What a difference a day makes

30. Wednesday 4 February 2026

Today was almost a reversal of yesterday, whoop!

                I often hear of writers being asked if they’re plotters or pantsers (as in seat of your pants). For quite a long time, I considered myself a plotter, but I was kidding myself. I have plotter intentions but I’m most definitely a pantser by default. Today, however, I spent most of this morning actually plotting the “new” final few chapters and then wrote two of the four of those new chapters (I think the final two will be fairly similar to how they are currently). And I kind of stuck to the plot. Maybe that’s not entirely accurate. I listed all the things I wanted to include in those chapters, and actually managed to incorporate them all. I have tried that approach before and it does work for me, so long as I write myself a concise list of points to include. It took me a long time before I actually wrote the chapters but I started off by doing a steno brain-dump and talking myself through the points I needed to include and trying to find the errors, etc. (Another tactic that usually seems to work well for me if I can’t get going with something or I’m stuck on how to express a point) I also did something I know I should do more often, which is to think of clues that need a reference point. For example, I remembered a possible slip-up one of the suspects made and found a way to make it into a useful clue. I was embarrassingly impressed with myself for the three or four such points I not only thought of but actually planted earlier in the story.

In other news, yesterday I was concerned that my sourdough was too gooey and wouldn’t even rise to make an edible loaf. Not only did it rise, the slash I made across the dough to encourage an ear actually worked (it hadn’t worked in my last few loaves, apparently likely caused by overproofing). I let the bread cool down for a couple of hours then had a crust with butter and a sandwich with cheese and salami. A fresh bread sandwich is far superior to a mere sandwich!

                No issues with coal and I got the buckets into the house without incident.

                And my laptop, very bizarrely, worked absolutely fine today. There were no updates, nothing that I noticed, so I have no idea why it was so painfully slow yesterday (really, truly, cusp-of-terminal slow).

                I walked up the garden today and collected two SD cards from wildlife cameras. All animals and birds we’ve seen before but good to see the heron, fox, hare, deer. Hmm, just realised, no badgers, though I know they’re around because there are holes all over the lawn and they have a tunnel under the fence from the neighbour’s field. The photos, however, more like photo-bombing birds and animals (see heron and deer below!).