Diane Wordsworth: freelance writer ● novelist ● editor ● ghostwriter ● book reviewer ● member of the CWA ● world-famous nutter-magnet
Image by Bessi from Pixabay Tuesday After my mammoth writing session on Monday, the plan was to take it easy on Tuesday. I’d finished working at about 3:30am and I got up at around 10am. I did a bit of faffing, checked social media, read a few articles, and did some housework. Then I moved to my desk and started the first of the day’s work. Unusually for me, I was still in my dressing gown, but once I’d done […]
Read moreImage by mohamed Hassan from Pixabay Despite still being busy, I finished work at 5pm on Friday. I already knew I’d be working at the weekend, and we needed to do the shopping before we had tea. So I called it a day. Saturday On Saturday I was up quite early (for me). The poet decided to go fishing for the day because I was working. Here’s how the day went: went through and removed my byline where I’d used […]
Read moreImage by Pexels from Pixabay It occurred to me, after I posted Friday’s post, that I’d summed up the week without actually completing the week. I still had a whole day to go. And, as it turned out, I still had the weekend to go too. However, on this occasion, that didn’t make any difference to the ticks and crosses, as I already knew I wouldn’t be able to do any of the stuff I hadn’t yet finished. In future, […]
Read moreImage by Please Don’t sell My Artwork AS IS from Pixabay I had such plans to plough through the work before the poet got home from his work trip. And then the cat got ill. She’d spent the night in the dog’s basket, which is really unusual. Then in the morning she nipped outside for a wee, came in for a quick bite to eat, and then went back to bed. In the dog’s basket again. She also had a […]
Read moreImage by Prawny from Pixabay I might not be clearing stuff off my to-do list in the order I’m supposed to, but I am keeping busy rather than faffing. Or most of the time at least. Tuesday Tuesday was a better day than Monday, despite having a bit of a rubbish night. The poet left early (about 7am) to head south for a three-day/two-night work trip. I don’t like it when he goes away, but it does mean I get […]
Read moreImage by Hier und jetzt endet leider meine Reise auf Pixabay aber from Pixabay With such a long to-do list I really ought to try and focus more. My self-discipline was not great yesterday due to my inability to ignore shiny, sparkly things. To me, shiny, sparkly things are actually neither shiny nor sparkly. They are things like book covers, or artwork, or websites, or even just a butterfly mind. I really did have a lot to do yesterday, and […]
Read moreImage by David Bruyland from Pixabay Phew! This one’s a long read. I’d go and get a coffee if I were you… I’m back at work today, after a week’s holiday and a week of part-time working/recovery before that. I had a lot of time to think about how I want to take my work forward, and I think I’ve come to another shift in my working life. I’ve decided not to go chasing editing and proofreading jobs for a […]
Read moreImage by David To from Pixabay The time has come, the walrus said, to pull my socks up. Okay, the walrus didn’t actually say that. I did. But it’s true. It’s now time to properly stop faffing and to properly start working again. And when I say working, I mean writing. I already do enough work. Which, of course, is a great place to be. But you know what I mean. I’ve been in contact with one of my favourite […]
Read moreImage by alan9187 from Pixabay I worked until 10pm gone on Friday, but I did it. As usual. I wrote my 11,000+ words, checked it over as I finished each chapter, and sent it off. By the time I surfaced on Saturday, payment had been approved and the next instalment contracted. Honestly, if I did that every day, apart from having to be peeled up from the floor I’d have a completed novel every … week! Obviously, though, that’s unsustainable, […]
Read moreImage by nile from Pixabay As usual I’m working against the clock to get the first instalment of the 4th ghostwriting gig submitted in time. Deadline is today, and at the start of today I still had just over 11,000 words to write. Why have I left it so long? Well, this time I can’t blame faffing or book covers or self-publishing schedules. This time I’ve had appointments here and there as well as various interruptions. I’ve also had editing […]
Read moreImage by Brigitte makes custom works from your photos, thanks a lot from Pixabay So I had a bit of a hissy fit. I’d like to say “earlier this week”, but actually, it’s been a several days-long proper temper tantrum. Without going into too much detail, I really wanted to pack up my blog and take my money elsewhere. I did put the blog on what I thought might be a bit of a temporary hiatus. But by the time […]
Read moreImage by Steve Bidmead from Pixabay Words Worth Writing is taking a bit of a break for a few days. I have a few things to think about and some decisions to make about the blog and what I do with it. Sorry for any inconvenience, but I daresay I’ll be back a lot sooner than I think. Play nicely. 😊
Read moreI’m delighted to say that the paperback versions of all of my self-published books are now underway. I’ve been umming and ahhing a lot just lately about whether to put all of my eggs in one basket or whether to scatter them about a bit. I really, really, really do like Draft2Digital and, as an ebook publisher and distributor, they are really, really, really good. However, they don’t do hardbacks, and while they do do paperbacks, it seems that their […]
Read moreFriday disappeared down a dark hole when I ended up in a support conversation with WordPress due to one post not auto-posting to Facebook, the Facebook Share button not working (on the same post), and then the preview not working when I copied the URL over manually. We worked out a quick fix, which isn’t ideal, particularly as I’m paying for premium support now as part of my package. But at least we got it working. Classic Editor v. Block […]
Read moreOh, wow! Hello Classic Editor, I have missed you much! Massive thanks to Wild Daffodil who showed me how to access the classic editor in WordPress without having to jump through hoops. Basically, you go to your dashboard, go to Posts, click the drop down arrow next to Posts Add New, and then choose Classic Editor. EDITED TO ADD: If you’re not getting the same screen that I am, try putting this in your browser bar: https://your-site-name.wordpress.com/wp-admin/edit.php They’re threatening to […]
Read moreThis week I’ve tried to do a bit of my own work in the mornings and client work in the afternoons. I kept on being distracted by colourful sparkly things, though, and it became a bit of a chore to drag my attention away from that and back to the job in hand. Monday was mostly faffing with book covers and flyers and other PR and marketing material. I gave the blog a facelift, and I wrote a blog post […]
Read moreAfter a bit of a bumpy start, Twee Tales Twee is now finally live. Amazon accepted it late on Tuesday. You can find the ebook in multi-format here, and the Kindle book here. Twee Tales Unfortunately, it looks like Twee Tales (aka Volume 1) has disappeared from the Kindle radar at Amazon, although it’s still there on my author’s bookshelf under “all”. It’s all rather baffling, but I suppose that’s robots for you. I was going to do a 4th compilation, but […]
Read moreSo, after my little tantrum yesterday, Amazon have now accepted Diary of a Scaredy Cat. Draft2Digital did their thang, and they got it through. At the time of writing, they’re still working on getting Twee Tales Twee up there, but at least Diary of a Scaredy Cat is there now. You can by the ebook here, in multi-format, and from here, on Kindle, directly from Amazon. Project reboot With the end of full lockdown, I seem to have found a new energy. We […]
Read moreAt the end of last week, I decided to gradually move all of my ebooks over to Amazon. However, before I could do that, I had to make sure that they were all published first. And before I do that, I want the designs to be consistent. I do love publishing my books on Draft2Digital. They make the books available on all ereaders, not just Kindle, and they have a paperback publishing tool too. Not only that, though, they also […]
Read moreAs we inch ever-closer to the 1,000 followers mark, so too do we get closer to the competition to win a bumper pack of all of my published paperbacks, including the two books from Pen & Sword. Oh yes, and chocolate … This means that, alongside everything else that I do, I’ve been checking that all the paperbacks are there. And if they’re not there, I’m publishing them. I self-publish everything I produce myself on either Draft2Digital or Lulu, apart […]
Read moreThis is how my Scrivener binder for the project management series was looking when I started work on it on Tuesday. Tuesday I had a lot to do on Tuesday, so while the intention was to write at least a chapter, I only managed part of Chapter 4. In fact, I wrote 843 new words. And I updated the binder … My next job on Tuesday was to carry on planning The Beast Within. I’ve discovered from my ghostwriting that I […]
Read moreImage by Alexandra_Koch from Pixabay … three to go. Yup, the poet had the first of his two vaccinations at the weekend. His booking had got lost in the ether, somehow, but they saw him anyway, which was very good of them. Mine’s on Friday. We didn’t manage as much as we would like on Saturday. First of all we had the weekly shopping to do, and on the way there we also stopped off to have a look at […]
Read moreImage by Thomas Budach from Pixabay So the defragging that I started to do on Thursday morning ran on for about 7 hours. And then I made a fatal mistake … I ‘woke’ the screen up by pressing the spacebar. And the defrag cancelled. I could not believe how stupid that was of me. I stopped for a bite for tea, then I started it off again, expecting it to run for another 7 hours. But by the time we […]
Read moreI mean, look at. What is there not to like? It’s sleek, it’s clean, it’s sharp, it does everything I’m used to doing a lot quicker and more easily. It’s gorgeous! I’ve had a lot of fun playing with the new Scrivener for Windows. At last we have caught up with our Mac/iOS chums. At last the two platforms look the same. At last us Windows users are not left to flounder in the wilderness. There are a few things […]
Read moreImage by Myriams-Fotos from Pixabay The first job I did on Tuesday morning was yesterday’s writing prompts post. The second job I did was the first of this week’s date work, as I ran out of time on Monday. So to hurry me along a bit, I finished all of August, as the last week is only two days. That means I’m now on September, which is where I’m supposed to be in March. I could have just jumped right […]
Read moreImage by Comfreak from Pixabay The plan was to have a weekend off and maybe catch up with some reading or sewing. I did manage to read a few chapters of a book I want to review soon, but I didn’t do any sewing. Walking However, on Saturday, after we’d done the shopping – early for a change – we did finally manage our first walk since the new year. It’s still very busy in the village, and we’re still […]
Read moreI was late again to my desk on Friday morning, but I had done a lot of work already on the mobile phone, both in bed and over breakfast. For example, I checked emails, the bank and social media, and I did another job search. At my desk, the first job I did was an hour of date work. Then I had to answer some final (I hoped!) queries for the interview I did for The War Cry magazine. For both […]
Read moreImage by Monoar Rahman Rony from Pixabay I’ve said it before and I’ll no doubt say it again, but Thursdays really are quite tired days. Mind you, I may have still been catching up after my 4am finish the other night. However, when the dog woke me up yesterday morning, I was very happy to see that it was almost 7am. I went through and checked all the usual stuff before arriving at my desk – email, Facebook, Twitter – […]
Read more(Image by Please Don’t sell My Artwork AS IS from Pixabay) This week seems to be dashing by in a bit of a blur … For my first job on Monday, I caught up with diary work and scheduled the week ahead. An addition this week was proofreading in from Hong Kong that arrived first thing Monday morning. I wrote and scheduled a couple of quick blog posts, and then it was back to work. The rest of the day […]
Read moreImage by John Conde from Pixabay Friday morning dawned bright and sunny after the storms of the previous couple of days. The working day began with some Monkey Dust admin and half an hour of date work – July is finished and the Monkey Dust diary is filling up nicely. Next up was the cosy mystery ghostwriting. This is a very long chapter, but I did get a bit carried away with the time. That is good, yes? After dinner, […]
Read moreImage by janrye from Pixabay We had a heavy storm overnight on Wednesday. It was more windy than rainy, but I liked this image above as soon as it popped up. Wistfully we said it was good that we didn’t have to worry about any chickens or the greenhouse blowing away. But I do think it spooked the animals a bit. They were both very restless, and that meant that so were we. By yesterday morning, it seemed to have […]
Read moreImage by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay A massive thank you to all who sent me birthday wishes on Tuesday. Much of the day was spent acknowledging and thanking people individually. Unfortunately, I had work to do, and we’re still in a semi-lockdown, so any birthday trips or outings are something to look forward to once we’re allowed out again. Tuesday The first job of the day was an hour of date work. However, as I get into the swing of […]
Read moreImage by Jeevan Singla from Pixabay It’s my birthday today. I’ve had some very nice presents, including some useful software for work. And we have birthday cake for tea. We like birthday cake, and we’ve decided that birthday cake shouldn’t be just for birthdays, much like we’ve decided that pancakes shouldn’t just be for Pancake Day. I still have work to do and the new regime to stick to, but at least the poet is working from home today, which […]
Read moreImage by Karolina Grabowska from Pixabay After all of my planning work last week, the new regime starts today. Before I started any of it, however, I had some admin to look after. First of all, the poet’s COVID jabs letter came through and he booked both of his appointments. Both of those went into my diary. Then I had a new appointment come through from the hospital. I thought the next time I was there it would be for the […]
Read moreImage by ElisaRiva from Pixabay I’ve been a bit preoccupied this week. Not navel-gazing or anything like that. Just trying to sort everything in my head into some sort of workable order. It’s been a bit chaotic in there of late. Mostly I’ve been working on the new book series. It was very much in the inspiration stage at the beginning of the week, but I think it’s smoothed out into something workable by now. At the start of the […]
Read moreImage by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay I find that I am using quite a few of this particular artist’s images from Pixabay. The style obviously works for me. I’ve even chosen an image by this author for the cover design on my next series of books. Yes, that’s right. I’ve started not just one book, but a series of books. I’m not going to go into a great deal of detail until I know whether or not it has legs. […]
Read moreI love using Scrivener. I think it’s an ace tool for all aspects of your writing, including if you decide to self-publish and/or produce book bundles. Once I have my outline, I transfer it to the index cards on Scrivener. The index cards are in chapter order, the chapters are in beat order, and the beats are in Act order. In the above illustration, though, I’ve changed the beats to sequences. In the ghostwriting, they’re beats. Often I find myself […]
Read moreImage by hudsoncrafted from Pixabay It’s been good and solid week, work-wise, as I’ve plodded through the ghostwriting gig. I even did some writing on Sunday, and I hardly ever work at the weekend. I wrote 2 chapters in the afternoon and just under 4,000 words. Monday On Monday, I stacked up a load of blog posts to schedule, using odd pockets of time I found when I was having a bit of a break. I completed one book review, […]
Read moreFor a long time I have maintained a home office. For a while this was in the corner of another room, but I’ve been known to build stud-partitions in a bedroom to keep the office space separate. I don’t believe in having my work space in the same space as my home space. I think it breeds the habit of never switching off. If I can close the door to my office, that’s even better. So whenever I can, I have […]
Read moreImage by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay Thursdays are always tired days for me. I don’t know why this happens, but it always has done. Even when I ‘worked for a living’ you could usually guarantee that Thursday would be the day I turned in late. I didn’t ‘walk to work’ because by the time I realised what time it was, it was almost time to be at my desk. The walking workout is 15 minutes, so I should be able […]
Read moreImage by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay Tuesday afternoon was more ghostwriting. I was late getting started with it, due to date work and scheduling a couple of blog posts in advance. But by the time I got around to it, I’d run out of steam. I was left with a choice: Stare at a blank screen for the rest of the day, or do something else and pick it up again the next day. So I did something else. I […]
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