Diane Wordsworth: freelance writer ● novelist ● editor ● ghostwriter ● book reviewer ● member of the CWA ● world-famous nutter-magnet
It’s been a whole week since I updated everyone on my NaNoWriMo progress. This is mostly because I took some time off. I took two days to catch up with and clear a ghostwriting instalment, and then I took two days holiday. Day 12 Last Friday, then, which was Day 12, I wrote a blog post, duplicated a blog post on Medium, raised an invoice (hurrah!), scheduled a blog post for Monday’s publication of Mardi Gras, and I did a load […]
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By the time Day 11 arrived, I was more than a thousand words over where I should be if I’d done 1,667 words every day, and that was before I even did Day 11. Before then, though, there was gig list admin to do. Because the poet came back from his business trip a day early, he was able to do all of the gig-collection and posted it to the website, and he managed to share the list to everywhere […]
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Day 9 of NaNoWriMo was another day I went off down a rabbit hole. I’ve been trying to organise my reading, and so this time I was looking for a spreadsheet that collected stats and created nice, pretty charts without me having to learn how to make and position them. Of course, the main aim was to keep a record of the books I’m reading and why I’m reading them. I wouldn’t want to spend time on a book in […]
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I had a late start for Day 4 of NaNo. A VERY late start. And I also had a lot of work to do. However, I still wanted to do my NaNo bit for the day and while it wasn’t the first job, I did manage it in the end. I wrote 2,728 words on Day 4. 10,523/50,000 words. 21% done! Before then, though, I had gig list work to do. The poet had already updated the gig list and […]
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I worked at the weekend – again – but only so that I could at least have 2 days off this week with the poet. He had to go on another business trip first thing Wednesday morning, so I made sure I had Monday and Tuesday with him. On Monday we chilled for a bit before we went out and did a bit of spontaneous shopping. On Tuesday, he worked on the gig list, a playlist for a private party […]
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… but then, Mondays are always a good start. I just struggle for the rest of the week after that. I should have been having a holiday yesterday and today, as the poet is using up his annual leave before he loses it at the end of the year. I had too much work to do, though. And so I worked yesterday and I’ll work today. However, I’m not going mad. Walking to work works at 9am much better than […]
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Thursday 26 August 2021 I had a lot to do on Thursday, so I was happy when I made it to my desk at a reasonable time again. I started by having a quick look at the short stories I’ve written but done nothing with for possible inclusion in the fiction magazine… It soon became clear that there was a reason I didn’t do anything with them. They were all rubbish. So that was that, then. Next up I selected […]
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Monday’s are always good… but then everything usually goes downhill from there! Monday 23 August 2021 Considering I didn’t stop work all weekend and I finished very late on Saturday and late-ish on Sunday, I was up surprisingly early and at my desk by 10am. I had a lot to do, though, but only a handful of things for myself before the client work kicked in. My first job was to share yesterday’s blog post to Substack, the old site […]
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(Asana screenshot in calendar view) This week I needed to concentrate on catching up with the ghostwriting work. Right after having one writing marathon and submitting it, I was straight into another, and that isn’t sustainable. Also, if one step was delayed in any way, it pushed the rest along too. So I took the week off blogging, Medium, my own writing and self-publishing and tried to come up with a system that will work. I did allow myself an […]
Read moreImage by Hier und jetzt endet leider meine Reise auf Pixabay aber from Pixabay With such a long to-do list I really ought to try and focus more. My self-discipline was not great yesterday due to my inability to ignore shiny, sparkly things. To me, shiny, sparkly things are actually neither shiny nor sparkly. They are things like book covers, or artwork, or websites, or even just a butterfly mind. I really did have a lot to do yesterday, and […]
Read moreImage by ElisaRiva from Pixabay I’ve been a bit preoccupied this week. Not navel-gazing or anything like that. Just trying to sort everything in my head into some sort of workable order. It’s been a bit chaotic in there of late. Mostly I’ve been working on the new book series. It was very much in the inspiration stage at the beginning of the week, but I think it’s smoothed out into something workable by now. At the start of the […]
Read moreImage by happyveganfit from Pixabay … one step back. Or that’s how it feels at times. Yesterday didn’t start as well as the day before, but the day before was better than the day before that. If that’s the theme, then today will be better than yesterday. Fingers crossed! I had a bad night, to the extent that when the poet got up to attend two video meetings, I stayed in bed to catch up. Then when I did get up […]
Read moreImage by J Garget from Pixabay I didn’t have a great start to the new year. I was busy all day, yet I don’t appear to have got anything done. And then, of course, came the news. National lockdown Not that a national lockdown changes anything much for me. But if the poet gets furloughed again, we may need my wages to fall back on, again. But … enough about that. I’m sure the news is full of it wherever […]
Read moreMy book, The Life of Richard Cadbury, is due to be released on 30 November. The book is available for pre-order from Pen & Sword Books and from Amazon UK. It’s also on Hive in the UK. And at Waterstones! Marketing & admin I started the day yesterday with some marketing (I was searching for the booksellers that already have The Life of Richard Cadbury up for pre-order) and some admin. It was new month day, so that meant updating the new […]
Read moreThis morning I finally started the next book for NetGalley. Well, actually, I re-started it as I’d already read a couple of chapters and I wanted to refresh my memory. The work came in from Hong Kong. The publisher has worked so hard to get this material to me this week rather than next week. He sent across 11 articles for his next magazine, which I saved and printed. I’m going to do those in between other jobs. The other […]
Read moreSo I’ve been reading this series about making money from home (Make Money from Home series by Sally Miller), and I’m finding it very interesting and informative. I’m trying a few things out that they suggest, and one of those is creating a logo. But do you need a logo? I’d never, ever thought about having my own logo, for the blog, for the website, for social media. I’ve had Facebook since about 2008, I’ve been blogging since 2005, and […]
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 moreI thought I was just tired and overdoing things a bit, but an upset stomach turned into full-blown flu symptoms. Before I started to feel poorly, I tidied up a short story, Pippa & Davey Forever, and sent it off, and I prepared another partial for Night Crawler and sent that off. I cleared the copywriting job, I sent my apologies to the writers’ group, and I asked the publisher of the Cadbury book for an extension. And then I […]
Read moreFriday morning began with some Pomodoro admin and a jigging about of each one, resulting in one Pomodoro less per day and a shorter dinner break, but longer Pomodoro breaks. I certainly didn’t feel quite so rushed by the end of the day and had more time to breathe. I wrote my daily blog post, tidied up my Twitter feed, was approved for two more NetGalley books, and did some work on the Cadbury book. In the afternoon, I scheduled […]
Read moreI was surprised at how much work I got through yesterday as Thursdays are usually rubbish. I generally wake up tired and often don’t want to get out of bed. Perhaps having a goal is helping. The day began at breakfast, funnily enough, with me reading the next NetGalley book. It’s a Christmas story and I love Christmas, but I’m enjoying the book as well. Always useful, that. My first Pomodoro of the day was deciding what to do in […]
Read moreIt’s great being able to turn up to work wearing whatever you like. Yesterday it was shorts and t-shirt again before I had to “get dressed” to go out. The first hour of the day was spent reading three chapters of the NetGalley book. I also did a tiny bit of gig list admin (shared this week’s gig list and then scheduled a post asking for next week’s gigs). I remembered to start my Pomodoro tomato and I spent the […]
Read moreIt’s been a fair week where I’ve finally organised myself and my work again. I’ve managed to write at least one blog post a day, and on Thursday I spent time on two blogs as well as some gig list work. I’ve given the blog a bit of a facelift, and I’ve learnt how to use some of the new features before the new interface becomes mandatory. So far, I’ve not upgraded to a premium account. I’m still getting used […]
Read moreOn Wednesday, we went to see Doncaster band The Blinders, as guests of the venue, the Social Bar, Doncaster. The Blinders were supported by Calva Louise, who opened the event. and were greeted by a packed audience. This punkadelic 3-piece is now based in Manchester, but they haven’t forgotten their roots, often returning to play their home town. They’re dark, they’re heavy, they’re interesting, they’re energetic and they make a lot of noise. You can watch some of their videos on the website, you […]
Read moreToday was supposed to be the start of the new regime. I was going to have a good long look at the work I already have in and the work I already have planned and then I was going to put it into some sort of order. So far, I’ve updated the diary for the rest of this week, and I’ve completed my diary for my first week back at work next year. I’ve broken the back of it, then […]
Read moreI’m not great technically. I get by. I can learn how to do many things, and I even learned computer programming once upon a time. But these technical giants, they don’t exactly make things any easier, do they? The past few days I’ve been working on the blog. I’m transferring my domain name over to here, and it seems the registration has transferred too. What worries me, though, is that I also have the gig list domain name with the […]
Read moreI had a lot to do again last week, and I didn’t manage to do them all. daily writing exercise write a blog post every day I only managed one of each of these last week, and they were both on Wednesday. Saying that, I’ve done both already today, but it’s unlikely I’ll get any more blog posts done this week. read through Catch the Rainbow and send next instalment to beta readers sort out all the bits for The Beast Within (a Marcie […]
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 moreThe 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 the week before last, I thought it had gone. However, come Wednesday evening, I started to get another “bit of a throat”, and this time it came back far worse than before, and this time it’s spread into my jaw, so I have a massive toothache too (the tooth feels […]
Read moreJanuary wasn’t a great start, and that continued into February. This is mostly because much of the time was spent editing other people’s work while the rest of the time was spent eating birthday cake. The month began with a contribution to a friend’s article on writing plus the return of a lovely job to a lovely new client. I did a quick catch-up with some book reviews and a couple of short stories. And then I sat down to […]
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