Image 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…
Wednesday writing prompts
Image by Carrie Z from Pixabay I couldn’t find anything very cheerful to write about this week, so here are two dark topics and an evergreen. Texas trial: Andrea Yates Twenty years ago next year, on 7 March 2002, the defence rested in the Andrea Yates trial in Texas. She was found guilty of capital…
Project management
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay I find that I am using quite a few of this particular artist’s images from Pixabay. The style obviously works for me. I’ve even chosen an image by this author for the cover design on my next series of books. Yes, that’s right. I’ve started not just one book,…
Planning in Scrivener
I 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…
A good & solid week
Image by hudsoncrafted from Pixabay It’s been good and solid week, work-wise, as I’ve plodded through the ghostwriting gig. I even did some writing on Sunday, and I hardly ever work at the weekend. I wrote 2 chapters in the afternoon and just under 4,000 words. Monday On Monday, I stacked up a load of…
Book review: The Adventures of Maud West
This feature is in association with NetGalley. The Adventures of Maud West, Lady Detective by Susannah Stapleton Many thanks to both NetGalley and to Pan Macmillan for letting me see an advance reader’s copy of this excellent and amusing biography. When I was first sent this book to review, I could not open it. The…
Wednesday writing prompts
Yellowstone Park Image by David Mark from Pixabay Here’s another one for next year, so you have plenty of time to research it, pitch it, write it, and submit it. One hundred and fifty years ago next year, on 1 March 1872, Yellowstone National Park was established by President Ulysses S Grant. What can you…
The pop-up office
For a long time I have maintained a home office. For a while this was in the corner of another room, but I’ve been known to build stud-partitions in a bedroom to keep the office space separate. I don’t believe in having my work space in the same space as my home space. I think…
Coming soon!
Image by Rana Hadi Hassan from Pixabay As we slowly creep towards 1,000 followers of this blog, I’m thinking about a competition to celebrate the landmark once reached. What do you think? Would you join in? (Answers below!) Some of you have been with me since the very beginning. Some of you have stumbled across…
Job searches
Image 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…
Time management
Image 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…
Wednesday writing prompts
Image by Jörg Petersen from Pixabay Here’s one for next year, so you have plenty of time to research it, pitch it, write it, and submit it. Fifty years ago next year, on 17 February 1972, the VW Beetle overtook the Model T Ford as the world’s bestselling car. What was it about this little…
Latest mock-up
This is my latest mock-up for publicising both of my chocolate-related books. I quite like the colours in this one. I hope the covers don’t get lost against the background. I forgot to add a title to yesterday’s blog post. I had to go in and add it after it had published. Apologies if your…
Writer at work
This is the last of the latest reviews for A History of Cadbury. Another sneaked onto Amazon after I created these, which is good, and nice, particularly as it was another 5-star review. But this is the last of the review flyers – for now. Weekend As it was Valentine’s weekend, we did the shopping on Friday…
That was the week that was
I didn’t have a great start to the week due to a rough night on Sunday and a long lie-in on Monday. However, I did manage to get some things done. Monday One of the things I wanted to do was see if there was any other editing or proofreading work coming up. I checked…
Book review: Power Hour
This feature is in association with NetGalley. Power Hour, Adrienne Herbert Thanks to NetGalley and to Cornerstone at Random House UK for an advance copy of this book. Although I love the concept of this book and I was excited to read it, as far as I was concerned, it failed to deliver. Too much…
Wednesday writing prompts
Image by PIRO4D from Pixabay Twenty-five years ago today, on 10 February 1996, world chess champion Garry Kasparov apparently lost the first game of a six-game chess match against an IBM computer called Deep Blue. Although it is too late to write this one up as an anniversary piece for this year, chess can still…
Book review: A Crafter Knits a Clue
This feature is in association with NetGalley. A Crafter Knits a Clue, Holly Quinn Thanks to NetGalley and to Crooked Lane Books for an advance copy of this book. A Crafter Knits a Clue by Holly Quinn is a cosy mystery. I really wanted to enjoy this book, as a crafter and as someone who…
I did it!
It was a big ask, but I did it! By the end of Thursday, I had 11,500 words to write in order to submit the second instalment of the ghostwriting gig before the end of Friday. On Friday, it was the only thing I worked on, taking mini-breaks in between chapters and reading chapters out…
Ghostwriting
Much of yesterday was spent catching up with the ghostwriting. Saying that, as usual I was distracted at first. Writing this particular story for Greece is giving me all sorts of ideas for stories of my own, and I thought about opening Scrivener files for two of them at least. However, I stalled when I…
