Diane Wordsworth: freelance writer ● novelist ● editor ● ghostwriter ● book reviewer ● member of the CWA ● world-famous nutter-magnet
I was having a bit of a rummage through NetGalley to see if there were any new reviews for The Life of Richard Cadbury. I couldn’t see any for that one, but there were a few new ones for the first book, A History of Cadbury. First job of the day for yesterday, then, was collecting 5 of these reviews and creating flyers out of them. Number 1 is above, and the other 4 will follow when I can’t find a different […]
Read more… Christmas! Friday turned out to be busier than I initially expected. I had to step away from the Canva and get on with some work, or I’d be doing it all weekend. Blog planning I started some blog planning work, both for this year and for next. I saved the templates I want to use for the whole year, but I also had a bit of a doodle for the rest of this month. We both actually break up […]
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 moreSo, finally, today’s the day! After a very long slog, The Life of Richard Cadbury is now published! The hardback is now available from Pen & Sword Books here. It’s also available from Amazon (UK) here, but currently seems to be sold out!
Read moreThe reviews have started to come in already, which means that the advance reader copies have gone out, which means that this book is almost here! The Life of Richard Cadbury is due for publication on 30 November. Readers may preorder their copies direct from the publisher. Just in time for Christmas! In other news, I finished the ghostwritten novel yesterday evening and submitted it to the client. I have yet to write the bonus short story and a blurb, […]
Read moreI am still up against the clock, but I found time to do a quick plug. Ahead of publication of The Life of Richard Cadbury, which is due on 30 November, the first ebook, A History of Cadbury, is available for just £1.99, direct from the publisher. The paperback is £12.99. And the new book is available for pre-order. On the work front, I finished writing the short piece for the India client, and I completed another chapter for the ghostwriting […]
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 moreI am such a tease, knowing that the title will irk at least a couple of my friends when they see it! I can hear them now complaining about the “novelling” verb. 😱 The above picture is yet another view of Hatfield Moor. We couldn’t get across to this part as there’s a massive dyke along most of the path and there was no crossing place nearby. In the distance, along the top of the picture, you can just about […]
Read moreI had a bit of a strange experience yesterday. I’m admin on a Facebook group, the Seriously Serious Scribes, and last week I set off two new daily threads for October. All was working well, until on Sunday, I was seeing notifications for one of the threads, but I couldn’t see the thread. I checked again yesterday morning, and sure enough, there it was gone. My friend tagged me in the thread I was looking for, and I saw the […]
Read moreI don’t have any pictures to hand today, and I don’t have time to sort one out. So here’s one courtesy of Pixabay. Today I am not a happy bunny as WordPress have finally taken the classic editor off the WP admin posts page. Perhaps it’s an October thing. It’s not all bad, as there’s a classic editor “block” now. But I have yet to discover how to position pictures where I want them to be and not where they want […]
Read moreMy book, The Life of Richard Cadbury, is due to be released on 30 November. The book is available for pre-order from Pen & Sword Books and from Amazon UK. It’s also on Hive in the UK. And at Waterstones! Marketing & admin I started the day yesterday with some marketing (I was searching for the booksellers that already have The Life of Richard Cadbury up for pre-order) and some admin. It was new month day, so that meant updating the new […]
Read moreThe River Torne is a river the poet used to fish when ‘e worra lad (when he was a young man). In those days, the lads used to wait until the river had been dredged, usually around September time, and the reeds and weeds removed from the edges. Apparently, that was the best time to fish. We went to look at the River Torne a couple of weeks ago to see if it was a viable venue for him now […]
Read moreDog walk The dog and I once again attempted to find the circular path the three-legged dog and its humans had used, this time armed with the poet. Last week, it was just the dog and me, and I gave up and turned around when I thought the path between the houses and the old airfield was getting a bit … creepy. This time, we explored where I thought the path might come out, right next to a little parking […]
Read moreSorry for the “click bait”, but I didn’t know what else to call it today! 😇 This picture was originally tucked inside an envelope and given to me on my birthday one year, by a friend I worked with at the National Grid. I have no idea what he was trying to suggest … I left the National Grid in 1997, so I probably got this in 1995 or 1996. Then it was just a black and white photocopy. Recently, […]
Read moreThis picture is a magazine mock-up that my Smoggie snapper (Teesside photographer) made for me when I left Corus/Tata. The front cover image is of a blowout and I wanted to use this image on the front of a live RD&T Magazine. I was the editor and I thought it was a fantastic picture. But the powers-that-be didn’t think we should be promoting blowouts in the steel testing industry, and so I was over-ruled and the picture lay on the […]
Read moreThe murder board My murder board isn’t up yet, but every time I open this tin of bits that go with the murder board, it cheers me up no end. I think it’s all the colours. The murder board is a large whiteboard that goes on every wall in every office I ever have. Whenever we plan an office, we always choose a place for the murder board. It’s called a murder board because I write crime and mystery stories, […]
Read moreI had a lot of admin work to do yesterday in the end, and there’s still a load more to do. First job, of course, right after writing yesterday’s blog post, was the diary. Then I had to renew my membership of the Crime Writers’ Association, which expired on 31 August. I chased a new credit card, which should have arrived before 31 August. And I chased the council about not collecting our recycling bins last week at the old […]
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 moreThis morning I finally started the next book for NetGalley. Well, actually, I re-started it as I’d already read a couple of chapters and I wanted to refresh my memory. The work came in from Hong Kong. The publisher has worked so hard to get this material to me this week rather than next week. He sent across 11 articles for his next magazine, which I saved and printed. I’m going to do those in between other jobs. The other […]
Read moreI realised that we get the keys to the new house next Wednesday. That’s just over a week away. So I’ve decided to close the office on Tuesday. I won’t be able to concentrate properly after then anyway, so I may as well. The first thing I did was notify all of my regular clients that my last day of business will be next Tuesday and to tell them when I expect to be back up and running again, which […]
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 moreEver since the poet went back to work on 1 July, we’ve both had cold upon cold upon cold. And yesterday, I was finally flattened. Unusually, it seems that the poet is a couple of days behind me this time. Also unusually, it seems, if I wake up and I’m not very well, I generally take a sick day. I’ve always done this, even when I “worked for a living” (aka “had a proper job”, aka “had a day job” […]
Read moreYes, I know they always happen and we should always build in some sort of contingency. But I’d only just got into a good rhythm of work when this week happened. And not only this week. Wednesday happened as well. Wednesday was not a good day. I had so many chores to do that by midday I still hadn’t started my own work. And then, to top it all, a line of washing I’d taken the time to peg out fell […]
Read moreThe poet went back to work on Wednesday 1 July, his furlough over for now. Within 7 days of him mixing with people again, we both had signs of a cold. I’m about 2 days behind him. I work from home anyway and have done for a long time. This means that I’m not mixing with many people, catching their germs, or building immunity to various seasonal bugs for most of the time. He’s susceptible to infections anyway, but this […]
Read moreI say Day 5, but is it really Day 7? It was certainly Day 7 of the month, and it’s probably Day 7 for a lot of other campers. But I’m not doing a 31-day writing month. I’m doing a 23-day writing month. Because I don’t work at the weekend. Monday was a Very Busy Day. Tuesday was slightly less busy in that I don’t do the content editing job on a Tuesday. I only do that Monday, Wednesday and […]
Read moreI can hardly believe that before Christmas I was thinking about looking for a “proper job” again. I’d taken a few months off to write my own book, The Life of Richard Cadbury, and I’d had to “lay off” most of my clients. Then, when I was back “at work”, my regular clients had all found someone else to do their work. I don’t blame them. I should have had my own book written within three months. Instead, it took me […]
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 moreI have three items of news to share with readers. The first is that there’s a new post up on the Alphabet Adventurers. Please follow the link to see K is for … the Kilburn White Horse. The second piece of news is that the Richard Cadbury book is finally done. It was submitted before Christmas, but I still had a few things to send over, such as the jacket blurb and the author bio and a few other bits. […]
Read moreI have been beavering away at the biography, but it is dragging on a bit now. We had so many interferences and interruptions that the deadline kept on being pushed back. I was ill and then the poet was ill and then we were burgled and then we had another attempted break-in … and, and, and … Even I’m sick of the excuses. I am, however, currently in the writing cave furiously trying to finish this book. I didn’t want another […]
Read moreYesterday was another successful day of two halves. Once again, the morning was spent doing admin and chores. I did my daily job search but didn’t fancy any. They’re all far too poorly paid at the moment – $100 to edit a book of 125,000 words? I don’t think so. It would take me 25 hours just to read that, solid, let alone edit it. First of all, double the time. Then that $100 needs at least another zero on the […]
Read moreFriday seems like such a long time ago now. I was very busy and forgot to write and schedule a post for this morning. The morning was spent doing all of my admin jobs and household chores again. I did my daily job search and pitched for one job and I pitched for an extra assignment to do today. The rest of the day was spent with Richard Cadbury. I had a reading session, a writing session and another reading […]
Read moreWhat a horrible day Thursday turned out to be. I’d already had a disturbed night between the cat and the dog both wanting attention several times at different times, so it didn’t start well in the first place. And then it went downhill when I heard my printer make the kind of noise it makes when the cat’s sitting on it and pressing buttons by mistake. The cat was fast asleep in the living room. My printer had just disconnected […]
Read moreHmm. Not only is the old classic WordPress interface much easier and quicker to use, it also posts when I schedule it to. The new editor isn’t exactly on a winning streak at the moment … Yesterday was a good working day. I got up on time, was at my desk on time, and I finished all of my daily admin jobs and household chores early. If ever I don’t have any client work in, mornings are now spent doing […]
Read moreAs it happened, I did remember to schedule yesterday’s post for 8 o’clock in the morning, but for some reason, it didn’t. I have today checked the settings, and the only thing that was incorrect was the local time. But that was an hour earlier than what it actually is, so it still should have posted by 8am at least. How curious. Anyway, it posted in the end – well, I forced it to via the mobile app. But I will […]
Read moreI had a busy week last week removing most of my self-published books – ebooks and paperbacks – from Amazon KDP. I’m setting up a proper publishing schedule and re-releasing them all on Draft2Digital, initially just as ebooks for now. I’ve heard so many horror stories about Amazon and how they display their authors’ books (or not) and about them removing reviews. They also want exclusivity, and I don’t like that either. If I decide to publish hardback books again, […]
Read moreI’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 […]
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