Diane Wordsworth: freelance writer ● novelist ● editor ● ghostwriter ● book reviewer ● member of the CWA ● world-famous nutter-magnet
(Image: The poet shooting High Force waterfall in Teesdale © Diane Wordsworth) Holiday! It was a bit of a mad rush in the end, but I submitted the last of my work a week ago last Friday. Okay, so it was really late. But it was gone by the time the weekend arrived. On the Saturday, after a bit of a lie-in, we did the holiday shopping and on Saturday night the poet’s band had a gig. On Sunday we […]
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I missed another week, so here is another list of dates, this time for the second half of the month, for you to research and brainstorm for yourselves. Choose a topical date or an evergreen, and consider writing an article, a short story, or something longer. There’s time, after all. 16 August Twenty years ago next year, on 16 August 2002, the Africa Women’s Peace Train left Kampala for Johannesburg. 17 August Evergreen: Black Cat Appreciation Day 19 August Evergreen: […]
Read moreImage by David To from Pixabay The time has come, the walrus said, to pull my socks up. Okay, the walrus didn’t actually say that. I did. But it’s true. It’s now time to properly stop faffing and to properly start working again. And when I say working, I mean writing. I already do enough work. Which, of course, is a great place to be. But you know what I mean. I’ve been in contact with one of my favourite […]
Read moreImage by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay Thursdays are always tired days for me. I don’t know why this happens, but it always has done. Even when I ‘worked for a living’ you could usually guarantee that Thursday would be the day I turned in late. I didn’t ‘walk to work’ because by the time I realised what time it was, it was almost time to be at my desk. The walking workout is 15 minutes, so I should be able […]
Read moreImage by Michael Drummond from Pixabay When I was learning how to write, fiction and non-fiction, I was taught to always ensure that my facts were correct, as there will always be someone who knows, and there will always be someone who complains if there’s a mistake. When I was training to be a broadcast journalist, I was taught to always check any facts or historical details to ensure that they were correct. I’ve been writing for a long time, […]
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 more… diversify. Looking back at 2020, a lot of us have seen major changes. I think lockdown was the biggest challenge for many. For people like me, who work from home and hardly see anyone from one day to the next, lockdown wasn’t that big a deal. I had the poet home with me while he was furloughed, and since furlough ended, he’s been encouraged to work from home whenever possible. And that’s been really nice. At our old house, […]
Read moreAs I’m up to date with client work, today I decided to start planning my own writing work for the new year. I use a 10-project planner spreadsheet. And while the above is still very much under construction, this opening page gives you the gist of what it looks like. I have yet to move the total word-count per project from the ‘writing goal’ boxes to the ‘project total’ boxes. And I have yet to come up with projected completion […]
Read moreHere is another picture from our recent walk around Hatfield Moor. The tree is a young silver birch and it comes under 2 photography subject classifications (that I know of). First of all, it’s a ‘hero’ tree. This means that it’s a standalone tree, set apart from a group of other trees. Secondly, it’s a ‘star of the show’, which means it stands out against a load of others. Looking from a different angle, it’s clearly a hero tree. But […]
Read moreThis is my current writing work in progress pile. The A5 book with the touchy-feely cover of pink flowers on a foliage background is the ideas book. This is where I jot down words, titles, scenarios, plots, outlines of short material, topic lists for non-fiction, market information. This book is where the magic begins … until it’s full, and then I start a new one. And yes, I do believe very strongly in treating myself to really nice notebooks and then […]
Read more… well, I say the end is nigh when really what I mean is the end of the writing part is nigh. For the past two weeks I’ve been in the writing cave, trying to finish the history book. Last week I managed to pop up for air and come in to say hello with the odd update or two. This week I feel as though I’ve been under water the whole time. So, before I head in there once again […]
Read moreI’ll be honest. I’ve been struggling to get motivated to do my own writing. All was very well to the end of November, when I completed NaNoWriMo 2017. But December disappeared down a dark hole of running around, shopping, Christmas, hospital visiting, family stuff, phone calls, and my output dropped to zero. January and February have been spent trying to catch up. And I did do a lot of work in January and February, although it was pretty much all […]
Read moreI seem to be having a mid-week writing splurge – and long may it last. I’ve been very busy editing a heavy book, but I finished it and sent the queries back to the author. It did take longer than I thought it would, though. I’d hoped it would take around a week and it took the best part of two weeks. I was so determined to finish it that I worked until 10pm on Monday night. It’s done now, […]
Read moreMarch has been a bit busy … apologies for going AWOL. Nothing has been wrong, all is well. I’ve just been really, really busy. The month began with the tail end of an editing job finally delivered on 7 March. It was followed almost immediately with two new editing jobs from lovely-already-boss, and a proofreading job. The first of those editing jobs has been completed this morning and sent to the author for review (and, actually, acknowledged just this instant […]
Read moreJanuary wasn’t a great start, and that continued into February. This is mostly because much of the time was spent editing other people’s work while the rest of the time was spent eating birthday cake. The month began with a contribution to a friend’s article on writing plus the return of a lovely job to a lovely new client. I did a quick catch-up with some book reviews and a couple of short stories. And then I sat down to […]
Read moreJanuary has not been a great start to 2017 for me, work-wise. I’ve been lazy, unmotivated and easily distracted. I think the biggest problem was I didn’t set myself a total word-count target for the month and, as a result, I’ve written hardly anything. I have had one book each in from two clients, one to edit and one to proofread. I’ll be finishing both of these today and tomorrow, so January won’t have been a total washout. The other client […]
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