Diane Wordsworth: freelance writer ● novelist ● editor ● ghostwriter ● book reviewer ● member of the CWA ● world-famous nutter-magnet
Chapter 2: Week commencing Friday 7 January Friday Yes, we start this week’s diary on Friday. This is because I post it on a Friday and in a lot of cases, schedule it the day before. After a busy week, and one lazy day, Friday was back to normal pretty much. The first job I did was a full readthrough of The Fool so far. I removed all of the extra bits that are part of backstory short stories (three of […]
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See Chapter 2 here Chapter 3 Today is publication day for Flash Fiction: five very short stories. This is a collection of short stories that all run to under 1,200 words each, including two very, very short stories. The reason I lumped five together is because one of the distributors doesn’t like anything less than 10,000 words. That was fine, I just omitted them from there once I’d worked it out. But then Amazon rejected The Girl on the Bench for being […]
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Welcome to the new instalment in the Diary of… series. The Diary of… series is a set of three books, each one set against a year in the life of a freelance writer. Book 1 is Diary of a Scaredy Cat: a year in the life of a frightened writer. Book 2 is Diary of a Pussycat: a year in the life of a freelance writer. Book 3 is Diary of a Tiger: a year in the life of a […]
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Wednesdays will be regular weekly writing prompts again soon, but as I haven’t had chance yet to search any dates, here’s a connected post I made earlier… Ideas are all around, but how do you capture them? In the next week few weeks, I’ll be kickstarting my weekly writing prompts. Before then, and by popular demand, I’m going to start with where to find these ideas in the first place. Ideas are all around Yes, this is a bit of a […]
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Welcome to 2022! And welcome to my challenge for the coming year. The publishing challenge blog post is supposed to be on a Monday, to coincide with my own publishing schedule. However, as yesterday was a bank holiday, I wasn’t at work. So I’m doing this week’s publishing challenge post today. See Chapter 1 here. Chapter 2 I had to have a play around with the current publishing challenge schedule. This is because I was really, really busy with ghostwriting […]
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I didn’t bother sharing a publication day post for Careful What You Wish For because I think one a week is getting a bit old. However, it was published on 20 December. You can buy it in multi-ebook format here. The week after, on 27 December, I republished New Year’s Revolution. This one was originally exclusive to Kindle Unlimited but I took down all of my Kindle-exclusive books a while ago. You can get this one in multi-ebook format too, from […]
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It’s that bit in the middle, in between Christmas and New Year. I hope you had a great Christmas. We’re still eating leftovers and even food that wasn’t even opened. Is there a name for that as well? We had a quiet time. We went to see the daughter and granddaughter on Thursday, to take them all their presents. We went to see my mom on Christmas Eve, but they would only let the poet in as he’s the designated […]
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I’ve been a bit busy these past few days, but wanted to nip on to say thank you for being here, and have a wonderful Christmas!
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This feature is in association with NetGalley. Dreaming of Christmas by T.A.Williams Many thanks to both NetGalley and to Canelo for letting me see an advance reader’s copy of Dreaming of Christmas. Last Christmas, after ten years together, Zoe’s boyfriend’s gift to her was to dump her on Christmas Eve and go and shack up with another woman. On top of that, Zoe also loses her job and has to take the first one that comes along on a tacky […]
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My writing journey started in 1985. It started with a letter A chance find in my late great-aunt’s belongings started a process that has continued to this very day. It was an old letter that finally threw some light on my father’s mysterious upbringing. He’d been brought up in an orphanage. The letter was from a lady who used to live next door to my dad’s family back in 1920s’ Kidderminster in Worcestershire, England. (Pronounced Wuss-ter-sheer!) I won’t go into […]
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It’s publication day today for the SHORT STORY Happy Christmas, Santa. This is another of the new and rebranded Wordsworth Shorts from the archives. The story is available in multi-ebook format from books2read.com. And it is already in Twee Tales Twee. Later it will be added to another collection that will also be available in paperback. You can find all of my ebooks in multi-format on my books2read shelf. Some are available in paperback too, but I’m still learning how to add those to the […]
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Next month, Friday’s blog posts will be Diary of a Tiger: a year in the life of a fearless writer. This month, they’re still the same-old same-old. But there are only two more Fridays left this year when I’ll be posting, so hopefully I’ll have something interesting to say by next week. The technology issues I had on Wednesday took out most of the day in the end, and I didn’t get to finish as much work as I’d like to […]
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The new blog regime doesn’t officially start until the new year. That doesn’t stop me from practising, though and, so far, I’ve done a spreadsheet planner reminding me to write certain blog posts for certain days. Here’s how the blog post part is looking at the moment: Monday: write Tuesday’s blog post (might be Confessions of a Rebel Writer) Tuesday: write Wednesday’s weekly writing prompts Wednesday: write Thursday’s book review Thursday: write Friday’s Diary of a Tiger Friday: write Monday’s Publication […]
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I’ve had a busy couple of weeks, mostly doing one of two things: Planning Ghostwriting I break up for Christmas on 16 December. Before then I had 40,000 words to write for one client and 20,000 words to write for the other. And I had just under 2 weeks. Eek! I have a Words Worth Reading to populate and publish in time for 3 January, which means I also have a novella to finish, two new short stories to write, […]
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I’m already planning ahead to the new year, mostly because I have to do some planning in order to keep on top of everything. And now is the time I’m also thinking ahead to some new series (plural) on the blog. Publishing challenge First of all, there’s the publishing challenge I wrote about on Friday. I’m going to write a series of blog posts about the way I do it and my experiences along the way. When the challenge is […]
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It’s publication day today for the SHORT STORY Dancing on Ice. This is another of the new and rebranded Wordsworth Shorts from the archives. The story is available in multi-ebook format from books2read.com. And it is already in Twee Tales Too. Later it will be added to another collection that will also be available in paperback. You can find all of my ebooks in multi-format on my books2read shelf. Some are available in paperback too, but I’m still learning how to add those to the […]
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I seem to have inadvertently fallen into a bit of a challenge to myself to publish a book a week for a year. I could say I’ll start in January 2022, but the truth is, I started at the end of October. (Have I been boring you with the weekly publication day posts?) On 29 October I published The Most Scariest Night of the Year. A brand-new story that was supposed to be Book 2 in my rebranded Wordsworth Shorts, which […]
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This feature is in association with NetGalley. A Christmas Gift by Sue Moorcroft Many thanks to both NetGalley and to Avon Books UK for letting me see an advance reader’s copy of A Christmas Gift. Apologies for the delay. (I’m still catching up!) Meet Georgine. She has a lot to deal with in the run up to Christmas, such as: trying to make ends meet after her ex ran away and threw her to the bailiffs, even though they weren’t […]
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With me falling quite a way behind, I finally managed to crack on with some NaNo, hopefully in time to rescue the situation. On Friday, Day 26, I had just under 18,000 words to go, which gave me 5 days at 3,600 words per day. I wrote 3,667 words (35,842). 35,842/50,000 words. 72% done! I also had ghostwriting to do and the plan was to work at the weekend. Saturday was very busy, though, and I didn’t get around to […]
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This feature is in association with NetGalley. He Will Find You by Diane Jeffrey Many thanks to both NetGalley and to HQ Digital for letting me see an advance reader’s copy of He Will Find You. Apologies for the delay. (I’ve been catching up!) This is the first story I’ve read by Diane Jeffrey, and I’d like to read another. Once I got over the naïvety of the main character, I found it to be a gripping, fast-paced read with […]
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It’s publication day today for Project Management for Writers: Gate 1. This is the first in a series of five new Wordsworth Writers’ Guides. The book is available in multi–ebook format from books2read.com. When the rest of the series is complete, they will be bundled together into an omnibus edition. You can find all of my ebooks in multi-format on my books2read shelf. Some are available in paperback too. You can find these on my Amazon page or order them […]
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Day 25, I think. And I can’t say Days 19 – 25, because I only seem to have done something yesterday, which was Day 25. So I’ll just claim that one. On Wednesday I submitted the final part of Ghostwriting (1) gig Book 7, and before the day was over, the client was asking if I could start a new story yet. I told him I could start on Monday, and he sent over the next storyline and some tentative […]
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After a 2am finish again on Tuesday night, Wednesday morning was another late one. The cat actually woke me up at 10am (she yowled at me, right in my face), so I was already 2 hours late before even starting my working day. I read more of my NetGalley book over breakfast, as well as completed my social hour. And when I landed at my desk, I finished off yesterday’s blog post and posted it. The bit I added was […]
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… but I still have time to catch up. It just wasn’t yesterday. I was also behind on the ghostwriting, although I did manage to write two more chapters on Monday night – one before tea and one after. I was still behind, though, so I turned yesterday on its head with the intention of doing the ghostwriting first… Don’t you just love (or hate?) that word ‘intention’? The day started a good hour later again, thanks to the dog […]
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On Thursday evening I received a message via the contact form. It was from QueryLetter.com and it was to let me know that they’d given me an award. I receive a lot of spam via the contact form, so the first thing I did was go and check that this was a genuine organisation. It involved some searching, but the upshot is that they are. So, thank you very much to QueryLetter.com for awarding Words Worth Writing a Top Writing […]
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It’s publication day today for the VERY SHORT STORY The Girl on the Bench. This is the third of the new and rebranded Wordsworth Shorts, but it’s a brand-new story originally written especially for Issue 1 of Words Worth Reading. The story is available in multi–ebook format from books2read.com. It also appears in Issue 1 of Words Worth Reading. Later it will be added to a collection and that will be available in paperback. You can find all of my […]
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It’s been a whole week since I updated everyone on my NaNoWriMo progress. This is mostly because I took some time off. I took two days to catch up with and clear a ghostwriting instalment, and then I took two days holiday. Day 12 Last Friday, then, which was Day 12, I wrote a blog post, duplicated a blog post on Medium, raised an invoice (hurrah!), scheduled a blog post for Monday’s publication of Mardi Gras, and I did a load […]
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This feature is in association with NetGalley. Death of a Russian Doll by Barbara Early Many thanks to both NetGalley and to Crooked Lane Books for letting me see an advance reader’s copy of Death of a Russian Doll. This is the third in a series of Vintage Toy Shop Mysteries by Barbara Early, but it was the first one I’ve read. Saying that, I didn’t feel as though I missed anything by not reading the other two, but I […]
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To the outsider, it may look as though I had the last 4 days off. And I did have a 4-day weekend. However, I was working solidly on Saturday and Sunday, and I finished work at 2am on Monday morning. I did this so that I could have a good couple of days off with the poet. Monday morning we were a bit tired (he stayed up with me), but we did go to the seaside and we had a […]
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It’s publication day today for Mardi Gras: a Toni & Bart time-travel tale. This is the first in a new series of novellas featuring sister and brother team Toni and Bart. The story is available in multi–ebook format from books2read.com. It also appears in Issue 1 of Words Worth Reading, in its entirety, and the paperback version will follow. You can find all of my ebooks in multi-format on my books2read shelf. Some are available in paperback too. You can […]
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By the time Day 11 arrived, I was more than a thousand words over where I should be if I’d done 1,667 words every day, and that was before I even did Day 11. Before then, though, there was gig list admin to do. Because the poet came back from his business trip a day early, he was able to do all of the gig-collection and posted it to the website, and he managed to share the list to everywhere […]
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After struggling to get up for several days on the trot, I was finally at my desk by 10am yesterday, with all social media stuff done. I started the next book on my reading list for November, having finished the first one the day before. And I created a new project on Asana for reading. I decided on December’s four books to read and created a new Instagram poster for that, and I updated the Asana project with book cover […]
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Day 9 of NaNoWriMo was another day I went off down a rabbit hole. I’ve been trying to organise my reading, and so this time I was looking for a spreadsheet that collected stats and created nice, pretty charts without me having to learn how to make and position them. Of course, the main aim was to keep a record of the books I’m reading and why I’m reading them. I wouldn’t want to spend time on a book in […]
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This post was going to be a ‘weekend off’ post and it was going to post yesterday. Then I remembered that I also had a publication day post for yesterday, so the weekend off post was added to the NaNoWriMo Day 8 post. Day 5 Day 5, or Friday was supposed to be a day off for me. I was supposed to have a holiday with the poet, but I had a ghostwriting deadline. So I reported to my desk […]
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It’s publication day today for the SHORT STORY The Ace of Wands. This is the first in a new series of short stories loosely based on the Tarot, though not about the Tarot. The story is available in multi-ebook format from books2read.com. It also appears in Issue 1 of Words Worth Reading. Later it will be added to another collection that will also be available in paperback. You can find all of my ebooks in multi-format on my books2read shelf. Some […]
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I had a late start for Day 4 of NaNo. A VERY late start. And I also had a lot of work to do. However, I still wanted to do my NaNo bit for the day and while it wasn’t the first job, I did manage it in the end. I wrote 2,728 words on Day 4. 10,523/50,000 words. 21% done! Before then, though, I had gig list work to do. The poet had already updated the gig list and […]
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I’m in the exciting first few stages of writing and am already at almost 8,000 words after only three days. I hope I can keep the momentum and the rhythm going. I wrote 2,515 words on Day 3. 7,795/50,000 words. 16% done! In other work, I started renegotiating an existing contract. I came close to terminating the contract but the client was really nice and convinced me to have another think. So I am. Because I knew I wouldn’t be […]
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I’ve been using my own 10-project planner for over a year and it really works. But it’s also really basic as well as being really high maintenance. While I was looking for a word-count progress meter (see below and in sidebar… also below on mobile devices), I think I found a new one. On Monday, Day 1 of NaNoWriMo, I finally got around to trying it out. And it really is lovely. Seamless. Easy to use. And all I have […]
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Day 1 of this year’s NaNoWriMo was actually yesterday, and today is Day 2. However, I’m a day behind on the blog posts as they’re usually a round-up of the day before (or days before if other posts have sneaked in). The story I’m working on for this year’s NaNo is The Fool: a Stevie Becks mystery. This is a series of novella-length stories. I was supposed to be doing proper prep work last week, but I was so busy I […]
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It’s publication day today for the SHORT STORY The Spirit of the Wind. This is the second of the new and rebranded Wordsworth Shorts and the first of the archive stories rebranded. The story is available in multi-ebook format from books2read.com. It appears in Issue 1 of Words Worth Reading as ‘from the archives’, as it’s an old and popular story I’ve since written a (specially requested) sequel to. And it is already in Twee Tales. Later it will be added […]
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It’s publication day today for the SHORT STORY The Most Scariest Night of the Year. This is the first of the new and rebranded Wordsworth Shorts, but it’s the first of the brand-new stories written especially for Issue 1 of Words Worth Reading. The story is available in multi-ebook format only from books2read.com. Later it will be added to a collection and that will be available in paperback. At the moment, paperback readers can find it in Issue 1 of Words Worth […]
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