Diane Wordsworth: freelance writer ● novelist ● editor ● ghostwriter ● book reviewer ● member of the CWA ● world-famous nutter-magnet
Image by Alexander Stein from Pixabay I had a lovely Easter break, something I planned on due to being so busy again just recently. I even finished work at a respectable time on Thursday in order to enjoy the full weekend. Saying that, I did have my first Covid jab on Friday, and fortunately the only side effects I seem to have suffered happened at about 4am on Saturday morning. That left us free to have some leisure time, and […]
Read moreWith me finishing the revisions of Twee Tales Too on Wednesday, I already had an extra hour today. Then when I checked in to the content-editing workroom, there was no work, so that was another extra hour today. I hoped that would be enough to finish today’s work. First of all I had the last 3,106 words to write for this month’s instalment of Catch the Rainbow. Then I had about 90 pages to finish proofreading for a client. I went […]
Read moreSo this great plan of mine to be at my desk by 9am and write for 4 hours was foiled before I even got there. The poet was working from home and he had a Skype meeting (or a Team meeting) at 8am. For 4 hours. (FOUR hours!) I fannied around for a bit, doing what chores I could, making us both breakfast and cups of tea until I felt the urge to just get my earphones (earbuds), find some […]
Read moreAs well as arriving very late to my desk this morning, I then got distracted. Three times. First of all, I saw that Martin Lewis, our money saving expert, has helped produce a textbook for schools, designed to teach kids about personal finance. The pdf for this book, and the teachers’ guide, are both free to download. Hard copies of the textbook are available to purchase from Amazon. I have downloaded this book and the teachers’ guide already. I’m not […]
Read moreAlthough technically I wasn’t at my desk at quite 9am today, I was still working. I was doing my daily email declutter, responding to emails and turning down work. I had around half a dozen work invitations in my inbox this morning, and not one of them was suitable. Apart from being topics of no interest to me when an interest in the topic is a requirement (cosmetics, poetry, ninja kids …), and apart from being quite busy already, thank […]
Read moreOops, skipped a day … From this week, my 10-project writing planner has a new project attached. It’s a proofreading job, and I want it finished by the end of Friday. Next week, I add a different project to my planner. This week’s proofreading job means I’ll have 2 projects on the go at the same time for the first time since I started to properly use the planner. Next week’s proofreading job means the same, as this week’s should […]
Read moreAfter quite a bit of rigmarole (see yesterday’s post) I finally started work yesterday afternoon. I was keen to do some work for the client as well as some writing for myself. So I allocated us both at least an hour each. I wrote 1,908 words and my average speed stayed at 26 words per minute. I couldn’t spend a lot of time on any of the work because we had to go and do the shopping last night. But […]
Read moreTime was already tight this week with so many errands and deliveries booked in, so when the internet fell over – yet again – yesterday morning, I was not a happy bunny. Every time the internet crashes, which is around twice a day at the moment, it takes time out of my already busy schedule. It takes time while I wait to see if it’s going to come back up again. It takes time while I run around the house […]
Read moreOn Saturday we managed to get out for another bit of a drive. We ended up in Lincoln, as I’ve never been before. We had a lovely meal at a pavement table, as we had the dog with us, and even the slight drop of rain didn’t spoil it. We’d managed to sit at the only table that was sheltered. Everyone else dashed inside. The rest of the weekend was pretty idle, to be honest. I didn’t manage to keep […]
Read moreAfter all of my bluster about starting the day writing, on the very first day I failed spectacularly. Friday was a Very Busy Day. The poet’s car was due in for its MOT. I had a hair appointment. And it was deadline day for the Greek client, and he’d asked for an early submission if possible rather than a later one. The first thing I did was check-in with the content editing site, but once again there was no work […]
Read moreLeaving my own work until the end of the day doesn’t work. It doesn’t get done. Especially if I’m busy on client work that has a solid deadline. Soft deadlines work for other people. They don’t work for me. So I need to do my writing work first – or at least ‘my own work’, whatever that may be – and then do everyone else’s next. This is what I’ve been trying to do. But when that client has a […]
Read moreThe day started on time yesterday, but much of the morning was spent on admin. I checked in with the content editing job first thing, but there was no work waiting for me. They did this a couple of weeks ago too. I checked in at the start of my designated time, three times in the week, there was nothing for me, and then they started to post work at about 4pm on Friday. And it all had to be […]
Read moreThe poet went back to work on Wednesday 1 July, his furlough over for now. Within 7 days of him mixing with people again, we both had signs of a cold. I’m about 2 days behind him. I work from home anyway and have done for a long time. This means that I’m not mixing with many people, catching their germs, or building immunity to various seasonal bugs for most of the time. He’s susceptible to infections anyway, but this […]
Read moreAfter a weekend that didn’t feel like a weekend, I was hardly raring to go yesterday morning and I was later to my desk than I would have preferred. It wasn’t so bad, though. My Monday morning check-in didn’t have any work for me, so there was an hour saved. Before I started writing, I checked the job board and deleted all new jobs since the last time I looked. Most of them were too cheap anyway, but the ones […]
Read moreI didn’t get a lot of my own work done on Friday. In fact, I didn’t get any of my own work done on Friday. I was finishing a client edit that needed to be back by teatime as I didn’t want to be working on it until 11 o’clock on a Friday night. So as soon as I was up and at my desk. I got on with that. I totally forgot that I was supposed to be content […]
Read moreAdmin time was a little longer yesterday, 25 minutes instead of 15. I stopped when I started to get distracted again, and I closed down social media and webmail. I don’t have notifications for my webmail anymore, and I never really had notifications from social media. Sometimes, when an app is updated on my phone or if I get a new phone, I forget and have to switch them all off as they come in for the first time. But […]
Read moreYesterday I started the day with just 15 minutes of admin before hurling myself into the novel. I wrote for just over an hour, and I added 1,956 words to the mix against that daily target of 1,860. I’m really happy with the way it’s going. I added two additional scenes that weren’t in the plan, and two additional characters to the writing so far. Plus, my typing speed increased slightly … well, by one word. I found a blog […]
Read moreI say Day 5, but is it really Day 7? It was certainly Day 7 of the month, and it’s probably Day 7 for a lot of other campers. But I’m not doing a 31-day writing month. I’m doing a 23-day writing month. Because I don’t work at the weekend. Monday was a Very Busy Day. Tuesday was slightly less busy in that I don’t do the content editing job on a Tuesday. I only do that Monday, Wednesday and […]
Read moreWe had a good weekend … apart from the dog not feeling very well. He has a bit of a garbage-mouth, so we’re not surprised when he gets the runs every once in a while. We are keeping an eye on him, though. The intention was to do some work on Saturday if I could, and I did manage an hour or so. But then I was distracted (ooh, shiny …) by Canva again, and I had a play on […]
Read moreI had a good day on Friday. I wrote up several scenes, mixed them about a bit, and added some new material. It was also the first job of the day, and this time I didn’t spend all day about it. There’s a rather nifty new gadget on the NaNo website whereby you can time your writing. I gave it a go, set the timer, and typed for an hour. I was distracted by a couple of things, such as […]
Read moreYesterday started well. I was ready for my desk by 10am, after doing household chores and other faffing. I sat down with my ritual cup of tea, and I started to write … and then I got distracted. First of all I was distracted by some pictures I found online that I hadn’t seen before, and so I grabbed copies of those for my research folder. Then I got distracted when I realised I could add bigger pictures to the […]
Read moreI think I’ve made a reasonable start for Camp NaNoWriMo. It was my first job of the day and I spent longer than my designated hour on it. I also already had a few words in the bank, about 2,000. But with a daily target of 1,860, I think it’s doable. I’d already typed out the first scene and started another when I tested my compile in Scrivener the day before. Yesterday, I finished the partial scene and typed up […]
Read moreYes, it’s started. And for the first time ever, I’m joining in with a Camp NaNoWriMo. This should be a little easier than the usual NaNoWriMo, as there are 31 days in July as opposed to the 30 days in November. But this time I’m just writing on normal work days, so that’s weekdays only. If I get the urge to do more, then weekend writing will be a bonus. Yesterday morning was all about prep work. (Mornings are my time.) […]
Read more… Catch the Rainbow! I thought long and hard, I considered my current workload, and I decided that I don’t have the physical capacity at the moment to write something completely from scratch. That meant that three possibilities were automatically eliminated: The Beast Within, The Fool and Whitehorse Farm. This left Diary of a Pussycat (a writers’ guide), Mardi Gras and Catch the Rainbow. And then I had a bit of a play around in Canva and made a massive decision. I actually […]
Read moreThe time has come (the walrus said) to make a decision. The picture above is the short list of works in progress I’m considering working on next. One of these projects will be completed during July for Camp NaNoWriMo. But which one …? From top left and going clockwise, the projects are: Catch the Rainbow, the prequel to Night Crawler; The Fool, a pocket novel; Mardi Gras, my first attempt at steampunk; Diary of a Pussycat, the second in my writers’ guides series; Whitehorse Farm, originally […]
Read moreFor more than 3 months, this country has allegedly been on lockdown. Although, if you see how many people have been walking past our remote bungalow and how they walk right at you when you’re out, it’s understandably difficult to believe that anything changed. My work didn’t change. If anything, I became more busy. But wages did slow down in some areas. Fortunately, the poet was furloughed and has been doing all of the household chores, allowing me to just […]
Read moreI’m really getting the itch to be writing again. I keep booking it in, but then I keep running out of time. I have clients that all have deadlines. And I manage to meet all of their deadlines. To the extent that the work keeps on rolling in – but I’m not complaining about that. I’m complaining about my own inability to adhere bum to seat. There are so many projects I could be working on. There’s the sequel to Night […]
Read moreI’m a bit late with this, this week, but I have been busy, just not necessarily busy doing what I was supposed to be doing … I did some work on Saturday last week, at the front end of the week not the tail end. Here is how I did for the rest of the week to last Friday: write to family member for a foreword for the history book Yes! I wrote him a letter telling him he could […]
Read moreI had quite a hefty to-do list last week, one that even made me gulp, and only 4½ days in which to do everything. However, I got through pretty much most of it in the end. In fact, I had quite a good week. Here’s how I did: choose illustrations for history book write captions for illustrations for history book Yes! I did both of these, and by Friday evening I was able to send the caption list to the […]
Read moreOn Sunday I pre-scheduled Monday’s blog post (round-up) and I worked on my diary for the coming week. I stuck to my original plan of having an hour for morning chores, an admin hour, three hours of writing, three hours of client work and an hour for dinner (lunch). On Tuesday and Thursday of this week, I also have an hour of yoga scheduled in, replacing 30 minutes of morning chores time and 30 minutes of the admin hour. But […]
Read moreThe week before Easter was a 4-day week. I had a lot to do before we broke up on Thursday, all of which was on the history book. Here’s how I did: complete the Cadbury book Yes! I worked really, really hard to get this into a finished state, and I submitted it at around 11pm on the Thursday evening. I still have a few things to do on it such as the acknowledgements page and sifting through the hundred-or-so […]
Read moreIt was all going so well … With us “breaking up” for the Easter period and me submitting the history book late Thursday night, I was all set to crack on with the new cosy mystery. And I even registered with Camp NaNoWriMo … … and then we built a new office on Wednesday. It’s great. We both have loads more room, everything is in its place so we know where to find it, and we’re able to work together […]
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