Diane Wordsworth: freelance writer ● novelist ● editor ● ghostwriter ● book reviewer ● member of the CWA ● world-famous nutter-magnet
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 […]
Read more
(Image by S. Hermann & F. Richter from Pixabay) Part of my getting back to a structured routine includes writing up my writing diary as I go along. So I’m back to reporting on what I did ‘yesterday’ or how ‘yesterday’ went. Monday 11 October 2021 Monday started off quite well with the new regime, although I was running about 15 minutes late right up to the morning coffee break. ‘My’ work I walked to work and spent the first hour checking emails and […]
Read more
(Image by Kelvin Stuttard from Pixabay) My rates for editing and proofreading have been static for a lot of years now. And when I started the ghostwriting a year ago, I went in low but towards the top of what I already knew the client paid. After all, I was learning the trade rather than an expert in it. Since then he’s given me a pay rise. With all other prices going through the roof now, the time has come for me to […]
Read moreImage by alan9187 from Pixabay I worked until 10pm gone on Friday, but I did it. As usual. I wrote my 11,000+ words, checked it over as I finished each chapter, and sent it off. By the time I surfaced on Saturday, payment had been approved and the next instalment contracted. Honestly, if I did that every day, apart from having to be peeled up from the floor I’d have a completed novel every … week! Obviously, though, that’s unsustainable, […]
Read moreMay might be a 31-day month, but with a bank holiday at either end and with me sticking to not working at the weekend, that gives me only 19 work days. If I finish all of the writing that I have planned, both mine and the client’s, then the target word-count for May is 75,500 words. That’s just under 4,000 words per day. (gulp!) But … I can do that. I just need to stick to the three writing projects […]
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 moreImage 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 moreImage by Alexandra_Koch from Pixabay … three to go. Yup, the poet had the first of his two vaccinations at the weekend. His booking had got lost in the ether, somehow, but they saw him anyway, which was very good of them. Mine’s on Friday. We didn’t manage as much as we would like on Saturday. First of all we had the weekly shopping to do, and on the way there we also stopped off to have a look at […]
Read moreImage by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay Thursdays are always tired days for me. I don’t know why this happens, but it always has done. Even when I ‘worked for a living’ you could usually guarantee that Thursday would be the day I turned in late. I didn’t ‘walk to work’ because by the time I realised what time it was, it was almost time to be at my desk. The walking workout is 15 minutes, so I should be able […]
Read moreI didn’t have a great start to the week due to a rough night on Sunday and a long lie-in on Monday. However, I did manage to get some things done. Monday One of the things I wanted to do was see if there was any other editing or proofreading work coming up. I checked the job board, and of the 5 jobs I selected, 4 had already hired and one wanted a Canadian/American English speaker only. I can do […]
Read moreImage by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay Our laptop is quite old now, and a bit too heavy to work with on my lap. But while I was waiting for my Covid test result to *not* come in (and to see if they would let me into the hospital), I really didn’t feel like opening up the office. And it was cooler at the dining end of the room than it was at the sitting end of the room. So I gave […]
Read moreImage by 🎄Merry Christmas 🎄 from Pixabay Apologies for going AWOL for a few days. I’ve been plodding along, working steadily, and then by the end of each day, I’ve realised I haven’t blogged yet – usually right after switching everything off. We had the entire weekend off. The only errand I had to run was to the supermarket, and I had to go on my own due to Tesco ramping up their social distancing rules. It’s probably just as […]
Read moreImage by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay I had a good day on Tuesday, I finished the pdf edits for the proofreading job and sent that back to the client. By return, she asked for my invoice, which I sent, also by return. The next job should have been editing, but I was distracted. While I was amending the pdf, my computer kept on juddering so that my manual (freehand) “pencil marks”, aka ticks, were wavy at best. Something was running […]
Read moreImage by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay I had a slow and steady day yesterday. I didn’t get everything done that I wanted to, but I did get through quite a lot of stuff anyway. I had dinner at my desk, and I finished work at about 6pm. Just in time for tea. Proofreading I finished the hard-copy proofreading job for England. (Yay!) I do enjoy these books, but they do all result in a massive Yay! when I’ve finished. The entire […]
Read moreI was very happy when we got up on Thursday morning to see that the snow I’d ordered, and had been promised, for about the past 3 weeks, had finally arrived. It looked very lovely, and it continued to snow for the rest of the day. I’ve had a good and solid working week, plodding away at the various projects. Every day I’ve been able to work on everything except for The Beast Within. Any down-time I’ve had has been spent researching […]
Read moreImage by Michael Drummond from Pixabay When I was learning how to write, fiction and non-fiction, I was taught to always ensure that my facts were correct, as there will always be someone who knows, and there will always be someone who complains if there’s a mistake. When I was training to be a broadcast journalist, I was taught to always check any facts or historical details to ensure that they were correct. I’ve been writing for a long time, […]
Read moreImage by Tomasz Proszek from Pixabay We were promised snow on Friday. Heavy snow. All day. We woke up and it wasn’t even raining. To say I was disappointed was an understatement. I was looking forward to walking the dog in the snow. Before closing everything down on Thursday, an editing job came in from the India client. It had actually been on the job board since teatime the day before. I’d been checking the job board every morning but […]
Read moreHappy New Year to everyone! Let’s hope we kick this virus in 2021, so that life can return to normal. I had a lovely long Christmas holiday, almost three whole weeks in the end. And while we were still very busy, I also did quite a lot of navel-gazing. I’ve been cogitating over the way I structure my working day. It is clear that I’m at my most productive and creative in the mornings, and I’ve tried to work on […]
Read moreImage by Gerhard G. from Pixabay So I’ve been spending the past few days planning for the new year. I did very well this year in that I was able to complete all of my outstanding work in good time to take the whole of the Christmas period off, for a change. But that, of course, left me with a gaping January with no income, as everyone was due to pay me before today (and they have). And so I […]
Read more… diversify. Looking back at 2020, a lot of us have seen major changes. I think lockdown was the biggest challenge for many. For people like me, who work from home and hardly see anyone from one day to the next, lockdown wasn’t that big a deal. I had the poet home with me while he was furloughed, and since furlough ended, he’s been encouraged to work from home whenever possible. And that’s been really nice. At our old house, […]
Read more… Christmas! Friday turned out to be busier than I initially expected. I had to step away from the Canva and get on with some work, or I’d be doing it all weekend. Blog planning I started some blog planning work, both for this year and for next. I saved the templates I want to use for the whole year, but I also had a bit of a doodle for the rest of this month. We both actually break up […]
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 moreI’m starting to run out of pictures from our Hatfield Moor trip, so we’ll have to go out again and get some more. Fortunately, we have the last of our long weekends for the year coming up. If the weather is as sunny as it is today, the poet might finally get the autumn colours he’s after. I finished the ghostwriting gig. I took it to the wire, with the bonus short story. But the actual novel was delivered the […]
Read moreHere is another picture from our recent walk around Hatfield Moor. The tree is a young silver birch and it comes under 2 photography subject classifications (that I know of). First of all, it’s a ‘hero’ tree. This means that it’s a standalone tree, set apart from a group of other trees. Secondly, it’s a ‘star of the show’, which means it stands out against a load of others. Looking from a different angle, it’s clearly a hero tree. But […]
Read moreSo it’s Day 5 for me for NaNoWriMo, despite it being 10 November. It isn’t going great at the moment, I will admit. This is because after I spent time creating my Scrivener binder last week, I had a change of heart and a change of structure, and had to go in and change it all. The binder is in a state that I feel comfortable working with now, so I’m hoping that the words come a little faster. We […]
Read more… well, I say the end is nigh when really what I mean is the end of the writing part is nigh. For the past two weeks I’ve been in the writing cave, trying to finish the history book. Last week I managed to pop up for air and come in to say hello with the odd update or two. This week I feel as though I’ve been under water the whole time. So, before I head in there once again […]
Read moreI’ll be honest. I’ve been struggling to get motivated to do my own writing. All was very well to the end of November, when I completed NaNoWriMo 2017. But December disappeared down a dark hole of running around, shopping, Christmas, hospital visiting, family stuff, phone calls, and my output dropped to zero. January and February have been spent trying to catch up. And I did do a lot of work in January and February, although it was pretty much all […]
Read moreIt’s been a whole month since my last post (before this morning’s 52 in 52, that is). I haven’t been lax, I’ve been very busy – as usual. First of all, there was a bank holiday weekend. Then there was a full week’s holiday, followed by another full week’s holiday just one week later. Fortunately, all holidays are now over … for the month, at least. The biggest reason, however, was that I came to the rescue (I hope) of […]
Read moreI don’t know. You wait all week for a blog post, and then three come along at once … I didn’t get much done on the non-fiction book last week other than research. I’m very much at the research stage as it’s not really a subject I’d consider myself an expert on – other than eating chocolate, that is. But I have several books to read on various topics I’ll be covering in the book, and I’m still ploughing my […]
Read moreWeek three is still very much about research for me at the moment. I’m on chapter 3 of the research material and I’ve searched for and chosen my usual five websites, and added those to my Scrivener file. The cards are coloured pink for research, and they’ve been labelled “to do”. I’m getting a little bit behind on the actual reading aspect though, and I’d like to catch up on that this week. I’d like to change some of those […]
Read moreFriday disappeared into the ether and I think I may have faffed a little. I know I did some reading for the non-fiction book as well as some regular research reading (or what other people call “reading novels”). I think I was feeling a tad burned out. So it was nice to have a bit of a recharge day. Today has been month-end admin. I’ve done my month-end accounts and I’ve started my new month word-count tracker spreadsheet. I also […]
Read moreIt’s been a week of ups and downs this week, and a very busy one as a result. But there’s some good news in here too. Some very good news. The week started well with me cracking on with another big editing job. It was actually due in the previous day, Sunday. But I warned the “handler” at the publisher that it might be a few days over as I had some last minute queries. I promised her that the […]
Read moreI seem to be having a mid-week writing splurge – and long may it last. I’ve been very busy editing a heavy book, but I finished it and sent the queries back to the author. It did take longer than I thought it would, though. I’d hoped it would take around a week and it took the best part of two weeks. I was so determined to finish it that I worked until 10pm on Monday night. It’s done now, […]
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 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 […]
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 more