Time Goes By … So Quickly!

I have exactly two weeks left before I will probably have to return to work. It’s not enough, I need more. I had so much planned for this lockdown, and although have been busy every single day, I still didn’t manage to achieve all that I wished to.

During January, I went through my books with a fine toothcomb, finding a few elusive typos, tweaking, and adjusting to make them sharper and better. Formatting was looked at, and I changed the font. This all took a very long time, with most of the month being spent on it.

In February, I wrote a book – the fourth in the Blackwood Family saga – it has been edited, formatted, and is now with my beta reader. I had hoped to make a start on the next book, but that doesn’t seem very likely now.

During March I worked on my website. My website has been sadly neglected since I first had it made five years ago. Back then, it suited a need and I thought it was all right. But I’ve learnt a lot during the years, and I now see how it can be made so much better. Luckily, I have a wonderful website guy – the Adorable Andrew – and he has been nagging at me for years to update it, so he’s pleased I’ve finally got around to it.

But it’s taking more time than I thought it would. It seems there is a vast chasm between what I want and what is possible. The problem is that websites are viewed from different devices and what looks great on a desktop will look rubbish when viewed on a phone, or a tablet. Andrew is convinced he can find a way around it, but progress is hampered by the fact that Andrew is in Germany, so everything must be done via email.

The plan is to have a page for each of my books so we’ve been working together to create a page for Becoming Lili – the first book in the alphabet – because once we have that page perfect, it will provide a template for all the other books. But … it is taking time. Andrew thinks he has figured out a solution. If he has, then the rest of the book pages will be easy to put together. Well, that’s the theory anyway.

This website represents a huge investment of time and money for me, but I plan for it to work harder for me by use of carefully chosen tag words which will help people find my website when they search Google for a specific thing. So, for example, if someone searches for Snow White … the Seven Dwarves … steampunk … airships … there is a good chance they will find the page for Black Ice on my website. If they search for coming-of-age … ugly duckling … stories set in the 1990s … friendship tales … then they might find the page for Becoming Lili … and so on.

A stunning, visually appealing, and interesting website can only increase my standing as an author. At least … that’s the hope.

I’ve installed Grammarly on my computer which has recently been upgraded to work within a Word document and again I’m going through all my books. I’m happy to say I haven’t found much wrong – the odd repetitive word, the even odder missing Oxford comma. I’m also making use of the Read Aloud function on Word. This is an incredibly useful editing tool, and I can’t believe I haven’t made use of it before. Basically, it will read aloud any document saved in Word so I can listen to my books read back to me. Okay, the voice is robotic, so it doesn’t exactly read with feeling, but it does read precisely what is written.

I have read my books aloud before, but the problem with that is the human brain is a very clever piece of machinery and it will automatically read what it believes should be there. For example, read the sentence below:

It is not uncommon for the the human mind to rearrange words the in order it believes is the correct order.

Did the sentence make sense? If it did, it’s because your brain sorted it out for you. This is very clever, but not very helpful when you’re trying to edit a book. Listening to the books being read by a computer means I hear exactly what I wrote so can pick up any errors.

As you can imagine though, it takes a very long time to listen to a whole book read aloud and stay alert to catch any mistakes. So far, I have only done just over three books – and they are the shortest three – so I don’t think I will get all eleven done by the time I return to work. Although, it will be interesting to hear certain … fruity scenes … in some of my books read aloud by a robot.

So, that is what has kept me so busy these past three months. I do wonder if I hadn’t been in lockdown how much progress I would have made? Would I be at the same point? I don’t think so, and it’s comforting that I have achieved something.

This week I had to try and telephone my energy provider. I’m with the company Look After My Bills who search for the cheapest energy deals and switch my provider accordingly. Currently I’m with a company called Green Supplier Limited and pay £88 a month for my gas and electricity. This is not enough to cover my consumption during the winter months, but ample to cover the summer months and clear any outstanding debt leftover from the winter.

So, I was a little surprised to receive a rather snippy email from Green informing me that as I was £120 in debt, they were going to change my direct debit. Now, this is not a lot to be in debt coming out of winter, and as the weather gets milder and my heating is used less, this debt will be paid off and by the time we go into winter again I will be in credit. But maybe Green was being pedantic and wished to clear the debt quicker so were going to slightly up my monthly payment.

This email was quickly followed by another telling me my direct debit of £88 had been cancelled. Then another came hot on its heels, informing me that a new direct debit has been set up for £155! This is ludicrous. To almost double my payment means they will owe me money in a couple of months. I decided to call Look After My Bills – after all, they are supposed to always ensure I have the cheapest deal and £155 per month for two people living in a tiny, terraced house was not the cheapest deal. I’m not heating Buckingham Palace.

There was no way to contact LAMB online, only a telephone number. I dialled it. An automated system told me to select option one if I were an existing customer. I selected option one. Then pan pipe music started up and a voice told me I was number twenty in the queue! I sat and waited, listening to this awful music that had no beginning and no end. It was interrupted frequently by a robotic voice telling me how important my call was – clearly not that important or they’d not leave me hanging on so long – and informing me of my position in the queue.

Eventually, about twenty minutes later, I was number two and was hopeful … and then they hung up on me and I was left listening to the disconnected tone. Swearing, I phoned again. This time I was told I was number eighteen in the queue. I waited. More pan pipe music. Again, I was reassured of how important my call was.

Whilst I was waiting, I searched again for an email address for LAMB and managed to find one. I sent them a quick message explaining the issue and asking for help. Back came a reply. My email was very important to them, and they promised to respond within 5-7 working days. They obviously have a strange definition of “important” that I hadn’t previously been aware of.

I was number thirteen in the queue. More dodgy pan pipes. I was number fourteen … wait! What? Somebody queue jumped?

Eventually, I got through to a human being – Raphael – really, oka-a-ay. I explained the situation to him. He sympathised but told me he couldn’t help; I’d need to speak to Green directly. Great, nearly an hour of my life wasted listening to pan pipes. Raphael helpfully emailed me a link to direct chat with them.

I got through quite quickly, but I don’t think it was a human being on the other end. The answers felt mechanical and a bit too well-rehearsed. I again explained the issue and waited. The live chat feed disappeared and a few minutes later I received an email giving the standard reply that they carefully considered the direct debits they charged their customers and were satisfied they were all correct.

Right, so absolutely no bloody help whatsoever. I gave up at this point. Monday I will try to telephone Green and will hang on – listening to whatever dreadful elevator music they play at me – until I get through to a human being. However long it takes.

Why does everything have to be so annoying and take so long? I feel it’s a symptom of modern life that nothing is ever easy. All these systems we have in place to make life run more smoothly seem to have precisely the opposite effect.

And now it’s Saturday again and I am once more writing my blog and wondering what on earth to tell you about when really, nothing much has happened this week. The days have jogged along blending one into another.

The only thing we did this week out of the ordinary was that Tuesday morning we drove to a local park so that Miss F could carry out a nature study for one of her college assignments. Strictly relegated to the roles of chauffeur, pack mule, and holder of the other end of the string, I assisted as she measured out a ten-metre line on the ground and surveyed how many different species of plant life were to be found along it. This is March in the UK, so not a lot was the answer. She wasn’t allowed to include grass, so that left us with stinging nettles, dock leaves, a couple of daffodils, scilla, primroses, a lone cowslip, and several small yellow flowers that looked like buttercups, but I knew weren’t. I hazarded a guess that they were celandine, and she took photos to identify them when we got home. Much to my surprise, I was right, they were.

Given it was during school time, I was surprised by how many people were in the park. There were also lots of dogs, who were all very interested in what we were doing, and I even had to chase after one cheeky little spaniel who ran off with the ball of string. There were several mothers with pushchairs and babies in those sling things across their chests. I tried Miss F in one of those when she was a baby and thought my spine was going to snap in half.

It was a bright, dry, sunny day but only about ten degrees so a bit on the nippy side. It was nice to see somewhere different, and the swathes of daffodils were a sight to behold.

Apart from that, we have done nothing. You’d think that time would drag, but the truth is both Miss F and I have so much to do that there simply aren’t enough hours in the day. She is busy with the piles of assignments she has, and of course, I’m busy with all my author business.

Speaking of which, a notification has flashed up that the Adorable Andrew has sent me an urgent email about the website. I suppose I had better go and see what that is all about.

Sorry, it’s only a shorter blog today, but aside from website emergencies I also must go and collect a big shopping order in an hour.

Take care everyone.

Julia Blake