Yesterday started well. I was ready for my desk by 10am, after doing household chores and other faffing. I sat down with my ritual cup of tea, and I started to write … and then I got distracted. First of all I was distracted by some pictures I found online that I hadn’t seen before,…
Camp NaNoWriMo – Day 1
I think I’ve made a reasonable start for Camp NaNoWriMo. It was my first job of the day and I spent longer than my designated hour on it. I also already had a few words in the bank, about 2,000. But with a daily target of 1,860, I think it’s doable. I’d already typed out…
Camp NaNoWriMo – and so it begins
Yes, it’s started. And for the first time ever, I’m joining in with a Camp NaNoWriMo. This should be a little easier than the usual NaNoWriMo, as there are 31 days in July as opposed to the 30 days in November. But this time I’m just writing on normal work days, so that’s weekdays only….
And the winner is …
… 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),…
Decision time
The 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…
Lockdown easing
For more than 3 months, this country has allegedly been on lockdown. Although, if you see how many people have been walking past our remote bungalow and how they walk right at you when you’re out, it’s understandably difficult to believe that anything changed. My work didn’t change. If anything, I became more busy. But…
I too should be writing …
I’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’ve been a bit busy
I 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…
52 books: Writing the Killer Mystery
I set myself the goal of reading and reviewing 52 writing guides over 52 weeks. The initial year has sailed on by, and my last post was so long ago I couldn’t find it on my dashboard. I want to finish the project, though, and only have 6 books left. So I’ve renamed it simply…
52 books: Goal Setting for Writers
I set myself the goal of reading and reviewing 52 writing guides over 52 weeks. The initial year has sailed on by, and my last post was so long ago I couldn’t find it on my dashboard. I want to finish the project, though, and only have 7 books left. So I’ve renamed it simply…
New badge on NetGalley
This just a quick newsy update to have a bit of a brag. The picture is very tiny, so it’s blown up a bit blurry, but I was awarded a new badge by NetGalley. Apparently I’ve written more than 50 reviews for them! I love these progress badges!
52 books: Time Management for Writers
I set myself the goal of reading and reviewing 52 writing guides over 52 weeks. The initial year has sailed on by, and my last post was so long ago I couldn’t find it on my dashboard. I want to finish the project, though, and only have 8 books left. So I’ve renamed it simply…
Back to (writing) work
Earlier 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…
LOCKDOWN
Our prime minister’s full formal lockdown instruction didn’t come until Monday 23 March. However, we suspected it was on the way and so we did our regular shopping early, ensuring we had sufficient – or so we thought – stock cupboard items and anything else we might need to keep us occupied for however long…
Words worth editing
The sharp-eyed among you may have noticed it’s gone a little quiet here in Breezy Bottom. That’s because I’ve been frantically searching and pitching for work. Writing the biography last year took a lot of time out of my working week. In fact, it took most of it. And for four months, that’s pretty much…
Book review: The Christmas Lights
This feature is in association with NetGalley. The Christmas Lights, Karen Swan Thanks to NetGalley and to Pan Macmillan for an advance copy of The Christmas Lights by Karen Swan. This story begins in 1930s rural Norway, then skips to the present-day South Pacific. It jumps back to the fjords, and then we’re in present-day…
The income octopus: update
For almost two years I have been trying out the income octopus. You can see the original post if you follow the link. Basically, it’s a method to ensure that you are earning income from at least eight different sources, and the idea is that if one source dries up, for whatever reason, whether temporarily…
Going forward
The 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…
News, News, News
I 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…
