Diane Wordsworth: freelance writer ● novelist ● editor ● ghostwriter ● book reviewer ● member of the CWA ● world-famous nutter-magnet
I’ve had a busy couple of weeks, mostly doing one of two things: Planning Ghostwriting I break up for Christmas on 16 December. Before then I had 40,000 words to write for one client and 20,000 words to write for the other. And I had just under 2 weeks. Eek! I have a Words Worth Reading to populate and publish in time for 3 January, which means I also have a novella to finish, two new short stories to write, […]
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With me falling quite a way behind, I finally managed to crack on with some NaNo, hopefully in time to rescue the situation. On Friday, Day 26, I had just under 18,000 words to go, which gave me 5 days at 3,600 words per day. I wrote 3,667 words (35,842). 35,842/50,000 words. 72% done! I also had ghostwriting to do and the plan was to work at the weekend. Saturday was very busy, though, and I didn’t get around to […]
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Day 25, I think. And I can’t say Days 19 – 25, because I only seem to have done something yesterday, which was Day 25. So I’ll just claim that one. On Wednesday I submitted the final part of Ghostwriting (1) gig Book 7, and before the day was over, the client was asking if I could start a new story yet. I told him I could start on Monday, and he sent over the next storyline and some tentative […]
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After a 2am finish again on Tuesday night, Wednesday morning was another late one. The cat actually woke me up at 10am (she yowled at me, right in my face), so I was already 2 hours late before even starting my working day. I read more of my NetGalley book over breakfast, as well as completed my social hour. And when I landed at my desk, I finished off yesterday’s blog post and posted it. The bit I added was […]
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… but I still have time to catch up. It just wasn’t yesterday. I was also behind on the ghostwriting, although I did manage to write two more chapters on Monday night – one before tea and one after. I was still behind, though, so I turned yesterday on its head with the intention of doing the ghostwriting first… Don’t you just love (or hate?) that word ‘intention’? The day started a good hour later again, thanks to the dog […]
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On Thursday evening I received a message via the contact form. It was from QueryLetter.com and it was to let me know that they’d given me an award. I receive a lot of spam via the contact form, so the first thing I did was go and check that this was a genuine organisation. It involved some searching, but the upshot is that they are. So, thank you very much to QueryLetter.com for awarding Words Worth Writing a Top Writing […]
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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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To the outsider, it may look as though I had the last 4 days off. And I did have a 4-day weekend. However, I was working solidly on Saturday and Sunday, and I finished work at 2am on Monday morning. I did this so that I could have a good couple of days off with the poet. Monday morning we were a bit tired (he stayed up with me), but we did go to the seaside and we had a […]
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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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After struggling to get up for several days on the trot, I was finally at my desk by 10am yesterday, with all social media stuff done. I started the next book on my reading list for November, having finished the first one the day before. And I created a new project on Asana for reading. I decided on December’s four books to read and created a new Instagram poster for that, and I updated the Asana project with book cover […]
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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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This post was going to be a ‘weekend off’ post and it was going to post yesterday. Then I remembered that I also had a publication day post for yesterday, so the weekend off post was added to the NaNoWriMo Day 8 post. Day 5 Day 5, or Friday was supposed to be a day off for me. I was supposed to have a holiday with the poet, but I had a ghostwriting deadline. So I reported to my desk […]
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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’m in the exciting first few stages of writing and am already at almost 8,000 words after only three days. I hope I can keep the momentum and the rhythm going. I wrote 2,515 words on Day 3. 7,795/50,000 words. 16% done! In other work, I started renegotiating an existing contract. I came close to terminating the contract but the client was really nice and convinced me to have another think. So I am. Because I knew I wouldn’t be […]
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I’ve been using my own 10-project planner for over a year and it really works. But it’s also really basic as well as being really high maintenance. While I was looking for a word-count progress meter (see below and in sidebar… also below on mobile devices), I think I found a new one. On Monday, Day 1 of NaNoWriMo, I finally got around to trying it out. And it really is lovely. Seamless. Easy to use. And all I have […]
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Day 1 of this year’s NaNoWriMo was actually yesterday, and today is Day 2. However, I’m a day behind on the blog posts as they’re usually a round-up of the day before (or days before if other posts have sneaked in). The story I’m working on for this year’s NaNo is The Fool: a Stevie Becks mystery. This is a series of novella-length stories. I was supposed to be doing proper prep work last week, but I was so busy I […]
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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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I got up too late and was too tired to do any NaNo prep work on Friday and I ended up down a rabbit hole in any case. Well, I ended up down so many rabbit holes, in fact, that I did wonder at one point if I’d stumbled into a complete warren. Word progress meters I started off by looking for a word progress meter, which was actually sort-of prep work for NaNo. I used to have this wonderful […]
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I had a late start on Thursday due to working very late into Wednesday night. I finished one of the ghostwriting gigs, though, and by the time I got up on Thursday, payment had been approved and the contract for the next instalment had arrived. Because I was slogging away at the ghostwriting, and because it was peeing down with rain, I didn’t get to walk home from work on Wednesday. That means that, technically, me and the dog were still […]
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Prep Day Zero is actually all of the prep work for the prep work. For me, it’s reminding myself of the steps that work when I outline a project, and this week I’ve created tasks in my Asana project file. Including Day Zero, there are actually six prep days rather than five, but the last one is Day Five. What’s the difference? Well, one to five are actually writing work. Or jotting things down. Zero is just setting up reminders, […]
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From 1 November I have five new products scheduled for publication. Three of them are Wordsworth Shorts (standalone short stories, although some do seem to be falling into collections), one is the first short standalone episode in a series, The Ace of Wands, and the fifth one is my first ever novella, Mardi Gras. These are all scheduled to publish a week apart. These books and booklets are already with the publisher and waiting to go. But I’m going to […]
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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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Well, first of all, I got my first half stone (7lb) certificate from Slimming World on Thursday. This has been a long time coming despite actually losing 12lb in real life. Still, it’s the weekly scales that register. However, another quarter of a pound and I’ll have dropped down into the next stone zone (SW weigh-in). Maybe next week… Last week What did I learn with the new regime last week? Firstly, I don’t seem to need a full hour […]
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Yup, looks like I’ve signed up to do NaNo again this year. If there’s one thing walking to work and back every day does, it gives you time to think things through. I’m very busy doing a lot of work. I’m currently ghostwriting not one but two novels. One is a Regency romance, the other is a contemporary story. Both need a certain amount of research doing, although I’m getting quite familiar with the Regency era. I’m also editing for […]
Read moreBecause I didn’t get very much done on The Beast Within for NaNoWriMo in the end, I determined to add it to the planner for the last month of this year. So I sat down and counted how many writing days I have between now and when we break up (13 after today), and I decided to aim for around 2,000 words per session (26,000). I’m going to count Monday, even though it’s the last day of November. And I’ve […]
Read moreA couple of weeks ago we went in search of Bawtry Forest. Apparently, once upon a time, the poet camped there when he was doing part of his Duke of Edinburgh award. Although we found the forest, we couldn’t find anywhere to park. And we ended up on what we’re sure is a private road as it ran through the middle of a massive pig farm. The pigs looked well, though. As we drove around, we did stumble upon a […]
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 moreYesterday, then, was the start of my NaNoWriMo journey for 2020. I have around 17 days in which to write 50,000 words, and that gives me a daily target of just under 3,000 words – or a smidge under 2,972. If I can write at least those 3,000 words every working day, that will give me 51,000 words. For ages and ages I just stared at the top of my screen. I knew what I was supposed to be writing […]
Read moreMy NaNoWriMo for 2020 starts today. I’m still having weekends off, and I’m still having some long weekends with the poet. This means that my daily target is just under 3,000 words. I’ll also be a (working) day behind on the blog. So today’s blog, for example, is where I was at by the end of the last working day. In this case, unusually, my last working day was actually yesterday, Sunday. Just to show that things are not cast […]
Read moreI’ve been working through the prep days for NaNoWriMo, trying to do everything in a certain order. Because I’ve decided on The Beast Within, much of the character work is already done, and the book is semi-outlined all the way through. So I’ve just been reading through all of that to refresh my memory, and adding anything else that’s popped into my head. Scrivener Something I really, really wanted to do was set up a series binder in Scrivener for all […]
Read moreToday should have been NaNoWriMo Prep: Day 2. But after a long weekend, and with NaNoWriMo looming only this weekend, I had quite a lot of admin work to do. First of all I had to tidy up my online calendar. I had to mark as done all of my usual jobs and chores for the whole of October, as I’ve not been using it properly. And I had to ensure that the remaining jobs are still pertinent. Pomodoros Then I […]
Read moreNaNoWriMo would not be the same without the participant badge and every year, in case you hadn’t noticed, I do like to display said badge. So, here it is. I really like this year’s. I like the colours. The other imagery that I like to do for NaNo is to create a book cover. NaNo gives you a feature for uploading a cover and I think it’s a nice thing to have anyway. I still have 2 contenders for this […]
Read moreHere is another image from our walk around Hatfield Moor last week. I love that blue glow on the water. It makes it look like some kind of grotto, or as though something magical may emerge at any moment. As South Yorkshire enters tier 3 lockdown on Saturday, we may be taking a few more walks. We are allowed to go out for “outside exercise” in groups of up to 30 people, apparently. This is how our local Ramblers Association […]
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 […]
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