A good reminder how it feels to be a smug overachiever

AI instruction: Woman with pixie-cut white hair and thick black glasses, wearing a black polo neck jumper, sitting at a desk overlooking hills and trees, with a laptop on her desk. She is looking very smug and pleased with herself

21. Friday 23 January 2026

My friend Carla and her daughter Imogen are currently on the M6 heading north. The three of us are having a sleepover in the cabin that Carla helped me build. As is often the case when I have a hard finish for some writing, I kind of overachieved today. Well, I say that but for (fictional) class #2 I had to rewrite and change quite a lot, but for class #3, which I was doing today, it was more of an edit. Hurrah. It was good to have a more positive day in terms of feeling I’d done quite a lot.

                Narissa and I had our weekly (ish) video chat. We often end up catching up on other things as well as writing, but today we were both very focussed on writing and editing and she had updates about her publisher and editor.

                It really is good to have had a day where I feel I achieved a lot. I’ve told Narissa I want (and indeed should have) to finish this version (v3) by Sunday 15 February. She’s given herself a deadline of 15 March for the next stage of her writing. Deadlines are good. If I was as productive (ahem, yes, I reiterate there was quite a lot of copying and pasting though!) over the next fortnight as I was today, I’d finish earlier … I’m getting ahead of myself!

In other news, I got the cabin ready, had a nighttime outdoor shower, made a loaf of sourdough in honour of Carla’s visit, made us dinner for tomorrow night, lit the fire and tidied up a bit. Check me out, total overachiever!