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Posted in writer at work

Diary of a non-fiction book: week 4 – day 2

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…

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Diary of a non-fiction book: week 4 – day 1

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…

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Posted in writer at work

Diary of a non-fiction book: week 3 – day 2

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…

0 733  2 Comments on Why I read books about writing
Posted in 52 books in 52 weeks

Why I read books about writing

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…

0 558  1 Comment on 52 books in 52 weeks: Start Writing Your Book Today
Posted in 52 books in 52 weeks

52 books in 52 weeks: Start Writing Your Book Today

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…

0 608  1 Comment on 52 books in 52 weeks: How to Write a Mystery Without Plotting it to Death
Posted in 52 books in 52 weeks

52 books in 52 weeks: How to Write a Mystery Without Plotting it to Death

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…

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Posted in writer at work

Diary of a non-fiction book: week 3 – day 1

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…

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Diary of a non-fiction book: week 2 – day 2

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…

0 845  4 Comments on Diary of a non-fiction book: week 2 – day 1
Posted in writer at work

Diary of a non-fiction book: week 2 – day 1

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…

0 873  2 Comments on Normal work continues
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Normal work continues

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…

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Posted in writer at work

Diary of a non-fiction book: week 1 – day 4

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…

0 644  2 Comments on Diary of a non-fiction book: week 1 – day 3
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Diary of a non-fiction book: week 1 – day 3

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…

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Posted in 52 books in 52 weeks

52 books in 52 weeks: Writing your non-fiction book

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…

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Diary of a non-fiction book: week 1 – day 2

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…

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Posted in Publication

Publication: the People’s Friend annual 2018

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…

0 713  2 Comments on Diary of a non-fiction book: week 1 – day 1
Posted in writer at work

Diary of a non-fiction book: week 1 – day 1

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…

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Posted in writer at work

Diary of a non-fiction book: week 1 – the story so far

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…

1 814  4 Comments on A week of ups and downs
Posted in writer at work

A week of ups and downs

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….

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Posted in writer at work

I found my writing mojo

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…

1 564
Posted in 52 books in 52 weeks

52 books in 52 weeks: The Literary Agent’s Guide to Writing a Non-Fiction Book Proposal

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…

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Posted in 52 books in 52 weeks

52 books in 52 weeks: Blogging just for Writers

I set myself the goal of reading and reviewing 52 writing guides over the year. Here is book 17. When I started blogging, the only people who I knew that…

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Posted in writer at work

July throwaways

At the start of the week I did my usual think/query/write submit and I chose three topics to write articles on and three topics to write short stories around. Here…

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Posted in writer at work

Getting organised: Trello

Yesterday I realised I’d not done any writing in almost two weeks – not ANY writing at all … … well, I lied. I *did* actually write the structure for…

0 620  2 Comments on Disgraceful!
Posted in writer at work

Disgraceful!

My work output just lately has been absolutely atrocious. I just this second updated my word-count spreadsheet for July, and I had to spend some time first putting in a…