Diane Wordsworth: freelance writer ● novelist ● editor ● ghostwriter ● book reviewer ● member of the CWA ● world-famous nutter-magnet
I’ve not been completely idle since 17 October (that’s more than two whole weeks ago!). But I have been tied up with stuff I’d sooner not be tied up with. Actually, I’d rather not be tied up at all, but you get the drift. As a result of losing two whole weeks of work, along with another two weeks of plain old crap, I came back to my desk feeling a bit overwhelmed and not knowing where to start. I […]
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 moreYou’ll be pleased to know I finally made some inroads on the copywriting job yesterday. I started with some handwriting practise because my handwriting is becoming quite unreadable. Then I wrote up the day’s Pomodoros, because I hadn’t had chance to do that the day before. And I wrote my daily writing blog post. Then I spread out all of the information in front of me that I have for the copywriting job and came up with a more detailed […]
Read moreThis week we welcomed Pauline back to the group after her recent operation, and she was accompanied by her husband John, who would like to come along in the future as well. Pat popped her head in to give us her apologies, as she had to be somewhere else, and Rob is still unable to relinquish recent new job duties to join us. We didn’t hear from anyone else who hadn’t turned up and hope they are all okay. I kicked […]
Read moreBefore I start, please hop on over to the alphabet adventurers to see the latest post. There’s still time to enter a competition there, with a closing date of midnight (UK time) this coming Friday, 28 September. It’s been a while since I published a to-do list. This is mostly due to me trying to find an alternative publisher for my paperback books, but also due to me clearing other work, which has been going great, by the way. However, […]
Read moreI’ve been a bit overwhelmed with trying to catch up with work again, but I think I finally reached a balance once more. The past week in particular has been busy – as usual. I’ve not had a single idle day, though, and I’m looking forward to the week ahead. On Monday I caught up with new month admin. I created my word-count tracker spreadsheet for September. It has all of my live projects on too. And I created two […]
Read moreI only have a three-day week this week. This isn’t because of any actual holidays. It’s because I have two appointments in Solihull, one on Tuesday and one on Thursday. And as it takes around 2 hours to get there and 2 hours to get back – on a good run – plus the time to get ready (me, the car, the dog) and the time there, that’s two days wiped out completely for me. On Thursday we also have […]
Read moreYes! The Cosmos listened. At last. After several rain dances, we finally had our storm yesterday evening, overnight and this morning. And there’s more to come. The rainwater is sitting on the ground surface between showers, but it’s going into the ground eventually. We had several storm-bangers, which the dog didn’t appreciate very much, and now the temperatures have dropped slightly. I know people love the sunshine, and I like a proper English summer with the rest of them. But we’re […]
Read moreJust over 18 months ago, in December 2016, we rescued 6 ex-cage chickens otherwise intended for slaughter. We named them Aggie (the Agoraphobic), Baldy (she literally was ‘oven ready’), Blondie, Lara (the Adventurous), Pauline (Poorly Poorline) and Pink. At Christmas, 2017, we lost queen of the coop Aggie. And today we lost the lovely Lara. Lara was the first to disappear overnight so, when she returned the following morning, we named her Lara the Adventurous. She could hardly wait to get back […]
Read moreThis is my writing bag. Once upon a time, when I *worked for a living*, I worked for the National Grid in Coventry. We were quite close to Warwick University and, in fact, did most of our banking and shopping there. As it was a university, there was – naturally – a university bookshop. And one day I was browsing, as you do, when I spotted a load of these tote bags, or bookbags, with shoulder straps. I’ve had a […]
Read moreThis is my current writing work in progress pile. The A5 book with the touchy-feely cover of pink flowers on a foliage background is the ideas book. This is where I jot down words, titles, scenarios, plots, outlines of short material, topic lists for non-fiction, market information. This book is where the magic begins … until it’s full, and then I start a new one. And yes, I do believe very strongly in treating myself to really nice notebooks and then […]
Read moreIt was just starting to go well, with everything dropping into place. I had a great list of things to do. We were going out Friday evening. And we were taking the weekend off … … and then the dog disappeared. For three hours. He’d escaped from the garden and I was certain a car that stopped in the middle of the road with three lads in had taken him. However, thankfully, he’d only made it as far as the […]
Read moreI spent much of yesterday trying to prioritise my workload and putting jobs into some sort of workable order. I even did a little writing, which was very good. Yesterday Following my navel-gazing, here is what I finally accomplished: I wrote 479 words (against a 1,000-word target …) ✓ I continued reading a book for NetGalley (1 of 16) ✓ I continued reading a book for 52 Books in 52 Weeks (1 of 12), which will also count towards my NetGalley tally ✓ […]
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