Diane Wordsworth: freelance writer ● novelist ● editor ● ghostwriter ● book reviewer ● member of the CWA ● world-famous nutter-magnet
Chapter 2: Week commencing Friday 7 January Friday Yes, we start this week’s diary on Friday. This is because I post it on a Friday and in a lot of cases, schedule it the day before. After a busy week, and one lazy day, Friday was back to normal pretty much. The first job I did was a full readthrough of The Fool so far. I removed all of the extra bits that are part of backstory short stories (three of […]
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Welcome to the new instalment in the Diary of… series. The Diary of… series is a set of three books, each one set against a year in the life of a freelance writer. Book 1 is Diary of a Scaredy Cat: a year in the life of a frightened writer. Book 2 is Diary of a Pussycat: a year in the life of a freelance writer. Book 3 is Diary of a Tiger: a year in the life of a […]
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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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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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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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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 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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(Asana screenshot in calendar view) This week I needed to concentrate on catching up with the ghostwriting work. Right after having one writing marathon and submitting it, I was straight into another, and that isn’t sustainable. Also, if one step was delayed in any way, it pushed the rest along too. So I took the week off blogging, Medium, my own writing and self-publishing and tried to come up with a system that will work. I did allow myself an […]
Read moreImage 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 moreSo I’m not doing brilliantly, but at least I’m doing. In other words, I’m not sat navel-gazing or twiddling my thumbs. Tuesday seems such a long time ago, I can hardly remember what I was so busy doing. Thank goodness for the diary! Tuesday The plan, of course, was to do some ghostwriting. But it was Tuesday on Twitter and that meant #TuesdayNews. I always share any of these #TuesdayNews Tweets when I see them, but I never have anything […]
Read moreImage by R. E. Beck from Pixabay First of all, a very warm welcome to Words Worth Writing to all of the recent new followers. Since we limped over the 1,000 followers mark, the number has been steadily increasing. I’ve been working on republishing all of my self-published books in paperback, and I’m still mulling over a competition where the prize is all of my paperback books, self-published and traditionally published. This competition is for all of you lovely followers. Monday […]
Read moreImage by Piotr Wytrążek from Pixabay Thursday After two late nights on the trot, I had a lie-in on Thursday. But even when I got to my desk, I still couldn’t get going. Despite trying several times to get into work mode, I just couldn’t. So I gave myself an official faff day instead, and I went through all of my self-published paperback books. I removed them from ‘extended distribution’ on Amazon, and started to publish them on Draft2Digital. I love […]
Read moreImage by Engin Akyurt from Pixabay This is a long one, so grab a coffee and make yourself comfy. Tuesday Tuesday dawned very slowly on my computer. It struggled to open everything: the internet, Word, file manager, everything. I tried restarting, but it hung, and so I turned it off and on again… and waited for almost half an hour for it to boot up and start to open things. Sometimes technology has a mind of its own. The first job I did on […]
Read moreImage by Paul Brennan from Pixabay This post just keeps on posting itself, regardless of when I schedule it to post. This time, if it happens again, I’m leaving it up here. The plan was to go out for the day somewhere. But when the weather forecast said it was going to rain all day, and heavily too, we decided to stay in and do stuff in our respective offices instead. After dinner, we did go out to have a […]
Read moreIt took the best part of a week, but with the help of the support team at Draft2Digital, I finally published the second paperback in the Twee Tales series. Twee Tales Too is now available on Amazon. I also created a mock-up in Photopea for today’s post illustration, and I saved the featured images for the next three plan/wrap-up posts. Friday Before I landed at my desk, however, I finished the current book I’m reading for NetGalley. That was one of […]
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 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 moreThis week I’ve tried to do a bit of my own work in the mornings and client work in the afternoons. I kept on being distracted by colourful sparkly things, though, and it became a bit of a chore to drag my attention away from that and back to the job in hand. Monday was mostly faffing with book covers and flyers and other PR and marketing material. I gave the blog a facelift, and I wrote a blog post […]
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 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 moreI mean, look at. What is there not to like? It’s sleek, it’s clean, it’s sharp, it does everything I’m used to doing a lot quicker and more easily. It’s gorgeous! I’ve had a lot of fun playing with the new Scrivener for Windows. At last we have caught up with our Mac/iOS chums. At last the two platforms look the same. At last us Windows users are not left to flounder in the wilderness. There are a few things […]
Read moreImage by Myriams-Fotos from Pixabay The first job I did on Tuesday morning was yesterday’s writing prompts post. The second job I did was the first of this week’s date work, as I ran out of time on Monday. So to hurry me along a bit, I finished all of August, as the last week is only two days. That means I’m now on September, which is where I’m supposed to be in March. I could have just jumped right […]
Read moreImage by Comfreak from Pixabay The plan was to have a weekend off and maybe catch up with some reading or sewing. I did manage to read a few chapters of a book I want to review soon, but I didn’t do any sewing. Walking However, on Saturday, after we’d done the shopping – early for a change – we did finally manage our first walk since the new year. It’s still very busy in the village, and we’re still […]
Read moreImage by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay A massive thank you to all who sent me birthday wishes on Tuesday. Much of the day was spent acknowledging and thanking people individually. Unfortunately, I had work to do, and we’re still in a semi-lockdown, so any birthday trips or outings are something to look forward to once we’re allowed out again. Tuesday The first job of the day was an hour of date work. However, as I get into the swing of […]
Read moreImage by Jeevan Singla from Pixabay It’s my birthday today. I’ve had some very nice presents, including some useful software for work. And we have birthday cake for tea. We like birthday cake, and we’ve decided that birthday cake shouldn’t be just for birthdays, much like we’ve decided that pancakes shouldn’t just be for Pancake Day. I still have work to do and the new regime to stick to, but at least the poet is working from home today, which […]
Read moreImage by ElisaRiva from Pixabay I’ve been a bit preoccupied this week. Not navel-gazing or anything like that. Just trying to sort everything in my head into some sort of workable order. It’s been a bit chaotic in there of late. Mostly I’ve been working on the new book series. It was very much in the inspiration stage at the beginning of the week, but I think it’s smoothed out into something workable by now. At the start of the […]
Read moreI love using Scrivener. I think it’s an ace tool for all aspects of your writing, including if you decide to self-publish and/or produce book bundles. Once I have my outline, I transfer it to the index cards on Scrivener. The index cards are in chapter order, the chapters are in beat order, and the beats are in Act order. In the above illustration, though, I’ve changed the beats to sequences. In the ghostwriting, they’re beats. Often I find myself […]
Read moreFor a long time I have maintained a home office. For a while this was in the corner of another room, but I’ve been known to build stud-partitions in a bedroom to keep the office space separate. I don’t believe in having my work space in the same space as my home space. I think it breeds the habit of never switching off. If I can close the door to my office, that’s even better. So whenever I can, I have […]
Read moreImage by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay Tuesday afternoon was more ghostwriting. I was late getting started with it, due to date work and scheduling a couple of blog posts in advance. But by the time I got around to it, I’d run out of steam. I was left with a choice: Stare at a blank screen for the rest of the day, or do something else and pick it up again the next day. So I did something else. I […]
Read moreMuch of yesterday was spent catching up with the ghostwriting. Saying that, as usual I was distracted at first. Writing this particular story for Greece is giving me all sorts of ideas for stories of my own, and I thought about opening Scrivener files for two of them at least. However, I stalled when I went searching for images for use on the mock cover Scrivener allows us to add. There were so many to choose from, for both ideas, […]
Read morePhoto by freestocks on Unsplash Yesterday was a long day, but despite not managing any writing, it was a productive day all the same. Ghostwriting The ghostwriting revisions took much longer than I would like, and as I’m not paid for that part of the job, I need to reduce the possibility of it happening again. Speaking of payment, payment for the first instalment landed in my bank account yesterday, so that was very nice. The changes I made to […]
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 moreImage by happyveganfit from Pixabay … one step back. Or that’s how it feels at times. Yesterday didn’t start as well as the day before, but the day before was better than the day before that. If that’s the theme, then today will be better than yesterday. Fingers crossed! I had a bad night, to the extent that when the poet got up to attend two video meetings, I stayed in bed to catch up. Then when I did get up […]
Read moreI had a much better day yesterday. 10-project planner Once I’d written yesterday’s blog, which was 1,293 words before I even started anything else, I moved on to my 10-project planner to add in all the projects I’m working on first. These are: ghostwriting gig (63,000 words in total, 40,000 for January) The Beast Within (80,000 words in total, 10,000 for January) proofreading job (252 pages in total for January) 12 short stories in 12 months (1 story in total […]
Read moreImage by J Garget from Pixabay I didn’t have a great start to the new year. I was busy all day, yet I don’t appear to have got anything done. And then, of course, came the news. National lockdown Not that a national lockdown changes anything much for me. But if the poet gets furloughed again, we may need my wages to fall back on, again. But … enough about that. I’m sure the news is full of it wherever […]
Read moreSo after yesterday’s good intentions, I didn’t get any new writing done for The Beast Within. Once I’d done a load of routine stuff, my mind was still whirling with the story ideas for the next 3 Marcie Craig books. I love visuals when I’m working, and the brighter and more colourful or striking the better. When I’m working in Scrivener, and when I’m doing NaNoWriMo, I always design and upload a cover. I already had cover designs for Snowblind and The […]
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 […]
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