Back in Time for Burns Day + Photo Prompt & Poem

So I’ve just returned from my birthday/anniversary holiday! It was a very chilled out holiday, as opposed to the kind where you try to cram in as many activities and days out as you can. I always save that for the summer one! I gave myself the week off to relax, but despite that, I couldn’t stop my head from buzzing around non stop with ideas.

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Writing!

The journey from my village to Edinburgh was overall around 4 hours, with most of that being a comfortable coach trip. I assumed that I’d be able to do a lot of thinking while on the coach, since usually buses and trains provide me with a lot of inspiration for some reason. Unfortunately though, since I’d had to get up at 5 in the morning, I slept the whole time and not a single thought entered my head, apart from ‘I’m tired….’

That was quite a disappointment, as I thought it’d be the only time that I would get to brainstorm during the holiday. Thankfully though, I was very wrong.

As soon as I got to the hotel, I got comfy, and found some trash TV to watch. (It’s been my holiday tradition for years) And as soon as I started to relax, exhausted from the travelling, I found myself unable to sleep from all the ideas spinning around in my mind.

This continued throughout the whole trip, and by the time we were heading back home, I’d thought of some new scenes for my current book, come up with a more solid plot for my new countryside idea, decided on a big plot twist/point for another idea that I’d not done much with, and finally, I had an idea for a little series of short stories based around people visiting a hotel.

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So when we got back home, I knew I had plenty of stuff to get busy with!

It’s only been a few days since we returned, so I haven’t tackled all of these wee projects yet, but I did sit down to start the most important one, which is my current book.

I managed to get around 1000 words done yesterday, taking my new total to about 23,300 words!

I feel like I’m slowly but surely climbing towards a finished product, but at the same time, there’s just SO much plot left to get through.

The more I write, the more convinced I am that this is going to be a seriously long story. After all, my main character has been making small talk to a side character now in this current scene for almost 2000 words! Is that normal?

However long it ends up, I’m enjoying writing it, and I’m trying to put a lot of detail in to everything, since that’s the kind of thing I prefer personally.

Let’s just hope that people agree if anyone ever reads it!

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YouTube!

As well as getting new ideas while I was on holiday, I kept encountering more scammers online. Even though I was supposed to be relaxing, I just couldn’t ignore the ridiculous messages.

By this point, I’ve gotten comfortable with the editing software, and I’ve been kindly provided with enough scam messages to fill at least 20 different videos. So overall, things are going pretty well on that front, but while on holiday, I hit a small roadblock along the way that I really didn’t expect.

So I saw some people discussing their own experience with scammers on Twitter, and me being naïve, I thought I offer up one of my own interactions, one with the fake illuminati, of all things.

Somebody saw the tweet, and asked me to explain what happened. I told them about the conversation, and they said it was very funny. That was all fine, until they accused me of lying about it.

I was a little bit gobsmacked, to be honest. I know the internet (especially Twitter & Reddit) can be hostile, and a lot of people go searching for arguments, but it feels a little bit sad that the first reaction I got to sharing something like this is just to assume that I’m a liar.

I definitely don’t fake any of the conversations that I’ve had with these people, (I sent this guy the screenshots of all the emails to prove it) and I know within myself that I haven’t lied about anything. But it just got me thinking, when I eventually get the videos ready and post them, is everyone just going to think I’m making it up?

I really hope not, and it’s a little bit of a daunting thought, but I’m still going to post the videos anyway, because I think it’s something that people need to know about!

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Photo Prompt!

So I thought for this week’s photo prompt, I’d use some of the pictures that I took on holiday. Edinburgh might not have the most shops out of all the cities, but it definitely has some dramatic, interesting looking buildings!

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Poem!

Well, we got back home just in time for Burns Night, so of course I have to include a poem at the end of the post! Seriously, it’s one of my favourite days of the year, not only because it’s celebrating my great wee country, but mostly, because I love haggis! I need to eat it more often…

Every year, on January 21^st the

Day of my birthday rolls around again.

Instead though this time, a

New special day came first.

Bringing celebrations of

Uniting through marriage,

Romantic, and fond memories.

Great times are guaranteed on our

Holiday for anniversaries.

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Well, that’s about everything that I got up to this week. Apart from that, I kept up my bad movie resolution, which I’ve been keeping track of over on Letterboxd. At the end of the month, I’ll probably do a little post about everything I’ve watched! Thanks for reading!