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 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 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, or artwork, or websites, or even just a butterfly mind. I really did have a lot to do yesterday, and […]
Read moreImage by David Bruyland from Pixabay Phew! This one’s a long read. I’d go and get a coffee if I were you… I’m back at work today, after a week’s holiday and a week of part-time working/recovery before that. I had a lot of time to think about how I want to take my work forward, and I think I’ve come to another shift in my working life. I’ve decided not to go chasing editing and proofreading jobs for a […]
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 moreFriday disappeared down a dark hole when I ended up in a support conversation with WordPress due to one post not auto-posting to Facebook, the Facebook Share button not working (on the same post), and then the preview not working when I copied the URL over manually. We worked out a quick fix, which isn’t ideal, particularly as I’m paying for premium support now as part of my package. But at least we got it working. Classic Editor v. Block […]
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 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 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 moreI was late again to my desk on Friday morning, but I had done a lot of work already on the mobile phone, both in bed and over breakfast. For example, I checked emails, the bank and social media, and I did another job search. At my desk, the first job I did was an hour of date work. Then I had to answer some final (I hoped!) queries for the interview I did for The War Cry magazine. For both […]
Read moreImage by Monoar Rahman Rony from Pixabay I’ve said it before and I’ll no doubt say it again, but Thursdays really are quite tired days. Mind you, I may have still been catching up after my 4am finish the other night. However, when the dog woke me up yesterday morning, I was very happy to see that it was almost 7am. I went through and checked all the usual stuff before arriving at my desk – email, Facebook, Twitter – […]
Read more(Image by Please Don’t sell My Artwork AS IS from Pixabay) This week seems to be dashing by in a bit of a blur … For my first job on Monday, I caught up with diary work and scheduled the week ahead. An addition this week was proofreading in from Hong Kong that arrived first thing Monday morning. I wrote and scheduled a couple of quick blog posts, and then it was back to work. The rest of the day […]
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 Karolina Grabowska from Pixabay After all of my planning work last week, the new regime starts today. Before I started any of it, however, I had some admin to look after. First of all, the poet’s COVID jabs letter came through and he booked both of his appointments. Both of those went into my diary. Then I had a new appointment come through from the hospital. I thought the next time I was there it would be for the […]
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 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 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 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 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 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 moreMonday went by in a bit of a whirl. In case you didn’t notice, my book The Life of Richard Cadbury was finally published. There then followed a frenzy of marketing activity that mostly consisted of creating flyers and mockups in Canva and Photopea respectively. Then I went through Facebook, Twitter and MeWe and added links and images to all the groups and pages I belong to on those. I also made sure to respond to every single person who wished […]
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 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 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 moreI didn’t get around to writing any of Catch the Rainbow yesterday, but I did sort some of the rest of the material into some sort of order. This one may not get finished before the end of August, but then again, it might … The Life of Richard Cadbury was also neglected. I need to get on with this one. We’re still awaiting the foreword, but if I get on with it and have done it by the time the […]
Read more… Catch the Rainbow! I thought long and hard, I considered my current workload, and I decided that I don’t have the physical capacity at the moment to write something completely from scratch. That meant that three possibilities were automatically eliminated: The Beast Within, The Fool and Whitehorse Farm. This left Diary of a Pussycat (a writers’ guide), Mardi Gras and Catch the Rainbow. And then I had a bit of a play around in Canva and made a massive decision. I actually […]
Read moreThe time has come (the walrus said) to make a decision. The picture above is the short list of works in progress I’m considering working on next. One of these projects will be completed during July for Camp NaNoWriMo. But which one …? From top left and going clockwise, the projects are: Catch the Rainbow, the prequel to Night Crawler; The Fool, a pocket novel; Mardi Gras, my first attempt at steampunk; Diary of a Pussycat, the second in my writers’ guides series; Whitehorse Farm, originally […]
Read moreI’m really getting the itch to be writing again. I keep booking it in, but then I keep running out of time. I have clients that all have deadlines. And I manage to meet all of their deadlines. To the extent that the work keeps on rolling in – but I’m not complaining about that. I’m complaining about my own inability to adhere bum to seat. There are so many projects I could be working on. There’s the sequel to Night […]
Read more… 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 made earlier … What do you think? I think I need to finish the current WIP so I can finish […]
Read moreOctober suddenly got busier late yesterday afternoon. But it’s okay, I was half-expecting it. It’s the new writing job I was in discussion about towards the end of last week. And it’s only 10,000 words max. I can do this … Yesterday started with me writing up the day’s Pomodoros, as I hadn’t had chance to do them the day before. Then I wrote a 465-word blog post. And then I completed the screen edit for the Hong Kong client […]
Read moreOver breakfast yesterday, I finished the NetGalley book I was reading and I wrote up today’s Pomodoros. That meant the first job at my desk was a 500-word blog post and my daily warm-up. The next thing I did was write up the report for this week’s writers’ group meeting. I had 25 minutes of social media, 25 minutes of job searching, and I pitched for one ghostwriting job. Then I wrote up the latest diary of a novel blog […]
Read moreI picked up the story bible for The Beast Within at the weekend and was mortified to see I’ve not done anything practical since the end of May. Saying that, I have been reading. I’m still on Writing the Killer Mystery by Ron D Voigts, Volume 3: Plotting the Murder. But I stalled when I got to the end of the book and didn’t know what to do next. In the meantime, I’ve been working on other projects, namely the pocket novel and the biography. […]
Read moreI had a late start yesterday. I was quite tired, the poet had left early for a business trip, and I slept in. I got to my desk at around 10:30am, but I’d done my first Pomodoro’s work on the phone the night before, so I didn’t really lose anything. First job was yesterday’s writing diary blog post. This job has moved to the top of the list and I’m giving myself 25 minutes to write it. It seems to […]
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