So Much Work!

Good morning!

What a gorgeous... uh... rainy day it is today... I'm just in a good mood because I'm almost recovered and I'm back at work and rearing to go.

There is SO much work to do. It's a brilliant kind of busy - on that, fuelled equally by adrenaline and caffeine, will make the day just fly by. The first order of business, trying to get the pdf converter I have to convert the document in the correct page size; chiefly, 6 in x 9 in. It's so far not working very well. Oh, but I can get you a sneak peak of what the cover for the paperback will look like when everything eventually works out:

Ta dah! Isn't it pretty? While I'd love to take credit for the simple, yet elegant, design, I'm afraid, alas, that it was created by Createspace.com's easy-as-pie cover creator. Granted, I did paint the image that graces the cover, so I'm pretty chuffed all in all. I think it looks lovely in any case.

I still have those short stories to judge, which I should do today, assuming I can get the correct page size for this stupid pdf. If not today, then I'll have to give over my Saturday to judging. I do so hate having to work on weekends....

I also have a short story still waiting to be Beta Read. Is that correct? Can I use "Beta Read" in this way? Oh well, I just did.

Then, as if that wasn't enough, I've just been offered a trial freelance editing job for a book that looks to be very interesting indeed. Not sure if I'm allowed to deliver the details, so I'll just leave it at that. I would very much like to at least make start on that today as well.

Perhaps I'm being a little too ambitious.

In any case, with all that going on, I won't have any time whatsoever for my own writing. That puts me officially 20 000 words behind my target for this date. There is no way I'll make that up, so I'm going to have to adjust my deadline.

That irks me. Oh well, it can't be helped.

This time away from my writing has given the chance for a few ideas to percolate in any case, so it's not totally a write-off. Pun only slightly intended.

I had best get on with it, if I'm to make any grounds today. Now, I believe I owe you 2 Forgotten English posts today as I was too ill to even make it to my desk yesterday. Thus, without further ado:

Flamfoo

A gaudily dressed female, one whose chief pleasure consists of dress. Perhaps from flam, "an illusory pretext", and foye, what excites disgust. This term, however, seems to be the same with Old English flamefew, "the moonshine in the water." Any gaudy trapping in female dress; Ayershire.

- John Jamieson's Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language, 1879

Merry As A Grig

A grig is a grasshopper. In most countries the cricket and the grasshopper are types representing a careless, happy existence. We have the related saying "Merry as a cricket," and Tennyson in "The Brook" speaks of "high-elbowed grigs that leap in summer grass."

- Henry Reddall's Fact, Fancy, and Fable, 1889