Diane Wordsworth: freelance writer ● novelist ● editor ● ghostwriter ● book reviewer ● member of the CWA ● world-famous nutter-magnet
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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… 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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(Image by mathey from Pixabay) After a relatively good start on Monday, Tuesday was harder. I wasn’t as late, but it was more of a chore. I struggled to get up, then I lingered over breakfast. But I did it. The biggest issue was that I only had my work to do yesterday and it was only by reminding myself that my work was important too that I reported to my desk. It had been a disturbed night as well (dog twice, […]
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 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 moreDisclaimer: As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. (Qualifying links updated at 11:50am UK time on Monday 14 September 2020.) Last week we were watching an episode of The Blacklist, which we’ve been binge-watching on Sky. But I got the feeling that one of their plotlines was a bit weak, a bit thin, a bit … s t r e t c h e d … to fit the storyline. It made me wonder what I’d do with it. […]
Read moreFor the past two weeks we’ve been moving house (again!), and now we’re in the village of Finningley, which used to be in Nottinghamshire but is now in South Yorkshire. It’s amazing how borders can change like that. There’s an airfield here that used to be RAF Finningley and for 35 years the airfield hosted a famous air show. During the Second World War, Finningley was briefly associated with RAF Bomber Command where the air crews finished their combat training. […]
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 moreEarlier in the year (gosh, is it still only March?), I had to take a bit of a sabbatical from my writing as I needed to replenish all of the work I lost while I was writing the latest non-fiction book. The book took me longer than I expected to write, and that meant by the time I was ready to take on editing and proofreading jobs again, many of my clients had found someone else to do the work. […]
Read moreThe last few months of the last year were very busy, one way or another, and I didn’t have time to catch my breath. We’re already into the third week of the new year (or the second full week), and this time I’m sticking to the plan as much as I can. I want to concentrate on just a few things while I get started. First of all, I’m awarding myself stars. Gold stars for turning up and writing on a […]
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 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 moreI can’t believe it’s October tomorrow. How fast has this year gone again? I have a book due in at the end of the month. I need to pull my finger out. Friday morning went fairly well. I wrote my daily blog post first, queried another publisher about whether or not they consider self-published works – but they look like a subsidy publisher, so I may not pursue them too hard – and then I went into my 25-minute Pomodoros. […]
Read moreI’m running out of steam or getting distracted in the afternoons. So I’m moving more work to the mornings and more faff to the afternoons. I’m not sure if that’s working or not yet, but time will tell. Yesterday started on a positive note with a job query arriving overnight and a big publisher agreeing to consider one of my previously self-published books. I wrote my daily blog post, did a halfhearted job-search and pitched for just one editing job. […]
Read moreFirst job yesterday was the new NetGalley book over breakfast. I moved the daily Pomodoro write-up to the last session of the day as I usually start to run out of steam at around 4pm, and for the past few days I’ve been writing them up the night before anyway. I wrote my daily blog post first, which has now been moved to the very first session of every day. With me concentrating on the biography at the moment, I was […]
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 moreWith news from two previous members that one will be back next week and another as soon as she gets the all clear from her doc, we had another positive meeting with four in attendance. I also fed back work so far in trying to get the library as a write-in venue for this year’s NaNoWriMo. The NaNo site has had a revamp and is currently in transition, but I put it out there and I received a reply. As […]
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 […]
Read moreWell, by the end of the week, I’d done a load of Pomodoros and got a lot of work done. Very productive indeed. I did start to wilt around mid-afternoon on Friday, though. The morning began once again over breakfast with me reading the latest book for NetGalley. I’m really enjoying this Christmas story and looking forward to starting the next. My first Pomodoro was writing up the day’s Pomodoro targets. This is really working for me as I’m not […]
Read moreI was surprised at how much work I got through yesterday as Thursdays are usually rubbish. I generally wake up tired and often don’t want to get out of bed. Perhaps having a goal is helping. The day began at breakfast, funnily enough, with me reading the next NetGalley book. It’s a Christmas story and I love Christmas, but I’m enjoying the book as well. Always useful, that. My first Pomodoro of the day was deciding what to do in […]
Read moreWe had a few more bodies turn up at the writers’ group this week, which meant we needed to find somewhere in the library that we wouldn’t disturb the other library users. We were given one of the interview rooms, which was a bit cramped for five of us, but made it very cosy and friendly. We welcomed new members Georgia and Martin, and we welcomed Pat back. Rob couldn’t join us again this week as he had some interviews […]
Read moreMy first 25 minutes yesterday were spent looking at houses. We’re not planning on moving any time soon, but I do like to keep an eye on the market and I needed to clear a load of sold properties out of my RightMove account. The next 25 minutes were spent on my social media morning fix. A new proofreading job came in yesterday morning, but there’s no rush. I had told him I could probably get it back to him […]
Read moreAt the beginning of September I joined a quick online course, 14 Days to a Solid Writing Habit. Since we started the actual writing part of this course, I’ve been setting my Pomodoro Tomato and writing in 25-minute bursts. Some of those bursts have been spent on writing The Fool. I’ve also been learning more about Scrivener, mostly because I’ve had numerous technological difficulties that meant I had to reinstal it several times, just like I had to reinstal everything else […]
Read moreI’ve finally taken the leap and moved over to the WordPress *new* block editor. I resisted for such a long time because, well, I know where everything is on the classic editor, and every time I looked at the block editor, the first thing I wanted to do required extensive research, and I never seem to have the time to spare. One of the things that I couldn’t find was word-count. But yesterday I stumbled on a video that showed […]
Read moreYesterday was a very good day. It’s as though Tuesday is the new Monday. I’ve always been more enthusiastic and productive on a Monday and then it’s generally all downhill from there. But now Monday afternoons are taken up, all of that has changed. I started the morning with just one Pomodoro (25 minutes) on social media, running down Facebook and Twitter, hiding the stories I’d seen, muting the retweets I don’t really want to see, and I had a […]
Read moreDespite various promises from various people, there were still only two of us at the writers’ group this week. Not that we mind, we get one-to-one feedback on several extracts or pieces of work in one go. But it would be nice to see a few others start to attend as well, especially those who promised that they would. Pauline is collecting her memories together, hopefully into at least several sections if not several volumes. Material she has already written […]
Read moreI’m starting to feel quite pleased with myself and the progress I’m making in Scrivener. having to reinstall it so many times (not Scrivener’s fault this time) is forcing me to learn to do the things I like much quicker. If I have to do one more reinstall, for whatever reason, I swear I’ll be able to tweak it to suit me in my sleep. I’m not sure I’ll be teaching any masterclasses any time soon, but I really am […]
Read moreFriday was a good day, although I was still faffing with Scrivener as it was a new reinstall. I’d learnt a lot of things during the outage the previous day and I wanted to apply some of what I’d learnt. I did my 14 Days … exercise and rebooted my Pomodoro Tomato. During the morning I wrote a new blog post, and I wrote some new material for The Fool. During the afternoon, I contacted the new client and I wrote another […]
Read moreThanks to my Monday afternoon writers’ group I’m being forced to work on the pocket novel. We’re supposed to bring something new to every session, either something we’re working on or something set to a theme. As I’m working on so many different projects, I decided to use this as an excuse to crack on with The Fool. It’s taking a while because I have to do other stuff in between, like edit client work or write my contracted biography. […]
Read moreYahoo mail fell over yesterday, which meant I couldn’t pick up Day 4 of 14 Days … I did nip onto the forum to see if there was a link to web version, but nobody replied. Perhaps I should have just reported it as a fault. The crash was global, apparently, and started at about 7am UK time. It also affected BT and Sky email accounts. It didn’t come back up again until early afternoon. While I waited, I wrote […]
Read moreThe schools still weren’t quite back on Monday when we met after the August bank holiday, and while there were three of us present this time, one of us, the librarian, had to help with staff training. Pauline and I are qetting quite used to having the whole 90 minutes to ourselves! Fortunately, Pauline had pretty much sorted out most of her technical issues and had managed to write something new for this week. She kicked off with A Bird in […]
Read moreI finished the latest book for NetGalley and will be writing my review later this week. I really enjoyed this one, so much so I (a) bought a copy of it for the poet’s Kindle, and (b) bought the author’s first novel immediately after I’d finished reading this one. I printed off the latest version of The Fool to date, in case I needed something to read out at the writers’ group, and because I like to see the full, latest […]
Read moreIt’s been a long time since I did any new work on the pocket novel. Mostly I’ve been doing other stuff, stuff that pays my wages. But there were a couple of other issues too. The first one was when Ulverscroft announced that they’re no longer publishing the mystery imprint of their large print books. This is a blow, because the large print version does bring in extra cash. First there is the initial payment, and then there’s the PLR the […]
Read moreYesterday was mostly spent doing the “heavy proofreading” job. It’s an interesting subject and I’m enjoying it very much. But it’s going to take some time. The new job that came in is correctly written, but it isn’t my favourite type of narrative and I’d like to change much of it or send it back to the author to do. But this one has to be back by next Friday, so I’m going to put my personal prejudices and opinions […]
Read moreNot one but two jobs failed to arrive yesterday. One was probably delayed by the current riots in Hong Kong – they’re disrupting travel arrangements by the sound of it. The other was just late in at the writer’s end. Fortunately, I had some proofreading to start. But if I hadn’t had that, I would have done some writing. The proofreading job is going to take longer than I thought, but at least I made a decent dent in it. […]
Read moreApparently, we have one or two new members coming to join us in September. We should also get some of our absent members back too. I don’t know how Pauline and I will cope when we have to share our 90 minutes again! The more the merrier, though. And we’re looking forward to hearing and discussing more work. Pauline had another technological disaster in the week. Word wouldn’t let her do anything to any of her files. She has fixed […]
Read moreWe had a good session at the writers’ group on Monday. I’ll be writing a report just as soon as I can fit one in. Yesterday was a very busy day. The morning was spent doing admin for the Richard Cadbury book. I’ve arranged to meet his great-great-granddaughter in Birmingham next week and I had to do some jiggery-pokery to ensure that the poet will be home in good time for the dog. He may even be able to work […]
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