Author: Diane

*** shameless self-plug alert *** I set myself the goal of reading and reviewing 52 writing guides over the year. Here is book 24. I couldn’t complete a series on…

I set myself the goal of reading and reviewing 52 writing guides over the year. Here is book 23. If there’s only one book on your shelf or ebook and…

It’s been a whole month since my last post (before this morning’s 52 in 52, that is). I haven’t been lax, I’ve been very busy – as usual. First of…

I set myself the goal of reading and reviewing 52 writing guides over the year. Here is book 22. The Author Organizer: How to anticipate, survive and master the whirlpool…

Day 2 was actually on Wednesday when I went to the Cadbury archives again in Birmingham. What a day! I was late leaving in the first place and didn’t get…

My first day back on the non-fiction book was yesterday. First of all I reviewed the list of storage material I’d compiled the last time I visited the company archives…

I don’t know. You wait all week for a blog post, and then three come along at once … I didn’t get much done on the non-fiction book last week…

Lots of writers advise other writers to stop reading books on writing and just crack on with the writing. But I love to read books on writing. I love to…

I set myself the goal of reading and reviewing 52 writing guides over the year. Here is book 21. Start Writing Your book Today by Morgan Gist MacDonald is one…

I set myself the goal of reading and reviewing 52 writing guides over the year. Here is book 20. I’m a plotter. When starting to write a book for the…

Week three is still very much about research for me at the moment. I’m on chapter 3 of the research material and I’ve searched for and chosen my usual five…

Wednesday was a very long and tiring but certainly worthwhile day. I set off at about 8:45am and got to my parents’ in good time to drop the dog off…

I’ve not been taking additional days off. I’ve been doing normal work stuff. It still needs doing, even when I have a book to write. Today it was back to…

Friday disappeared into the ether and I think I may have faffed a little. I know I did some reading for the non-fiction book as well as some regular research…

Yesterday’s work session began with me updating the raw text version of this Diary of …that will be coming out after it’s all over. I added yesterday morning’s post, and formatted…

By Wednesday I started to get into the swing of things and was beginning to feel like a proper writer again, writing for a living and all that. I was…

I set myself the goal of reading and reviewing 52 writing guides over the year. Here is book 19. Alex Gazzola is already very well-known by many of us writers…

Tuesday was a much better, more productive day. I finished my chores thirty minutes earlier than usual, so was able to do some catch-up work from Monday. The first thing…

I’m delighted to report that I have a short story in this 2018 annual from The People’s Friend, out now. This is the first short story I ever sold to…

The day didn’t get off to a great start. I’ve been fighting a cold and a “bit of a throat” for a couple of weeks and at the end of…

A few weeks ago (on or around 12 June in fact, so it was longer ago than I thought), I was editing a book for lovely-already-boss and one chapter in…

It’s been a week of ups and downs this week, and a very busy one as a result. But there’s some good news in here too. Some very good news….

This time last week I was feeling a bit annoyed with myself. I’d not done any proper work for a few weeks. So I pulled up my socks and gave…

I set myself the goal of reading and reviewing 52 writing guides over the year. Here is book 18. The Literary Agent’s Guide to Writing a Non-Fiction Book Proposal by…