August 2023 – Words Worth Writing

31 August 2023

Thursday 31 August 2023: Back to work + August wrap-up

It feels like a long time since I was last here. That’s what having a holiday does, plus coming back to two days of solid work on one job. We had a great time in Whitby. I don’t have the photographs yet, but as soon as I do I’ll send out a newsletter. Ideally the newsletter needs to be for...

writer at work

18 August 2023

Friday 18 August 2023: Onward, Whitby

Here’s the pre-holiday roundup I promised on Wednesday. Tuesday I didn’t do any work on Tuesday. After a very rough night with the dog (and I was at home with him on my own this time), I stayed in bed until 11am. He was awake every single hour at first, fidgeting or wanting to go out. He settled in to...

writer at work

16 August 2023

Wed 16 & Thu 17 Aug 2023: Proofreading

Today and tomorrow (Wednesday and Thursday) will be wall-to-wall proofreading, and proofreading is the ONLY job I’ll be doing. We break up tomorrow (Friday) for a week and while I’m still waiting for materials to come from the client that will need proofreading, I’d like to get the book at least done before we go on holiday. And it’s a...

writer at work

15 August 2023

Tuesday 15 August 2023: I published a boxed set

I may have had an early start yesterday, but it didn’t necessarily follow that I did everything I needed to do. Firstly, I dropped my car off to be serviced and had a lift back to the house. When I got home, I changed out of people clothes, had breakfast and a cup of tea or two. I did all...

writer at work

14 August 2023

Monday 14 August 2023: Flying off the shelves

First job Friday morning was a trek down to the doctor’s to collect a repeat prescription. It’s less than five minutes away, on foot, so I was there and back in ten. Once at my desk, I decided to catch up with some submissions work. Harvey’s Festival is a short story I wrote for a prompt for 12 Stories in 12 Months....

writer at work

11 August 2023

Friday 11 August 2023: Workshops and courses and books, oh my!

I have no idea what happened to Thursday. It was there, and I know I did stuff. But it seems to have vanished into a puff of thin air. I’ll see what I can do… I know I had a quick whizz through my courses on Teachable to see if there were any more free codes to other workshops on...

writer at work

10 August 2023

Thursday 10 August 2023: A morning of writing

For the second day on the trot the poet was up early and off on a business trip. On Tuesday he had to drive south to the midlands. Yesterday he had to cross the Pennines to Manchester. Both days I thought I might end up going back to sleep and waking up at 10am gone. Both times the dog had...

writer at work

9 August 2023

Wednesday 9 August 2023: Catching up

Catch up time again yesterday. This time revising a pop-up workshop on when things don’t quite go the way the readers/viewers expect and how to build that into your writing. It’s one I’ve watched three times now, and I think the penny is finally dropping. One day soon, I hope to put it all into practice. Despite starting my diary...

writer at work

8 August 2023

Tuesday 8 August 2023: A fragmented day

The weekend went by in a bit of a blur. Not because of anything in particular. I just don’t feel like I even had a weekend. We were up early on Saturday because the poet had an early start for a gig that night. Because I’d spent ALL of Friday on the mockups, I hadn’t done a meal plan or...

writer at work

7 August 2023

Monday 7 August 2023: Making mockups

I think I blinked and missed the weekend… I had so much to do on Friday, and yet I spent ALL of it making mockups. I had a look at Affinity to see if I could still do them now that Covervault has closed down, and I found lots of tutorials on YouTube… but I have the updated Affinity v2.1...

writer at work

4 August 2023

A bit about me

Note: I’ve split this out from a previous post so I can add it as a sticky to the top of the page. Apologies to all who’ve already read it! About me I started writing in 1985. I wanted to write short stories for magazines, which I did. And I even sold a few. Right from the off, which was...

writer at work

4 August 2023

Friday 4 August 2023: Friday already! 😱

Friday! Well, that came around quick… I don’t want to get ahead of myself, though. Here’s how Thursday went. We had a good night. The dog stayed in his basket for much of it again. And we were all up in time to start our days on time. My day started with me hanging washing out. I hung out three...

writer at work

3 August 2023

Thursday 3 August 2023: Starting to catch up

Tuesday night was a lot better. Rufus got in his basket and went to sleep, and he stayed there for the entire night. Of course, that didn’t stop me waking up every other hour or so, to check that he was okay. But he was okay, he just didn’t want to go out and he must have been very, very...

writer at work

2 August 2023

Wednesday 2 August 2023: A bit behind

I’m running a bit behind at the moment. Usually I write my blog posts as I go and schedule them to post the next day. At the moment, or this week at least, I’m writing them on the day they’re being posted. Yesterday wasn’t a great day. Rufus had another bad night on Monday and I was up every ten...

writer at work

1 August 2023

Tuesday 1 August 2023: The month ahead

And here we are, August at last. Where is the year going to? Monday After a very busy and slightly fraught weekend, Monday arrived with a bit of a bang. The poet left for a three-day work trip, the dog had all of his tablets and even ate some food, and it started to rain again. We were so lucky at...

writer at work