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 more