Tuesday March 4th 2008
It seems a long time since I posted anything on this diary page - needless to say that the last couple of months have been incredibly tough. When I looked at my traffic stats for the journal yesterday I was amazed to find that it had achieved a Google pr2. I am trying to get my life back into some sort of order and hope to be posting to this page on a fairly regular basis - but first I need to get a samples and testimonial page set up.Tuesday 1.20 am December 11th
Insomnia again, that and trying to dream up methods to make my life and my writing a bit more organized. I am setting up my business accounts into excel sheets and logging work in and work out but just lately I have a head like a sieve. 
Monday 2.45 am November 26th Insomnia
I don't know how many writers out there suffer with insomnia or whether I am virtually the only nutter still sat at my computer. Partly the loss of my son this summer has interfered with the way my body operates for some reason - I also like to have some time when everyone else is in bed and there is just me and the dog sat downstairs. Still, I have got a bit of work done today and feel sure that I will be able to get on with a lot more this week. Tomorrow won't be much good as the whole afternoon is taken up a viva voce where I am the internal examiner.
Thursday November 22nd
I have my new computer at last. It is up and running and it is great trying to get things done without my own machine has been a nightmare. I have promised myself to back up my work every evening and to take more care with this laptop than I did with the last.
Monday November 19th Getting On With It
One thing that I have found over the last couple of weeks is that when catastrophe strikes I find knuckling down and getting on with it quite difficult. My work rate has been down to about a third during this time without a computer and I am having a really hard time getting back into some sort of normal routine. Since yesterday I have unlimited loan of another computer until I get my own delivered and set up so I am hoping that things will improve this week.
Sunday November 11th Get Creative
I've been thinking a lot recently about the many different things writers (and non-writers for that matter) can get creative and introduce more variety into their lives. I used to draw and paint a lot but in recent years I have become so engrossed in things that I feel have to be done that often, something I want other than writing, does not get done. The last couple of days I have been attempting to rectify this by going back to my sketch book and working on some exercises. My plan is to sign up for a class in the new year.
Friday November 9th Sod's Law
My last post on things that can go wrong just did not cover all the bases. I have spent the last four and a half days trying to cope with sod's law. On Sunday my nearest and dearest reminded me that I needed to back up my work. I was tired and said that it would have to wait until the morning. When I came to log on that day my laptop was dead. I just couldn't get it to fire up and for a time thought that I had lost all of my recent data. A good fairy presented me with someone who was able to rescue everything from my hard drive. As soon a I have a working computer rather than a borrowed one, the first thing I aim to do is back up my work.
Sunday November 4th Sometimes Things Go Wrong
Today has been one of those days with family problems coming out of the woodwork and not enough time to do what I have to do. Things have been quite difficult and I haven't done even half of what I had promised myself I would do. I'm only writing this because I really do want to keep this diary as up to date as I can.
Thursday November 1st Writing for Cash
At the moment things are a bit slow with paid writing work but the freelance life seems to go like that. I know a number of people who are writing for cash and who, like me are either overstretched or not stretched enough. Of course this is where nonsense like nanowrimo where people sign up to write a novel in a month comes in. At least you are writing.
Wednesday October 31st 2007 Nanowrimo Kickoff
I have foolishly signed up to nanowrimo for the second time and it starts at midnight tonight. I have a working title, a main character and one dead body.
Tuesday October 30th 2007 Google Page Rank
Although I haven't been very prolific these last few days, I have been busy. I had a great boost this evening as I found out that one of my blogs now has a PR2 with Google and another has a PR1. I have certainly been trying to achieve this and have paid more attention to search engine optimization. I am hoping that it won't be too long before this website is ranked with Google. Then hopefully there will be more visitors and more clients such as Sharon has.
Thursday October 24th 2007 What I've done today
Well I have actually done about five or six thousand words today and in an hour of madness decided to give some advice on how to live successfully with teenagers. I am getting a little fed up because I am paid for most of my work in dollars which are now less than half the value of a pound. I am going to have to consider asking for a raise on some of the dollar jobs. Happy writing.
Wednesday October 23rd 2007 Work and Time
This is the second day for the write for cash freelance writing jobs website. I have had very little time for actual writing today as one element of my work is the part-time supervision of postgraduate students at my local university. This weeks session went way past the allotted time and when I got home there were various family things to deal with which means that I didn't touch my email or my writing til very late in the evening.
Tuesday october 22nd 2007 Work Production
Today has not been a good day for my writing life. I completed two articles added content to a site that I am writing on points of interest and blogged a bit. Altogether this has not been a very productive day largely because family problems and birthday parties intervened. I have however managed to create a new hub which was a bit ironic as I don't think that today's output would have been acceptable to any of my clients. Let's hope for a better day tomorrow