Diane Wordsworth: freelance writer ● novelist ● editor ● ghostwriter ● book reviewer ● member of the CWA ● world-famous nutter-magnet
Image by harshal07 from Pixabay It’s another long-un, folks. Either save it for later or go get that coffee now! Tuesday At precisely 8:26 on Tuesday morning, the cat jumped on the bed and yelled at me to wake up. I must have slept well, but I was still feeling a little weary. However, I had a lot of work to do, so I had to get up. I’m trying to read more, so that I can catch up with […]
Read moreBecause it’s not as if I’m busy… When you go onto my author page at Amazon, it defaults to ‘sort by popularity’. There, at the top, are the last three short stories I published on Kindle Unlimited. They’re all free for members, and they shuffle around a lot, but the reports aren’t showing any further activity. Scroll down, and Night Crawler Kindle edition is #8 on the list – or it was at the time of writing. The paperback is at […]
Read more… and it’s not because of me. Once I’d done a load of household chores, I arrived at my desk at 10:05am on Friday. When I’m supposed to be there at 10am, that’s not bad going. Or not on recent standards. I had a bit of a whinge on a forum I belong to, and I completed about half a dozen feedback forms for them. Then I published Chapter 23 of Diary of a Scaredy Cat on Medium, and I scheduled […]
Read moreI’ve been sharing friend links to Facebook for the Night Crawler chapters on Medium religiously as I’ve been publishing them. But on Tuesday night, when I sent a friend link for the Little John article to the poet, it wouldn’t let him read it. He tried logging out (he created an account so that he could ‘clap’) and tried again, but it still wouldn’t let him. So then I asked him to uninstall the app from his phone and see if […]
Read moreImage by LukasBasel from Pixabay Monday evening finished on a bit of a surprise when the ghostwriting client sent an email asking two things: Could we make the new story 80,000 words instead of 60,000 words? Would I be able to write another one concurrently? The first one was a bit of a surprise because I’d already said that the outline needed a bit more substance. But if that can be remedied, then yes, I can do 80,000 words instead […]
Read moreWhoo-hoo! While I was working away during the week, I didn’t notice that we’d limped over the 1,000 followers line. Wahay! Well done to everyone who shared, and a very warm welcome to all new followers! Actually, it’s currently 1,001 followers right now, as I write this. But by the time it’s published, that could have gone down to 999 again, or it could have gone up even more. Either way, it’s happened. I might take a screenshot of it […]
Read moreImage by Bessi from Pixabay Tuesday After my mammoth writing session on Monday, the plan was to take it easy on Tuesday. I’d finished working at about 3:30am and I got up at around 10am. I did a bit of faffing, checked social media, read a few articles, and did some housework. Then I moved to my desk and started the first of the day’s work. Unusually for me, I was still in my dressing gown, but once I’d done […]
Read moreImage by mohamed Hassan from Pixabay Despite still being busy, I finished work at 5pm on Friday. I already knew I’d be working at the weekend, and we needed to do the shopping before we had tea. So I called it a day. Saturday On Saturday I was up quite early (for me). The poet decided to go fishing for the day because I was working. Here’s how the day went: went through and removed my byline where I’d used […]
Read moreImage by Please Don’t sell My Artwork AS IS from Pixabay I had such plans to plough through the work before the poet got home from his work trip. And then the cat got ill. She’d spent the night in the dog’s basket, which is really unusual. Then in the morning she nipped outside for a wee, came in for a quick bite to eat, and then went back to bed. In the dog’s basket again. She also had a […]
Read moreImage by Prawny from Pixabay I might not be clearing stuff off my to-do list in the order I’m supposed to, but I am keeping busy rather than faffing. Or most of the time at least. Tuesday Tuesday was a better day than Monday, despite having a bit of a rubbish night. The poet left early (about 7am) to head south for a three-day/two-night work trip. I don’t like it when he goes away, but it does mean I get […]
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 moreSo, after my little tantrum yesterday, Amazon have now accepted Diary of a Scaredy Cat. Draft2Digital did their thang, and they got it through. At the time of writing, they’re still working on getting Twee Tales Twee up there, but at least Diary of a Scaredy Cat is there now. You can by the ebook here, in multi-format, and from here, on Kindle, directly from Amazon. Project reboot With the end of full lockdown, I seem to have found a new energy. We […]
Read moreAt the end of last week, I decided to gradually move all of my ebooks over to Amazon. However, before I could do that, I had to make sure that they were all published first. And before I do that, I want the designs to be consistent. I do love publishing my books on Draft2Digital. They make the books available on all ereaders, not just Kindle, and they have a paperback publishing tool too. Not only that, though, they also […]
Read moreYes, I know they always happen and we should always build in some sort of contingency. But I’d only just got into a good rhythm of work when this week happened. And not only this week. Wednesday happened as well. Wednesday was not a good day. I had so many chores to do that by midday I still hadn’t started my own work. And then, to top it all, a line of washing I’d taken the time to peg out fell […]
Read moreEarlier in the year (gosh, is it still only March?), I had to take a bit of a sabbatical from my writing as I needed to replenish all of the work I lost while I was writing the latest non-fiction book. The book took me longer than I expected to write, and that meant by the time I was ready to take on editing and proofreading jobs again, many of my clients had found someone else to do the work. […]
Read more… because, like, I’m really, really busy. Everybody else seems perfectly able to use Canva for promotional material, but I didn’t even know where to start. And when another one ended up on my newsfeed in Facebook, I just had to have a go. I found a step-by-step idiot guide and took it from there. And here are two I made earlier … What do you think? I think I need to finish the current WIP so I can finish […]
Read moreThe news that Amazon’s CreateSpace is being swallowed up by Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing spurred me into action yesterday, a little. The first thing I did was contact KDP with a few questions. While I awaited their reply, I set about researching an alternative. CreateSpace was always the paperback arm of Amazon’s self-publishing platform. KDP was what morphed out of their Kindle-publishing platform. Some time in the past year or so, CreateSpace offered the ability to also publish on Kindle […]
Read moreI have a new platform for my digital editions. At the moment, only Diary of a Scaredy Cat has been migrated over. But eventually, all of my ebooks in various formats will be available from Pronoun, apart from those traditionally published. Hardbacks will still originate on Lulu and paperbacks will still be over on CreateSpace. But all eformats will eventually be available via Pronoun. Let me know what you think!
Read more*** shameless self-plug alert *** I set myself the goal of reading and reviewing 52 writing guides over the year. Here is book 24. I couldn’t complete a series on writers’ guides without at least including a plug for my own. Especially as it’s the first in a series, and especially as I’ve been getting some really good feedback. Diary of a Scaredy Cat: a year in the life of a frightened writer by Diane Wordsworth is a collection of […]
Read moreSome of you have been waiting for this … and today’s the day you can finally get hold of Diary of a Scaredy Cat: a year in the life of a frightened writer. The writer’s guide, with exercises, is available in paperback, for £5.99, and on Kindle, for £2.99. Overseas markets will follow in a few days. Retail outlets will take a little longer. But UK readers can order a copy right now! Diane Wordsworth was struggling to get back into […]
Read moreMarch has been a bit busy … apologies for going AWOL. Nothing has been wrong, all is well. I’ve just been really, really busy. The month began with the tail end of an editing job finally delivered on 7 March. It was followed almost immediately with two new editing jobs from lovely-already-boss, and a proofreading job. The first of those editing jobs has been completed this morning and sent to the author for review (and, actually, acknowledged just this instant […]
Read moreI’m so excited, I always am when I’m about to start a new project I’ve been mulling over in my head. The plan was to start the new project in January, but sickness in us and various members of the family put paid to that. So then the plan moved to February, but then I received a client editing job that is taking longer than I originally imagined it would. BUT … yesterday I submitted the author questions before I […]
Read moreJanuary has not been a great start to 2017 for me, work-wise. I’ve been lazy, unmotivated and easily distracted. I think the biggest problem was I didn’t set myself a total word-count target for the month and, as a result, I’ve written hardly anything. I have had one book each in from two clients, one to edit and one to proofread. I’ll be finishing both of these today and tomorrow, so January won’t have been a total washout. The other client […]
Read moreThe news that yet another short story magazine has closed its doors to all but a privileged few has knocked me sideways somewhat this past week. It’s not a market I’ve had a lot of success with, but it’s a good market to target anyway and at least the result is a completed short story at the end of it. I had such plans, though. I’d bought a new diary that starts in January and finishes in December instead of […]
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