12 stories in 12 months – Words Worth Writing

19 September 2023

Tuesday 19 September 2023: A new gadget!

I spent much of the weekend trying to focus on what work needs doing when. I spent a lot of time last week learning how to publish a magazine in Affinity. The first part of the week was learning how to make a pdf. The second part of the week was learning how to export the pdf so that it’s...

writer at work Comments: 2

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...

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...

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....

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...

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...

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...

writer at work

14 July 2023

Friday 14 July 2023: Horror stories give me nightmares

The last thing I did on Wednesday night was read another short story from the first set book for the fantasy thriller writing workshop. It was a horror story and I don’t really do horror stories. I thought I’d scanned the worst of it, but when I woke up on Thursday, the poet asked me what my nightmare was about…...

writer at work

13 July 2023

Thursday 13 July 2023: I wrote a short story set on a ship

The very last thing I did before going to sleep on Tuesday night was plot out the storyline for The City of Glasgow. I used Story Plotter on my phone. It’s not the best plotting app/program I have. That’s by far and without doubt Plottr. but I don’t have Plottr on my phone as I haven’t yet been able to...

writer at work

11 July 2023

Tuesday 11 July 2023: A bit behind

The poet was up with the lark on Monday morning because he had a long drive south for a two-day business conference. And he really was driving to the bottom of the country almost. I did get up with him to see him off, then I went back to bed and set the alarm from just over an hour. I...

writer at work

4 July 2023

Tuesday 4 July 2023: Happy Fourth of July!

Happy 4th of July to all of my American friends and readers. Have a super day. Saturday On Saturday morning I hung out some washing, wrote our meal plan for the week and the shopping list, and off we went to get the shopping. We started at the butcher and moved on to the supermarket. When we got home we...

writer at work

16 June 2023

Friday 16 June 2023: New bed day

I was at my desk on time, having caught up on social media and email over breakfast. I also read another two chapters of the NetGalley book and I shared the gig list post. But I did go out and change the dirty washing hanging on the line. Hopefully if Holly’s wandering in the vicinity, she’ll recognise the smell and...

writer at work

15 June 2023

Thursday 15 June 2023: Long night ahead

The weather is a lot more bearable at the moment, despite the storms never arriving. There’s a cool, fresh breeze and that makes a massive difference inside the house when the doors and windows are open and the curtains closed. We have rain forecast next week, all week. But as the thunderstorms managed to go around us every day this...

writer at work

27 January 2023

Friday 27 Jan 2023: new publication started

I’d stayed up a bit late to get the short story submitted in time to the writing challenge, and that meant getting up late the next day as well. Once at my desk, though, I rattled through the faffy stuff, and I wrote the newsletter for January. This always takes longer than I think it will, but it does seem...

writer at work

26 January 2023

Thursday 26 Jan 2023: 12 stories in 12 months

Most of Tuesday was taken up with the date work and getting all of that up to date. It didn’t finish at tea time, though. I had another webinar to go to, this one on short stories, and then I spent the rest of the evening consolidating all of my short story ideas, outlines and first drafts. Like Catch the Rainbow,...

Challenge