Category: writer at work

23 July 2018

Dear Cosmos – enough, thank you.

I’ll be honest. We’ve not had a great few weeks. Hot on the heels of moving house, we lost a chicken, gave a cockerel away, the dog disappeared for three hours, we suffered a major family bereavement, and we had a bit of a health scare. We still have a funeral to attend and we are in a financial battle...

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13 July 2018

Slow day yesterday

When we moved house, we treated Rufus to 2 new baskets. One was for the living room, the other was for the bedroom/office. This is the one currently in the office. Do you think he likes it? I didn’t get a lot done yesterday. I didn’t feel like doing much anyway. Here’s how it went: daily admin hour ✓ write a...

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12 July 2018

Sad day

Just over 18 months ago, in December 2016, we rescued 6 ex-cage chickens otherwise intended for slaughter. We named them Aggie (the Agoraphobic), Baldy (she literally was ‘oven ready’), Blondie, Lara (the Adventurous), Pauline (Poorly Poorline) and Pink. At Christmas, 2017, we lost queen of the coop Aggie. And today we lost the lovely Lara. Lara was the first to disappear...

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11 July 2018

It’s going well

This is my writing bag. Once upon a time, when I *worked for a living*, I worked for the National Grid in Coventry. We were quite close to Warwick University and, in fact, did most of our banking and shopping there. As it was a university, there was – naturally – a university bookshop. And one day I was browsing,...

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10 July 2018

Fair start to the week

This is my current writing work in progress pile. The A5 book with the touchy-feely cover of pink flowers on a foliage background is the ideas book. This is where I jot down words, titles, scenarios, plots, outlines of short material, topic lists for non-fiction, market information. This book is where the magic begins … until it’s full, and then...

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9 July 2018

The best laid plans … again

It was just starting to go well, with everything dropping into place. I had a great list of things to do. We were going out Friday evening. And we were taking the weekend off … … and then the dog disappeared. For three hours. He’d escaped from the garden and I was certain a car that stopped in the middle...

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6 July 2018

Decisions made (*** lists alert ***)

I spent much of yesterday trying to prioritise my workload and putting jobs into some sort of workable order. I even did a little writing, which was very good. Yesterday Following my navel-gazing, here is what I finally accomplished: I wrote 479 words (against a 1,000-word target …) ✓ I continued reading a book for NetGalley (1 of 16) ✓ I...

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5 July 2018

To-do list (*** list alert ***)

So, it’s all over bar the shouting. Well, actually, it’s all over. We’ve moved the last scrap of wood over from the old house to the new house. We’ve handed over the keys. It’s taken us two and a half weeks, but everything we own is now back under one roof. This means I have to turn again to work...

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2 July 2018

Phew!

We made it … well of a fashion. We took 2 weeks off and we literally did not stop. We moved house. We moved office. We moved the chickens. And still we have lots to do. The first thing that came over was the spare bedroom, so that we’d at least have a bed to sleep in once the chickens...

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8 June 2018

Life on the farm: all good things … (*** list alert ***)

Well, it’s been about as busy as ever here on the farm, with not a lot of actual words being produced. And it’s about to get even busier. I feel like a broken record, but it really is true. So, what have we been up to? Where do I begin? First off, the poet changed his job in January. The...

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30 April 2018

Round-up and to-do list

I had a lot to do again last week, and I didn’t manage to do them all. daily writing exercise write a blog post every day I only managed one of each of these last week, and they were both on Wednesday. Saying that, I’ve done both already today, but it’s unlikely I’ll get any more blog posts done this...

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25 April 2018

Round-up and to-do list

I’m a bit late with this, this week, but I have been busy, just not necessarily busy doing what I was supposed to be doing … I did some work on Saturday last week, at the front end of the week not the tail end. Here is how I did for the rest of the week to last Friday: write...

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20 April 2018

The alphabet adventurers

The time is near for my lifestyle blog, Tales From Baggins Bottom, to pack itself away. It has served me well, since 2005, across Blogger and WordPress. But things change, move on. And so have we. I have two new blogs that will probably cover everything that Baggins Bottom used to. One of these is a joint venture with the...

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18 April 2018

Working at the weekend

I don’t often work at the weekend, or of an evening if I can help it – unless, of course, there’s a genuine emergency and only then if it’s for me or for a regular client. Since we installed the new office, we’ve both been drawn to it, even of an evening or at the weekend. It’s the warmest room...

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16 April 2018

Round-up & to-do list

I had quite a hefty to-do list last week, one that even made me gulp, and only 4½ days in which to do everything. However, I got through pretty much most of it in the end. In fact, I had quite a good week. Here’s how I did: choose illustrations for history book write captions for illustrations for history book...

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10 April 2018

A time-management experiment

On Sunday I pre-scheduled Monday’s blog post (round-up) and I worked on my diary for the coming week. I stuck to my original plan of having an hour for morning chores, an admin hour, three hours of writing, three hours of client work and an hour for dinner (lunch). On Tuesday and Thursday of this week, I also have an...

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9 April 2018

Round-up & to-do list

The week before Easter was a 4-day week. I had a lot to do before we broke up on Thursday, all of which was on the history book. Here’s how I did: complete the Cadbury book Yes! I worked really, really hard to get this into a finished state, and I submitted it at around 11pm on the Thursday evening....

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5 April 2018

In a quandary

It was all going so well … With us “breaking up” for the Easter period and me submitting the history book late Thursday night, I was all set to crack on with the new cosy mystery. And I even registered with Camp NaNoWriMo … … and then we built a new office on Wednesday. It’s great. We both have loads...

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1 April 2018

A new office

So I have a desk in the dining room overlooking the bird table in the garden. The desk is of a very dark oak and it goes very well with the rest of the dining furniture. It’s a bit cold and drafty, I have to have a fan heater on most of the time, but since we put some heavy...

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29 March 2018

The end is nigh

… well, I say the end is nigh when really what I mean is the end of the writing part is nigh. For the past two weeks I’ve been in the writing cave, trying to finish the history book. Last week I managed to pop up for air and come in to say hello with the odd update or two. This...

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26 March 2018

Round-up & to-do list

Last week I had a proper ol’ blitzing of the work in progress. Here’s how I did: stitch everything together for the Cadbury book On Monday I added 2,728 words to the Cadbury book. On Tuesday I added 3,089 words. On Wednesday I added 1,617 words. On Thursday I added 1,900 words. And on Friday I added 1,702 words. I...

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21 March 2018

Diary of a non-fiction book: an update

The last time the diary of a non-fiction book appeared was at the end of October 2017. I was about to embark on NaNoWriMo 2017 and the history book was going to be my project. Since then, I’ve not really done an update. So here it is. The month of November was indeed spent writing the first draft of the...

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19 March 2018

Round-up & to-do list

I had a much better week last week. I knuckled down, kept track of where I was and how much I’d done, and just got on with things . Here’s a reminder of last week’s list followed by how I did: write a blog post every day YES! Every day last week I wrote a blog post. In fact, every...

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13 March 2018

The 10% pot

Many writers I know are very sensible about looking after their money. They do their taxes throughout the year, so they’re ready to go at tax time, and they save up to 25% of their income to cover the tax bill – and often more, if they have very lucrative deals and contracts. However, there are also many writers I...

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12 March 2018

Round-up & to-do list

Last week I “came back to work” struggling to get motivated. I had a HUGE to-do list that consisted of at least nine things I needed to be doing.  I also looked at various time-suckers that were impeding my work without adding any value. I went through both of those lists and decided what to do first (on the to-do...

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9 March 2018

The income octopus

Brendan van Son is a travel journalist-turned-photographer/digital nomad. He’s also one of the poet’s favourite vloggers. AND he’s one I’ll watch too. One of the things we like about him is his honesty. Until recently, my own particular favourite of his was his monthly income octopus. He’s decided to finish doing this for now and is replacing it with another...

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8 March 2018

Time-suckers

Yesterday I looked at all of the jobs I currently have to do or would like to do. Today I’m going to consider some of the things that get in the way or time-suckers. The poet thinks I spend too much time doing things that don’t add value to my work. This includes (his list and my list combined): Surfing...

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7 March 2018

Struggling to get motivated (list alert)

I’ll be honest. I’ve been struggling to get motivated to do my own writing. All was very well to the end of November, when I completed NaNoWriMo 2017. But December disappeared down a dark hole of running around, shopping, Christmas, hospital visiting, family stuff, phone calls, and my output dropped to zero. January and February have been spent trying to...

Categories writer at work