Category: writer at work

The time is near for my lifestyle blog, Tales From Baggins Bottom, to pack itself away. It has served me well, since 2005, across Blogger and WordPress. But things change,…

I don’t often work at the weekend, or of an evening if I can help it – unless, of course, there’s a genuine emergency and only then if it’s for…

I had quite a hefty to-do list last week, one that even made me gulp, and only 4½ days in which to do everything. However, I got through pretty much…

On Sunday I pre-scheduled Monday’s blog post (round-up) and I worked on my diary for the coming week. I stuck to my original plan of having an hour for morning…

The week before Easter was a 4-day week. I had a lot to do before we broke up on Thursday, all of which was on the history book. Here’s how…

It was all going so well … With us “breaking up” for the Easter period and me submitting the history book late Thursday night, I was all set to crack…

So I have a desk in the dining room overlooking the bird table in the garden. The desk is of a very dark oak and it goes very well with…

… 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…

Last week I had a proper ol’ blitzing of the work in progress. Here’s how I did: stitch everything together for the Cadbury book On Monday I added 2,728 words…

The last time the diary of a non-fiction book appeared was at the end of October 2017. I was about to embark on NaNoWriMo 2017 and the history book was…

I had a much better week last week. I knuckled down, kept track of where I was and how much I’d done, and just got on with things . Here’s…

Many writers I know are very sensible about looking after their money. They do their taxes throughout the year, so they’re ready to go at tax time, and they save…

Last week I “came back to work” struggling to get motivated. I had a HUGE to-do list that consisted of at least nine things I needed to be doing.  I…

Brendan van Son is a travel journalist-turned-photographer/digital nomad. He’s also one of the poet’s favourite vloggers. AND he’s one I’ll watch too. One of the things we like about him…

Yesterday I looked at all of the jobs I currently have to do or would like to do. Today I’m going to consider some of the things that get in…

I’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…

When I’m really, really busy and start to feel overwhelmed with the amount of work I have yet to do, I resort to the Pomodoro Tomato technique. In fact, I…

Last night I finished a job that has been hanging around since before Christmas. It was billed as a “heavy proofreading” job, but it turned out to need a LOT…

I had a bit of a flurry of new followers over the weekend – welcome to you all – and I have no idea where they all came from. However,…

On Saturday I attended a crime writing workshop in Nottingham. The course was called “Researching and Writing the Perfect Murder”, and it was being led by Stuart Gibbon and Stephen…

… Okay, so it’s not really week 5, but it’s the 5th week I’ve been able to allocate to the non-fiction book. I’ve honestly been so busy in the weeks since my…

It’s been a whole month since my last post (before this morning’s 52 in 52, that is). I haven’t been lax, I’ve been very busy – as usual. First of…

Day 2 was actually on Wednesday when I went to the Cadbury archives again in Birmingham. What a day! I was late leaving in the first place and didn’t get…

My first day back on the non-fiction book was yesterday. First of all I reviewed the list of storage material I’d compiled the last time I visited the company archives…

I don’t know. You wait all week for a blog post, and then three come along at once … I didn’t get much done on the non-fiction book last week…

Week three is still very much about research for me at the moment. I’m on chapter 3 of the research material and I’ve searched for and chosen my usual five…

Wednesday was a very long and tiring but certainly worthwhile day. I set off at about 8:45am and got to my parents’ in good time to drop the dog off…

I’ve not been taking additional days off. I’ve been doing normal work stuff. It still needs doing, even when I have a book to write. Today it was back to…

Friday disappeared into the ether and I think I may have faffed a little. I know I did some reading for the non-fiction book as well as some regular research…

Yesterday’s work session began with me updating the raw text version of this Diary of …that will be coming out after it’s all over. I added yesterday morning’s post, and formatted…

By Wednesday I started to get into the swing of things and was beginning to feel like a proper writer again, writing for a living and all that. I was…

Tuesday was a much better, more productive day. I finished my chores thirty minutes earlier than usual, so was able to do some catch-up work from Monday. The first thing…

The day didn’t get off to a great start. I’ve been fighting a cold and a “bit of a throat” for a couple of weeks and at the end of…