Tag: Diary of a Scaredy Cat

5 December 2023

Tuesday 5 December 2023: Best laid plans of mice and men…

The rest of Friday was great. I can’t remember precisely how the rest of Friday went, but that has to be good, right? Ah yes, I remember… I did some editing and cleared about 20 pages. So yes, the rest of Friday was indeed great! On Saturday, we began the day by trying to come up with a 4-week eating...

Categories writer at work Comments: 2

29 November 2023

Wednesday 29 November 2023: The year has flown

And just like that, November was almost over. It’s my November wrap-up post tomorrow, so this is the last post before the December run. I can’t believe how quickly the year has flown, and yet November seemed to drag and drag. Until yesterday when I started today’s post. Then it was, like, Wow! Where did November go? Time was spent...

Categories writer at work Comments: 3

22 November 2023

Wednesday 22 November 2023: Immersing myself in science fiction

The hedgehog returned on Tuesday night. I still thought it looked a bit small, so I asked the poet for his opinion, and he assured me that it’s a fully grown male. I must have only seen very big females in the past! I also asked him where he thinks the hedgehogs are living, and he said he’s pretty sure...

Categories writer at work

13 October 2021

Less easy

(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...

Categories writer at work

22 July 2021

Pomodoro time again

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...

Categories writer at work

1 July 2021

Faffing with shiny, sparkly things again

Because 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...

Categories writer at work

28 June 2021

Paperback publishing stalled…

… 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...

Categories writer at work

25 June 2021

At last! I published a paperback!

I’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...

Categories writer at work

24 June 2021

Bit of a surprise

Image 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...

Categories writer at work

18 June 2021

1,000 followers!

Whoo-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...

Categories writer at work

17 June 2021

Burning the midnight oil

Image 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...

Categories writer at work

15 June 2021

Weekend working again

Image 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...

Categories writer at work

11 June 2021

Best laid plans of mice and men

Image 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...

Categories writer at work

10 June 2021

Getting better

Image 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...

Categories writer at work

8 June 2021

Must focus

Image 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,...

Categories writer at work

13 April 2021

Project reboot

So, 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,...

Categories writer at work

12 April 2021

Twee Tales Twee now available! (and a bit of a rant …)

At 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...

Categories writer at work

23 July 2020

Irritating interlude

Yes, 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...

Categories writer at work

31 March 2020

Back to (writing) work

Earlier 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...

Categories writer at work

6 November 2019

I’ve been having a play …

… 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...

Categories writer at work

11 September 2018

It’s all so complicated!

The 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...

Categories writer at work

4 October 2017

News: new platform for digital editions

I 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...

Categories News

22 September 2017

52 books in 52 weeks: Diary of a Scaredy Cat

*** 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...

Categories 52 books in 52 weeks

30 March 2017

Out now! Diary of a Scaredy Cat

Some 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...

Categories Publication

28 March 2017

Update

March 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...

Categories writer at work

17 February 2017

When a new project begins

I’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...

Categories writer at work

30 January 2017

January round-up

January 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...

Categories monthly round-up

4 January 2017

New beginnings (*** list alert ***)

The 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....

Categories 52 books in 52 weeks/interview