Walking and Working

It seems to have been a week of long walks for some. Metaphorically the England football team began their long walk back home from Brazil to the UK, while me and Pat have been stretching our legs walking around Alicante and Torrevieja. The other kind of long walking I’ve been doing is with my fingers over the keyboard as I battle with a trial on Scrivener, but more about that later. Last Monday we went into Alicante and wandered around the shops. It hadn’t been part of our plan, but we went to Elche hospital to jog their memory about my forthcoming MRI scan, only to be told that my name wasn’t in their computer. So a trip to Alicante ensued followed by a great deal of walking. Putting the car into the garage for a planned repair and service meant most of the day, unexpectedly, being stranded in Torrevieja, so we bit the bullet and wandered around again. Market first, then the sea front and some time in town. Made it back in time for the Italy Vs. Costa Rica game, which Costa Rica won and ensured that England would begin their long walk home. As a result of our peregrinations and other things, we have eaten out three times. Not bad you might think, but we don’t really need all those calories, even if we do burn some off with the walking.

On the book front; I’ve been getting some heartwarming comments about my non-fiction book, A WORD IN YOUR EAR. I never intended to publish this book to earn money and get good sales figures, but with compliments flying around, who knows? Which brings me on nicely to Scrivener. It’s about books of course. What, I hear you asking is Scrivener? Well, it’s a programme designed to help writers, not just fiction writers, to build their work in an easily manageable way without having to switch from one document to another and searching through research data that usually goes missing when you most need it. It comes highly recommended, and already I can see what a practical and helpful tool it is. But will it suit me? Perhaps not at this late stage of my writing career. I have the programme running on a 30 day trial. It means 30 days of use, which could be 30 months if you only use it once a month. I’ve been working with it now for about three days and hope I can get used to it enough to make up my mind about buying it. It’s not expensive, but it may not be necessary. I worked my way through the very informative tutorial. It took me about three hours or more and, like a lot of these ‘simple’ instructions, I’m still confused. But I’m getting there. Hopefully I’ll crack it before my thirty days are up. Wish me luck!