Walks and work

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!