200 words a day – Words Worth Writing

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...

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...

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...

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...

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

12 July 2023

Wednesday 12 July 2023: Multi-tasking

I had a really good start to the day by remembering the People’s Friend writing hour on Twitter. So I got up and dressed in record time instead of languishing in bed. Over breakfast I read another chapter of set book 1 for the fantasy thriller writing workshop before moving to the office. I did a few admin-y things, but...

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

10 July 2023

Monday 10 July 2023: Down came the rain

We were both really tired on Thursday night. Probably the previous few weeks catching up on us. I struggled to get up on Friday and was Very Late to my desk. I did catch up on social media and emails over breakfast, as well as read another chapter of one of my set books for the fantasy thriller writing workshop....

writer at work

7 July 2023

Friday 7 July 2023: 200 words a day

Wednesday didn’t turn out to be one of my better days. I hardly had any sleep Tuesday night and after my emergency run to the vet, I came home and crashed out on the bed. I didn’t wake up until the poet came home from work. It was already quite late by then and I hadn’t done any work. All...

writer at work

5 July 2023

Wednesday 5 July 2023: Cranking up the machine

I was having a slow and leisurely start to Tuesday, until I remembered it was the People’s Friend writing hour on Twitter at 11am. Usually I’m late or in a rush to get there or I completely forget about it. It *is* in the diary now, as a weekly event. But if I don’t check my diary, I still forget...

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

29 June 2023

Thursday 29 June 2023: Lots of reading

There was one thing I was struggling with on Affinity Publisher that I really wanted to sort out in my head. I couldn’t get the background of my magazine cover to go translucent. I’d found the transparency slider and an opaque slider, but nothing was working. Overnight, while I slept, I must have had a bit of a brain murmur...

writer at work

28 June 2023

Wednesday 28 June 2023: The machine worked but the tech got me

I finished playing with Affinity Publisher on Sunday evening just as Elton John was finishing his set at Glastonbury. I will definitely use Publisher and I have used Affinity Photo in the past, when it was still called Serif. I’m not sure I’ll get much use out of Affinity Design, unless… I can use it to create maps of my...

writer at work

27 June 2023

Tuesday 27 June 2023: A shiny new toy

Friday was a bit of a lazy day in which I didn’t get through a lot of work, but I did do some things. Like hanging washing on the line, putting crocks in the dishwasher, that kind of thing. Friday I started to read the next book for NetGalley, alongside the Fiction River Pulse Pounders anthology I started for the writing...

writer at work

23 June 2023

Friday 23 June 2023: A bit worried…

I was starting to get a bit concerned about the Brevo thing. They didn’t respond to my last email. The email they sent before that was threatening to close my apparently inactive account. And the email I sent them first thing yesterday morning didn’t even garner an auto-response. Call me a bluff old cynic, but I’d say there’s something going...

writer at work

22 June 2023

Thursday 22 June 2023: Bumbling along

I slept really well on Tuesday night, and so did the dog. Which is probably why I slept so well. I had to wake him up he was in such a deep sleep. Once I’d done the usual social media and email stuff over dinner, I started to read the next book on my pile. I’m not allowed to discuss...

writer at work

21 June 2023

Wednesday 21 June 2023: More rain

Yesterday began with me checking social media and emails while I had breakfast, and then I went straight into finishing the current book for NetGalley. I really enjoyed this one and I’m looking forward to the second one in the series, which I also have from NetGalley. The night before I’d spotted a big black cat eating the chicken I’d...

writer at work

20 June 2023

Tuesday 20 June 2023: A thunderstorm at last

We had thunderstorms forecast for the entire weekend and, naturally, I was keeping a close eye on them all via my app. Saturday On Saturday I wanted to go to the Murder in the Rhubarb Triangle crime reading event in Wakefield. We even tentatively arranged for the MiL to look after the dog. But with the new bed arriving on...

writer at work

14 June 2023

Wednesday 14 June 2023: I found a writing podcast

I don’t know how I did it. I think a Twitter pal has been taking part in their 200-words-a-day challenge and I followed the link from there, tripped slightly, and fell down a rabbit hole… The challenge is three years old, now I’ve been looking for a UK-based podcast for a while, and when I followed the link to their...

writer at work