant I was later getting up than I intended, but only by about 15 or 20 minutes. He went off to work while I fed the dog, had my dirty cuppa, and put a washload through.

I finally got my act together a bit more on Friday by clearing out all of my blog posts from Patreon. I left the month ahead and monthly wrap-up posts and I left the book reviews. But everything else came off. Then I went in and rebooted an old premium post I’d unpublished and gave it a new date. This means that from today, and aside from the posts mentioned above, there won’t be any free content on my Patreon from now on.

How and where to find topical ideas to write about that editors want to see

How and where to find topical ideas to write about that editors want to see In the coming months I’ll be kickstarting my monthly writing pro

And here we are, the last Friday in September. Wow. First thing Thursday morning I received an email from the support team at KDP. My request for an exemption from the 2-book-a-week limit due to backlist migration was declined. No reason given. Not even a temporary reprise. I really do understand why they’re doing this, but I do think it may be a bit harsh.

Yesterday was all nicely laid out with the next tasks all pigeonholed for the day…and then I woke up to an email from Amazon asking me for a detailed response to why they should allow me to publish more than the now requisite 2 books per week. So the entire morning was spent doing this. The historic details were easy, and my reasons behind the request were easy too, but they wanted to know so many other things, like how many items, what they consisted of, etc, etc, etc.

We actually got up at the time we planned to get up yesterday. Progress at last? Let’s see if we can keep it up. The poet is due back at work on Monday and we need to break him back into getting up on time gently. It was a nice day so I put an unexpected wash load through and put some clothes away that were in the tumble dryer the day before.

I was slow getting started yesterday. I don’t know why. I was a bit tired after the weekend, and having my sleep disturbed three nights on the trot by a niggling back, so perhaps that was it. I have noticed I’m sliding down my regular armchair of an evening now and constantly having to straighten up. Since we’ve been in this house, I’ve had my morning cuppa in the same chair too, whereas at the old house I’d sit on the settee with the dog in the morning.

One of Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s most famous short stories, “Sing” combines music, aliens, and first contact into an unforgettable tale of the link between research and danger. Chosen as one of the …

White House promoted its own ‘Trump TV’ feed online after ABC, CBS, Fox News and NBC decline to participate

Friday was more busy than it looks when I go down and tick things off, but the truth is, I worked on a few large jobs rather than a lot of little jobs. I was halfway republishing Ten Short Stories: Wordsworth Shorts 11 - 20. I’d done the cover, I’d updated the interior, and I’d compiled all ten stories for this volume inside its own folder in the master short story Scrivener file.

Okay, so we may have lost most of the first half of September to holidays and sickness, but the rest of the month sure is moving on by in a flash! Looks like sleeping in that extra half hour is the norm this week. By yesterday we were awake on time but then we spent the next 30 minutes talking about getting up!

Today’s image is another from our campsite 2 weeks ago, the last one I’ll be using this week. We slept in again on Wednesday. You can’t half tell someone isn’t at work at the moment! It was the same time as the day before, though, so no additional time lost. We just need to try harder as the days progress.

Diane Wordsworth was born and bred in Solihull in the West Midlands when it was still Warwickshire. She started to write for magazines in 1985 and became a full-time freelance photojournalist in 1996....

Today’s image is another from our campsite 2 weeks ago. I’ll be using these pictures all this week, just to give an idea of why we keep going back there and why we like it so much. Having slept in rather badly on Monday, we had all good intentions of Doing Better on Tuesday. We did Do Better…by all of half an hour!

Today’s image is another from our campsite 2 weeks ago. I’ll be using these pictures all this week, just to give an idea of why we keep going back there and why we like it so much. We had such good intentions for Monday. The poet was still off work but needed to go and arrange a sick note at our new GP, and I had a full week of work planned, starting at 9am on Monday with my first reading hour of the week.

Today’s image is another from our campsite 2 weeks ago. I might just use these pictures all this week, just to give an idea of why we keep going back there and why we like it so much. Last Tuesday, at around 5pm, I got the phone call to go and collect the poet from hospital - a whole hour early!

Three Fantasy Novels Set in Kristine Kathryn Rusch's Acclaimed Seavy County!

Our Peggy on our campsite (© Ian Wordsworth) After a busy week and a busy weekend we had a lovely few days away at one of our favourite places. We’ve been to Dent in Cumbria, on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales, three times as a couple now, and we fully intend to go back again. The weather wasn’t fantastic, but we didn’t mind that.

Today’s picture has nothing to do with today’s post, but it’s one I received back in December for free and liked, and I just hadn’t got around to using it yet. I found it when I was clearing out my downloads folder last week. It rained on Thursday for the rest of the day, and then it rained for the rest of the night as well.

September is the time of new beginnings for me, but instead of work, we’re starting September this year with a holiday. That means I have a week less than usual in which to do whatever work I get around to. I’m going to try and be more disciplined in September. I’ve had a couple of months off and a couple of easy months.

At the start of the month we had builders here, levelling the back garden and turfing it. The job wasn’t as big as they’d thought it would be as the raised patio they were removing was filled with compacted sand instead of rubble and concrete and bits of cement. This at least meant that they finished a lot sooner than they thought they would.

Here in the UK it’s a bank holiday today, late summer bank holiday. And we’re taking it. If you’re taking it too, have a good one!

By the time we woke up yesterday, the rain was supposed to have already been here for a couple of hours, but when I checked the forecasts, they all said around 10am. I kept looking up to the sky and it did look a bit cloudy. But we’ve had promises before and I wasn’t holding out much hope. The poet was working from home ahead of a hospital checkup and his first meeting was at 9am.

So the rain we were warned would arrive by 8am yesterday and cause flash flooding everywhere never arrived. Indeed, by 8am it had even disappeared off the weather forecast. At the time of writing, it had been pushed right back to ‘Thursday morning’. I’ll be keeping my nose pressed to the window looking for it, I can tell you. I was up on time yesterday, feeding the dog, putting washing through, etc.

I finally dipped my toe into Patreon around a year ago and I followed a handful of people on there to get an idea of what they’re posting and what readers might like. I even posted a few premium items, just to test the water. When we decided on the house purchase and subsequent renovations earlier this year that would require some serious project management, I was a bit overwhelmed with the amount of work I was giving myself and I decided that some things had to give in order for me to retain my sanity and not work myself into illness.

There's always a surprise as I deal with the old files for WMG, particularly for work Dean or I produced after we moved to Las Vegas. The su

Season One of Inheritance comprises the first five books in the series: Jack of Thorns  Knight of Flames Lord of Ravens Reeve of Veils Page of Tricks

Amazon.com: The Infinitely Stranger Cases of Sherlock Holmes (Audible Audio Edition): Paula Hammond, Michael Langan, MX Publishing: Audible Books & Originals

We were up with the larks on Saturday because we had to get the dog to doggy daycare ahead of the daughter’s wedding. The dog sitter is only 15 minutes from our house, at the most, but it was 40 minutes ore more away from the wedding venue. We did wonder about having breakfast early, but decided we’d have it before we left for the day.

We were up raving early on Friday because the campervan had to go for its annual MOT. It’s still in the lockup over by our old house and while the mechanic asked us to get it to him ‘first thing’, the lockup doesn’t open until 8am, and then we had to jump start the battery when we got there. We rolled up at the mechanic’s and then had to hang around for a while until a parking bay was free in which to leave the van.