Diane Wordsworth: freelance writer ● novelist ● editor ● ghostwriter ● book reviewer ● member of the CWA ● world-famous nutter-magnet
(Image by mathey from Pixabay) After a relatively good start on Monday, Tuesday was harder. I wasn’t as late, but it was more of a chore. I struggled to get up, then I lingered over breakfast. But I did it. The biggest issue was that I only had my work to do yesterday and it was only by reminding myself that my work was important too that I reported to my desk. It had been a disturbed night as well (dog twice, […]
Read moreImage by David Bruyland from Pixabay Phew! This one’s a long read. I’d go and get a coffee if I were you… I’m back at work today, after a week’s holiday and a week of part-time working/recovery before that. I had a lot of time to think about how I want to take my work forward, and I think I’ve come to another shift in my working life. I’ve decided not to go chasing editing and proofreading jobs for a […]
Read moreThis is how my Scrivener binder for the project management series was looking when I started work on it on Tuesday. Tuesday I had a lot to do on Tuesday, so while the intention was to write at least a chapter, I only managed part of Chapter 4. In fact, I wrote 843 new words. And I updated the binder … My next job on Tuesday was to carry on planning The Beast Within. I’ve discovered from my ghostwriting that I […]
Read moreI was having a bit of a rummage through NetGalley to see if there were any new reviews for The Life of Richard Cadbury. I couldn’t see any for that one, but there were a few new ones for the first book, A History of Cadbury. First job of the day for yesterday, then, was collecting 5 of these reviews and creating flyers out of them. Number 1 is above, and the other 4 will follow when I can’t find a different […]
Read moreSo my book is still “temporarily out of stock” on Amazon, both here in the UK and in the US. That’s very odd for a book they’ve had on pre-order for weeks. They’re billing it for release in January 2021 in the States … Hmm. The Beast Within I struggled a bit yesterday with The Beast Within, not least because I wanted to write something for Catch the Rainbow. I think, though, it’s because I was writing the murder scene, which is […]
Read moreMonday went by in a bit of a whirl. In case you didn’t notice, my book The Life of Richard Cadbury was finally published. There then followed a frenzy of marketing activity that mostly consisted of creating flyers and mockups in Canva and Photopea respectively. Then I went through Facebook, Twitter and MeWe and added links and images to all the groups and pages I belong to on those. I also made sure to respond to every single person who wished […]
Read moreWordPress was having a bit of a hissy fit today. First of all, it wouldn’t let me create or edit a post in Edge, and then it wouldn’t let me preview a post in Opera or Edge. However, as I pay for the personal plan, I was able to contact support and they seem to have fixed it for me. Or at least on Edge they have. Opera may take a while longer, but I’m not using that as much […]
Read moreThe picture shows my current workstation. The lectern on the left currently holds some notes for Catch the Rainbow. These notes relate to the arrests of the Birmingham Six on the night of the Birmingham pub bombings. I think I got the information from Hansard or somewhere like that, as they are the men’s statements. I have the lamp to the left because I’m right-handed and it doesn’t cast a shadow when I’m writing anything by hand or editing or […]
Read moreI don’t have any pictures to hand today, and I don’t have time to sort one out. So here’s one courtesy of Pixabay. Today I am not a happy bunny as WordPress have finally taken the classic editor off the WP admin posts page. Perhaps it’s an October thing. It’s not all bad, as there’s a classic editor “block” now. But I have yet to discover how to position pictures where I want them to be and not where they want […]
Read moreThe River Torne is a river the poet used to fish when ‘e worra lad (when he was a young man). In those days, the lads used to wait until the river had been dredged, usually around September time, and the reeds and weeds removed from the edges. Apparently, that was the best time to fish. We went to look at the River Torne a couple of weeks ago to see if it was a viable venue for him now […]
Read moreI managed to hit my desk by 9am yesterday morning, so that’s something. We’ll ignore the fact that I then went to get dressed … At least the garden wasn’t swarming with work people by the time I was ready to start work … ha! Famous last words … I’m trying to share some pictures from our new surroundings. If they have anything to do with the blog post, all well and good. But often, they don’t. They’re just decoration. […]
Read moreYesterday didn’t start as planned and by the time I settled down to work, it was almost time to start the ghostwriting gig. Scrivener I’d already tried and failed to open the Scrivener file for this work on Sunday. I’ve reinstalled Scrivener to my computer and I failed to copy across the templates I’ve generated myself, and I wanted to use one of them for this work. So as I was opening up Catch the Rainbow, I was reminded to go […]
Read moreImage by chezbeate from Pixabay After watching the weather, the poet decided to go fishing on Friday. So I put together an editing bag and took the work with me that came in on Thursday morning. By the end of the afternoon, I’d finished the hard-copy edits. By the time we got home, a new proofreading job had landed from the Greek client. And the plan was to finish the screen edits of the Hong Kong job on Saturday or […]
Read moreDog walk The dog and I once again attempted to find the circular path the three-legged dog and its humans had used, this time armed with the poet. Last week, it was just the dog and me, and I gave up and turned around when I thought the path between the houses and the old airfield was getting a bit … creepy. This time, we explored where I thought the path might come out, right next to a little parking […]
Read moreThis picture is a magazine mock-up that my Smoggie snapper (Teesside photographer) made for me when I left Corus/Tata. The front cover image is of a blowout and I wanted to use this image on the front of a live RD&T Magazine. I was the editor and I thought it was a fantastic picture. But the powers-that-be didn’t think we should be promoting blowouts in the steel testing industry, and so I was over-ruled and the picture lay on the […]
Read moreThe murder board My murder board isn’t up yet, but every time I open this tin of bits that go with the murder board, it cheers me up no end. I think it’s all the colours. The murder board is a large whiteboard that goes on every wall in every office I ever have. Whenever we plan an office, we always choose a place for the murder board. It’s called a murder board because I write crime and mystery stories, […]
Read moreFor the past two weeks we’ve been moving house (again!), and now we’re in the village of Finningley, which used to be in Nottinghamshire but is now in South Yorkshire. It’s amazing how borders can change like that. There’s an airfield here that used to be RAF Finningley and for 35 years the airfield hosted a famous air show. During the Second World War, Finningley was briefly associated with RAF Bomber Command where the air crews finished their combat training. […]
Read moreI realised that we get the keys to the new house next Wednesday. That’s just over a week away. So I’ve decided to close the office on Tuesday. I won’t be able to concentrate properly after then anyway, so I may as well. The first thing I did was notify all of my regular clients that my last day of business will be next Tuesday and to tell them when I expect to be back up and running again, which […]
Read moreI didn’t get around to writing any of Catch the Rainbow yesterday, but I did sort some of the rest of the material into some sort of order. This one may not get finished before the end of August, but then again, it might … The Life of Richard Cadbury was also neglected. I need to get on with this one. We’re still awaiting the foreword, but if I get on with it and have done it by the time the […]
Read moreEver since the poet went back to work on 1 July, we’ve both had cold upon cold upon cold. And yesterday, I was finally flattened. Unusually, it seems that the poet is a couple of days behind me this time. Also unusually, it seems, if I wake up and I’m not very well, I generally take a sick day. I’ve always done this, even when I “worked for a living” (aka “had a proper job”, aka “had a day job” […]
Read moreAfter basking in my Camp NaNoWriMo winner glory for a moment or two, I finished work late on Friday. It was about 9pm here, so about 11pm for my client. The work was mostly late because Word had a bit of a hissy fit and took it upon itself to remove ALL of my tracked changes. It left the comments in, but everything else was gone. And I couldn’t get them back. I did some internet research, and I eventually […]
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 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 moreOctober suddenly got busier late yesterday afternoon. But it’s okay, I was half-expecting it. It’s the new writing job I was in discussion about towards the end of last week. And it’s only 10,000 words max. I can do this … Yesterday started with me writing up the day’s Pomodoros, as I hadn’t had chance to do them the day before. Then I wrote a 465-word blog post. And then I completed the screen edit for the Hong Kong client […]
Read moreWe had a few more bodies turn up at the writers’ group this week, which meant we needed to find somewhere in the library that we wouldn’t disturb the other library users. We were given one of the interview rooms, which was a bit cramped for five of us, but made it very cosy and friendly. We welcomed new members Georgia and Martin, and we welcomed Pat back. Rob couldn’t join us again this week as he had some interviews […]
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