3-4-3 three books for free.3-4-3

Workus Interuptus and that recalitrant ‘U’

Write write write er no, actually

So here we are, fourteen days into the new Karno book and I’ve met my target of finishing the book in two weeks. Well, sort of… Oh OK, not at all!  It was going really well, two chapters a day (around the two-thousand word mark, shorter chapters in this one) and a bit of proof-reading/editing thrown in for good measure. Then something happened…

Firstly a new twist suggested itself. Well that was no problem, once I’d got it sorted out in my head. Actually it was quite good fun and I hope you’ll enjoy it when you get to read it. Then the last couple of chapters I wasn’t happy with. I had all the ingredients of the cake but I wasn’t happy with the result so back into the mixing bowl. Next I noticed that the output had dropped to one chapter a day, accompanied by a lot of checking of emails, sessions trying to beat my best-ever Angry Bird scores (quite pathetic I suspect) and generally staring out of the window at the joggers sweatily panting past. Ah, the sights you see when you haven’t got a gun! What was going on?

Work ethic. Wossat then?

Actually it turns out was my problem was the opposite of lack of work ethic. That might sound topsy-turvy considering the output had so dramatically dropped but the thing was, with the end in sight (doom, doom, we’re all doomed the end is nigh I tell you)  I was actually starting to worry about how I was going to occupy myself once I’d finished the book. Given that a world book-signing tour is unlikely  the answer should have been obvious. Various suggestions, er, suggested themselves, forcing their way into my conscious mind. Cut out the cooked breakfasts (you can get really cheap pure beef sausages here  in Ozworld you know), three pots of tea in the morning is probably two too many (yeah, but I recently unearthed a packed of loose-leaf Yorkshire tea and it’s a great way to start the day)  and try taking more exercise (too hot, we only have a certain number of heartbeats in our lives so don’t use them up too quickly).  A really wacky suggestion floated to the surface. Why not start thinking about the next book? Ah yes but we don’t want to use up all our good ideas, now do we?  OK, that was lack of work ethic because the creative well doesn’t run dry, it’s not a finite thing. Occasionally you have to lower the bucket deeper into the well but it never actually runs dry. I came to the conclusion that this was my unconscious mind’s way of telling me I really am an idle sod and the unconscious mind knows best, or so I was taught when I studied to become a hypnotherapist.

That damned U

After a monumental, nay titanic struggle with the spell checker which would have left Homer speechless with admiration and reaching for his pen to chronicle the saga, I finally persuaded the damn thing that I speak/write English not American. Americans, as some of you will know, do not have the letter ‘u’ in their alphabet, neighbor, harbor, color etc etc. Hang on a minute, the spell checker didn’t flag that lot up. Am I the proud possessor a bilingual spell checker? Alas, I suspect a digital glitch, or to put it another way ‘finger trouble’. Be that as it may and who can really say for sure, the upshot of this was that whenever the spell checker flagged up the letter ‘U’, hereafter referred to as THAT letter, I muttered about two nations divided by a common language and ignored it. It did seem very persistent about a few words however, so I resorted to a paper dictionary, remember them? It appears that I was being unfair to my electronic proof-reader, the letter ‘O’ is not invariably followed by THAT letter. And the book? Almost finished, down to the last two chapters. Hopefully available some time next week which should coincide with the original Karno story, ‘Kittie cracks case‘ being available for free download for a limited period. Thanks to those of you who’ve brought it and no, no refunds!

Breakfast calls. Perhaps just the one sausage this morning? I mean, cutting down rather than quitting is easier, right? Wrong as it happens but hey if I don’t take a break now I’ll be forced to do some work. And the computer battery is running down, there’s only three hours left…pathetic really, isn’t it?

 

 

@peterbernfeld

 

 

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