Category: writer at work

12 September 2023

Tuesday 12 September 2023: Online workshops

The first thing I did after hitting my desk yesterday morning was, well, hit my desk. It was so untidy I took a picture of it to remind me not to leave it like that ever again. It really has a negative effect on me and is something I’ve always disliked in all my working years. Perhaps it was brainwashed...

Categories writer at work

11 September 2023

Monday 11 September 2023: Anatomy of a messy desk

So this was the sight that greeted me when I went into the office this morning. I can’t stand an untidy desk and I can’t work at one. But this is how I left it on… Wednesday last week. Yes, Wednesday. And not a single item has moved. Why? Because I fell down a complete rabbit hole and stayed there...

Categories writer at work

6 September 2023

Wednesday 6 September 2023: Ticking jobs off

At the end of the day on Monday I dug out each and every notebook or piece of paper or printout that has anything to do with The Beast Within. I stripped out the writealong parts of Project Management for Writers: Gate 2 – Who/Where? and saved them in their own file. I printed that off too. By the end of it...

Categories writer at work

5 September 2023

Tuesday 5 September 2023: A slow start

I had so many good intentions but when I woke up on Monday I was still really, really tired. On Saturday night I went to bed on drugs as it seemed as though I was coming down with a cold. I slept like the dead and it was the poet who was woken up by the dog two or three...

Categories writer at work

4 September 2023

Monday 4 September 2023: Publication Day!

After a solidly busy day on Friday doing all of my planning work for the month ahead and my wrap-up work for the month just gone, we also had a stupidly busy weekend. I got through a lot on Friday. I brought all of August’s spreadsheets up to date and I created all of September’s spreadsheets. I decided on the...

Categories writer at work

1 September 2023

Friday 1 September 2023: The month ahead

I love September. It’s the start of new beginnings as far as work is concerned, the start of a new working year for me. Because I’ve been busy with the proofreading job, I’ve not done a lot of work this week. Today was finally all the planning work for September, and some of the wrap-up for August. I’m only planning...

Categories writer at work

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...

Categories 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...

Categories 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...

Categories 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...

Categories 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....

Categories 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...

Categories 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...

Categories 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...

Categories 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...

Categories 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...

Categories 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...

Categories 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...

Categories 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...

Categories 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...

Categories 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...

Categories writer at work

31 July 2023

Monday 31 July 2023: July wrap-up

Friday I spent the first hour or so of Friday morning in the living room reading How to Write Short Stories and Get Them Published because there were video meetings going on in the office again. If I still had a reading chair in the office, I’d still read in the office. But my reading chair is now in the device-free...

Categories writer at work

28 July 2023

Friday 28 July 2023: I lost half a day

The man at the garage told me there was no need for me to arrange my MOT on a day when the poet could come with me and bring me home as by the time we got home, it would be time to come out again. We live not 10 minutes drive away and he said I could sit and...

Categories writer at work

27 July 2023

Thursday 27 July 2023: A fair day

Yesterday went fairly well. It might be because the to-do list wasn’t very long, but I still shifted a fair few words and pages. I had two writing projects on my to-do list: Catch the Rainbow Project Management for Writers: Gate 2 The idea was initially to do a bit of something on both of them. But when I checked...

Categories writer at work

26 July 2023

Wednesday 26 July 2023: More proofreading

I had a slow start to the day yesterday, hitting my desk just in time to join in with the People’s Friend writing hour on Twitter… or X, or whatever we’re supposed to call it today. We had another lively discussion and I came away with not one but two topics to cover on the blog in future, when I...

Categories writer at work

25 July 2023

Tuesday 25 July 2023: Wall to wall proofreading

The most pressing job I have to do this week is proofreading. The entire job is a whopping 527 pages, so I expect it to take the entire week. In fact, it’s been added to one of my planning spreadsheets so I can see how many pages a day I need to clear in order to finish the job this...

Categories writer at work

21 July 2023

Friday 21 July 2023: Back to normal for a bit

After the madness that was the previous few days, I took it easy yesterday. I didn’t rush around like a mad thing. I didn’t dash back to what I was doing before it all went a bit wild. I just took it easy. And it was a bit wild, for me. Having to watch videos and commit stuff to my...

Categories writer at work

20 July 2023

Thursday 20 July 2023: A bit about me + Course analysis

If I’ve been a bit distant this week, it’s because I’ve been taking part in a study along online workshop. I watched the last few videos this morning and received the last of the feedback on my assignments. A few people have asked about the workshop, but before I get onto that, I want to give a bit of info...

Categories writer at work