Wednesday 17 July 2019
It was so hot here yesterday I ended up stripping down to just a nightie and flip flops to sit and work in. That felt both refreshing and quite liberating….
Goldthorpe Writers: “the old man”
The group is still very much in its infancy and we’re still finding our feet, so the library forgot that we’d changed the start time this week from 2:00pm to…
Writing diary
I want to get back to blogging on a regular basis, with at least an update of what I did “yesterday” and what I intend to do “today”. I’ll still…
Busy writing, editing, proofreading …
My own work has become quite lax of late, with me either feeling very sorry for myself (tooth extraction) or concentrating on work for other people once again. (And I…
Goldthorpe Writers: Monday 8 July 2019
We welcomed another new member to the group yesterday, who hadn’t been able to come before now due to various reasons. But she hopes to be with us every week…
Goldthorpe Writers: “death at the pit-head”
I didn’t go to the meeting last Monday because I already had a dental appointment, and one we’d been waiting for for a long time. I had an email from…
Diary of a Novel: plotting the murder
I haven’t been completely idle since 10 June when I last updated the novel-writing diary. Aside from completing three large editing projects for a client, I’ve also started work on…
Diary of a pocket novel – 1 step forward, 2 steps back
The murder board is really helping with the structure of the pocket novel. But I’ve been working recently on screen for my editing jobs and when I sat down to…
Diary of a pocket novel – getting organised
I’ve been working on the pocket novel for the past couple of days. I’m trying to write it by the seat of my pants, but I am a natural planner….
My writing day
I think I’m getting back into the writing groove. I’ve designed a schedule intended to allow me to work on my own material for part of the day as well…
Goldthorpe Writers: “steam trains”
Last week I joined a new writers’ group over in Barnsley. Goldthorpe is about 25 minutes away by car, even if I do have to wait on two level crossings…
Diary of a pocket novel – and an oxymoron …
I’ve always wanted to write a pocket novel. There are two of our weekly magazines who publish pocket novels (PNs) – or apx. 39,000-word novellas – and as far as…
I joined a writers’ group …
I seem to be juggling several balls in the air at the moment, and on Monday I added another. I joined a new writers’ group. I’ve been looking for a…
Diary of a Novel: advance character work done
Over the past two weeks, including the weekend, I’ve been quite busy doing a client edit that turned into a major rewrite. Writing uses up most of my creative energy….
Facelift
Every so often, generally about once a year, I give the blog a bit of a facelift. This is mostly to keep it looking up to date. Recently, I changed…
Diary of a Novel: special characters – part 2
Okay, at the start of this week I’d hit a brick wall and was struggling with whether or not to have a “supporter” character in my story. I’ve been playing…
Book review: Murder in the Med
This feature is in association with NetGalley. Murder in the Med, Peter Mayle Thanks to NetGalley and to Bloodhound Books for an advance copy of Murder in the Med by…
Diary of a Novel: special characters – part 1
Now, when I say “special” I don’t mean “special” as such, I mean “other important characters not mentioned already”. According to Ron D Voigts and Writing the Killer Mystery, these “special”…
Diary of a Novel: the suspects
The intention was to take The Beast Within away with us on our recent holiday and do some work here and there … Unfortunately, we were so busy enjoying ourselves that…
Back off our hols
We had a fantastic three weeks off work. We went camping for only two of them, but we were determined to have a break from everything else as well, and…
Diary of a Novel: the killer
I had a lot of fun working on my killer this week. Wednesday was the day I did this work, and I didn’t even reach the end of the chapter…
Book review: The Quartet Murders
This feature is in association with NetGalley. The Quartet Murders, JR Ellis Thanks to NetGalley and to Thomas & Mercer for an advance copy of The Quartet Murders by JR…
Diary of a Novel: the victim
Details of the victim have been percolating in the back of my mind this week, while I did other stuff. When I finally came to sit down and write the…
To defect or not?
I have been a Windows gal for as long as we’ve been using Windows. I remember when the first Microsoft products started to come out. I started off on WordStar…
