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Faffing with covers (again!)

(artwork for book cover by Peter H from Pixabay) Yesterday’s morning faff was cover work again. I’ve wanted to rebrand my short stories for a while because I thought the old ones were a bit wishy washy. With three short stories appearing in the magazine in October, and with me wanting to release them after the magazine’s been published, yesterday I think I finally did it. These are the short, complete stories that will be appearing in the magazine. Two of them are […]

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I put my rates up

(Image by Kelvin Stuttard from Pixabay) My rates for editing and proofreading have been static for a lot of years now. And when I started the ghostwriting a year ago, I went in low but towards the top of what I already knew the client paid. After all, I was learning the trade rather than an expert in it. Since then he’s given me a pay rise. With all other prices going through the roof now, the time has come for me to […]

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Writing rules

(Image created on Canva) Another thing I faffed at over the weekend was creating images on Canva to make wallpapers and Instagram posts. (You can follow me on Instagram too, by the way…) I’d seen these writing rules in several places and wanted to paste them everywhere to remind me of them, I think they’re so good. Apparently, they’re known as Heinlein’s writing rules: Writing rules You must write You must finish what you start You must refrain from rewriting, […]

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A packed schedule

(Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay) I ended up working at the weekend again. I’d like to say that once I knew the poet was going fishing, then I saved my work for then. However, it was almost the other way around. I asked him if he was fishing, and when he said yes I thought Phew! Because I already had a lot of work in. Saturday 11 September 2021 I’ve been trying to do some work every day on the magazine. Saturday’s […]

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Follow button now activated

(Image by ijmaki from Pixabay) I think I’ve finally worked out how to follow Words Worth Writing here on wordpress.org. I also think I’ve finally managed to link the blog with Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin again too. To follow the blog, just like in the old days, you can either navigate to the widgets in the sidebar (they’re at the bottom on mobile devices), or you can try using the link here. 👇⬇️ Follow Words Worth Writing on WordPress.com Go on, give it […]

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Plan for September

(featured image courtesy of Canva) I haven’t done a monthly plan since the July one. Nor did I do a round-up for either July or August. It’s time I caught up with that. With only three weeks left in September, I was feeling a little overwhelmed with the amount of work I’ve set myself. And so yesterday evening, after fat club (maintained – even after a holiday), I sat down with my phone and I jotted down every single job […]

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Mock magazine cover + FREE gift for subscribers

(Image courtesy of Canva) I’ve been working on the contents for the new magazine, the first issue of which will hopefully be out on 1 October. I still have some work to do, such as two new short stories to write. However, as I wanted one of the stories to reflect the cover image, I had to choose that too. All of the cover images planned so far will feature somebody reading as the magazine is called Words Worth Reading. (Do […]

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A bit of self-indulgence

(Image by Anrita1705 from Pixabay) I’ve pretty much set my mind on writing a bunch of short stories. For me, aside from the initial spark of an idea, this also means market study. Now, I’m actually moving away from traditional short story submissions and towards indie publishing. So the market study isn’t actually studying the market in the usual sense of seeing who’s buying what. Instead, it’s to study the actual format and see if I can come up with something useable. With […]

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Planning and writing

(Image by webvilla from Pixabay) I lost half a day on Monday, when it should have been my first day back, due to taking the dog to the vet. It knocked me off kilter a bit for the rest of the day, but I was still busy. I was busy setting up the subscription form for the blog posts from Substack. (In case you didn’t see that, it’s in the sidebar too – or at the bottom on mobile devices – and there’s […]

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A lovely week off

(Image: The poet shooting High Force waterfall in Teesdale © Diane Wordsworth) Holiday! It was a bit of a mad rush in the end, but I submitted the last of my work a week ago last Friday. Okay, so it was really late. But it was gone by the time the weekend arrived. On the Saturday, after a bit of a lie-in, we did the holiday shopping and on Saturday night the poet’s band had a gig. On Sunday we […]

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Finance for freelance writers & editors: How to calculate your hourly rate

(Image by Steve Buissinne from Pixabay) As I’m away this week, here’s one I prepared earlier. It’s a rant I had last week on Medium. When it comes to working out an hourly rate, it helps to know where to start. When someone offers me $25 to edit their 10,000-word document I can feel myself going cross-eyed. Apart from being topics of no interest to me when an interest in the topic is a requirement (cosmetics, poetry, ninja kids…), and apart […]

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A Stranger At Eight

(Image by Ben Fleeson from Pixabay) As I’m away this week, here’s one I prepared earlier. This is an old story now, but it was the second one I ever sold, back in the days when they paid decent rates and didn’t grab your rights. I was paid £100 for this story back in the 1980s, when there were a lot of stories like this one about. Who was this strange woman who wanted to see Henry? More importantly, why? Henry […]

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Wednesday writing prompts

(Image by JohnNico from Pixabay) I’m away this week, but here’s one I prepared earlier. Short and sweet once again, but here are this week’s writing prompts. The Swallow Sidecar Company One hundred years ago next year, on 4 September 1922, William Walmsley and William Lyons founded the Swallow Sidecar Company in Blackpool. It was later to become Jaguar Cars. What can you find out about either Walmsley or Lyons? What else were they known for? Where were they born? Where did they die? […]

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Arrivederci Roma

(Image by Michele Caballero Siamitras Kassube from Pixabay) As I’m away this week, here’s one I prepared earlier. This is one of my favourite short stories and it still makes me laugh when I read it. I don’t know why it didn’t sell to a magazine. Perhaps it was my green letterhead… It was the holiday of a lifetime. Or maybe it wasn’t. It was certainly memorable. “No wonder this holiday was so cheap,” grumbled Gaynor. “We’ve had the noisiest hotels, the lumpiest […]

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Polish your work before letting it go

(Image by Anne Karakash from Pixabay) As I’m away this week, here’s one I prepared earlier. It’s a rant I had a few weeks ago on Medium, but the same topic also appears in Diary of a Scaredy Cat. Have pride in your work; at least read it through before sending it out. Writers don’t seem to have pride in their work anymore. When I was learning about being a writer (in class and experiential), it was drummed into me that […]

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Planning ahead

(Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay) Thursday 26 August 2021 I had a lot to do on Thursday, so I was happy when I made it to my desk at a reasonable time again. I started by having a quick look at the short stories I’ve written but done nothing with for possible inclusion in the fiction magazine… It soon became clear that there was a reason I didn’t do anything with them. They were all rubbish. So that was that, then. […]

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Don’t want to

(Image by Jill Heyer from Pixabay) I’m a bit demob happy this week, as we break up for a week’s holiday on Friday (first holiday in more than two years!). I’ve also been feeling a bit demotivated. I think the two may be connected, and it might be why I try not to get too excited too soon too often about things. However, I suppose I haven’t had a bad couple of days. Tuesday 24 August 2021 I did it again. For two […]

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Wednesday writing prompts

Roughly every 5 years the Atacama desert in Chile is in bloom, but not in this picture. (Image by Katrin Schulz from Pixabay) I missed another week, so here is another list of dates, this time for the second half of the month, for you to research and brainstorm for yourselves. Choose a topical date or an evergreen, and consider writing an article, a short story, or something longer. There’s time, after all. 16 August Twenty years ago next year, on 16 […]

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Mondays are always good…

(Image by athree23 from Pixabay) Monday’s are always good… but then everything usually goes downhill from there! Monday 23 August 2021 Considering I didn’t stop work all weekend and I finished very late on Saturday and late-ish on Sunday, I was up surprisingly early and at my desk by 10am. I had a lot to do, though, but only a handful of things for myself before the client work kicked in. My first job was to share yesterday’s blog post to Substack, […]

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