#338 - More Successes!

Well, it finished another month of the 2026 Words per day Challenge last night.

I had to earn it once again, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as last month when I had five to six thousand words a night to write for an entire week to make up all the time I’d lost. The first of the month always feels more optimistic than the hectic end.

I am hoping to be more productive in September than I have been in all the other months.

But having said, that I was up until two AM writing and only got about six hours of sleep as a result. I woke to my alarm dazed and confused. The automatic blinds rose letting some daylight in. I was happy to see that there wasn’t a bunch of messages waiting for me for once on my Teams app.

Everybody seemed to content just to work on the assignments they already had. The newest episodes we are working on have more designs and everything is clearer for the artists as a result. Who knew clarity could reduce questions so effectively.

I had a call with an old colleague to interview them for a potential job. I wanted to bring this person back into the company because of their painting speed and talent. They were available to work, and I was happy to snap them up and add them to our team of already amazing painters. The call went well and it was mostly us going through the paces. I had already decided to hire them.

At noon, I popped my head outside and it was like being in a steam room. The humid was off the charts and the heat was high. Robyn has some extra work to do and with the heat we were more than happy to skip the lunchtime walk. I really could have used the exercise, but it would have been draining to go out there today.

Robyn used the treadmill in the basement later which was probably a good alternative to braving the sauna outside. The house has been a little warm all day as well, I had to adjust the air conditioner’s setting. I think it is programmed for cooler temperatures for this time of year.

I made myself a lunch of leftovers rom last ngiht

Kiddo #2 has his girlfriend over this afternoon, and they have been giggling and making noise since she got here. We can’t be too upset with people laughing and having a good time.

I made a list of all the ingredients I’ll need to make the parsnip and pear soup. We decide we would bring the soup and another big batch of Chicken Ruby. I plan to bring some Beaujolais poached pears as well for dessert.

That means I’ll have to do a bit of cooking this week, but there is plenty of time to do one of the meals per day.

I’d like to be able to read more of The Sand Pebbles tonight. It’s been a while since I have been able to read anything other than food labels. One of the ways I’ll be able do that tonight is to get my writing done early. On that note I used a bit of my lunch hour to get things rolling. I’ve stated before how much more enjoyable the writing is when it’s chopped up into more manageable chunks. I’m back to the regular 2026 words a day, which always feels easy after having to do six thousand like the night before. And I am less exhausted than I was last month when I ended it by doing five thousand words a day for a week straight.

Now all I have to do is keep it up.

But my afternoon writing session bought me about seven hundred words of quota for today and that’s almost at third of what I need to get done today. So, I am pretty happy with that as a start to today’s challenge.

I wanted to have something on while I worked. Then I remembered there was a podcast/ behind the scenes program on Netflix about the Peaky Blinders television show. I was delighted to hear that the show creator, Steven Knight, was told many of the stories of these characters from his mother and father as a young boy. And he was related to some of the characters in the show. Although much of it is made up, many of the characters really existed and some of the lines are direct quotes or paraphrasing.

It sounds like he grew up with colourful parents and was surrounded by similar characters to the ones he wrote for the show. An Italian gang in the show, run by the Sabini family, that goes to war with the Shelbys over the betting at the racecourse was also real. As well as the Jewish gang run my Alfie Solomons, played by Tom Hardy with some flair.

I was just interrupted by kiddo #2 who offered me a cinnamon role out of the blue. I was gobsmacked to be included and delighted to get a little treat at the end of the day. I’m licking my fingers, that was a good cinnamon bun. Not to sweet and the right amount of cinnamon.

I took a break from things and played a quick game of chess. It was another game that I thought I should have won. I made multiple blunders that my opponent could have exploited but the missed all three of them. That should have been a signal to me to slow down my game play. I am up against someone who isn’t looking at the full board. Then again, neither was I.

I can always tell my state of mind by how I played chess. Missing so many moves and putting my pieces in jeopardy is a sign of impatience and weariness. But I was still alert enough to notice when I had made a big error.

The day ended and I felt a bit restless. I took a short walk to the mailbox and retrieved the mail. Well, mail is giving it too much credit. It was a pile of advertisements that I’ll never look and now go straight into the recycling bin beside the mailbox. Thankyou to the neighbour that did that for the community.

Robyn was still working at her desk, having moved onto her freelance work. I wandered around the house listlessly and settled upstairs to watch some YouTube videos. I put on Mickey 17 for a bit because I wanted to tune out for a bit. Robyn came up to get ready for her second job, and I decided to order a pizza from Blondies. Neither of us was interested in cooking today. The pizza I ordered was named Don’t Think…Sparkle! What an odd name for a pizza with Venetian Salami, Italian Sausage and Bacon. I love Th pizza, but their names aren’t very helpful.

Robyn left and I continued with Micky 17 for a bit before getting bored. I went back to YouTube and watched some things I probably never would have any other time.

Both the kiddo’s have friends over tonight, so it’s a full house. Robyn returned just as the pizza arrived. We had dinner together at the kitchen table, and the kiddos came by to steal a slice. This was the first time I’d tried this pizza combination, and I have to say it was very good. Basically, it’s a meat lover’s and I love the meats.

Robyn went back to her desk to get back to her freelance work, and I head upstairs and searched for some mindless entertainment. I really couldn’t find anything that fit the bill. Then I came across the Michael Jackson biopic, and I thought I could have that on and do some blogging with it on in the background.

At least I know the soundtrack will be good.

I’d completely forgotten about his chimpanzee Bubbles.

I see Apple finally caved to Trump’s demand to change the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America. I wonder if it will affect their sales here in Canada as a result. Might be a good year for Samsungs in the Great White North this Christmas.

And I see in the news that the US executed another missile strike against Iran. And Pete Hegseth in the news, not for his bad choices with the military, but for making a controversial comment about Canadian Cadets. It seems like the US government is all about saying mean things to people and not really doing anything.

I have to say I am enjoying the Michael movie. I’m sure it’s not entirely accurate, but if I judge it just as a movie, it’s entertaining. But then again, he was always a master entertainer.

I decide it was time to stop watching tv, take a break from writing and finally read. I miss being able to read. I don’t get to do it often enough as far as I am concerned.

The book is getting more interesting and I was able to read two or three chapters. A major incident happened in the section and one of the beloved characters was brutally killed. I felt it happened really fast in the narrative and my instinct from a writing perspective would have been to drag it out a bit more. The tension of the scene is released when the main character has to shoot his friend as a merci killing. So, I think that scene deserved a bit more time on the page.

Robyn came upstairs after finishing her work for the day and we watched an episode of Ted Lasso. This episode had some good laughs and a bit more emotional beats than some of the earlier episodes in this season. It was really an episode about everyone’s relationships. I think every main character had a relationship issue and the power had switched hands or reversed from where it was the week before. But I think that is just how you write a compelling show. The power keeps moving back and forth. Successes are reversed and failures become successes.

I was ready to watch another show afterwards, but it was almost midnight and Robyn wasn’t for staying up any longer. And she was probably correct to say so. I wanted to watch an episode of Lioness or the next episode of Lanterns. I’ll just have to wait until tomorrow.

I had more writing to do. I need to make sure I start of the first of the month by making my word quota. It would be awful to start off the month in the negatives.

Apparently, there is a mysterious floating island in British Columbia that just appeared one day. People have photographed it and it is being tracked by satellites. I am reminded of the floating island in the amazing book The Life of Pi, by Yann Martel.

They think the island floated free when a lake was filled after being dry for a few years. And they are warning people not to land on the island because it could be formed out of a bed of decaying logs. So far it is moving too fast to be a solid mass. BC Hydro said it moved thirty kilometers in one day. Islands appearing out of nowhere isn’t something I expected to read about in the new today. But it’s nice to see our world still has plenty of mysteries for us to ponder up its sleeves.

Well, even though I broke the writing sessions up in the three segments today, I am still up past midnight chasing down my quota. I did make the task feel less like work, and I did have a nice evening watching tv, YouTube and even reading a few chapters of my book. So, I rally have no good reason to complain about it.

I guess I had hoped to get it all done before the tv watching and the reading. This can be my goal for tomorrow.

At least I am ending the day having made my quota and feeling good about it.

Until tomorrow.