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First of all, happy 2017 to all of you! What a year it has been…

December was one productive month for me, and yet it felt like it was over in a matter of seconds. It remains something I can’t wrap my head around: the older I get and the more I do, the faster it goes. So what have I been up to?

Projects done

Since one of my clients needed a little more time finishing his manuscript, I had some room to update the website. I changed the colour scheme and updated the menu slightly. Some other changes will be made, but my schedule for January is outright frightening (so many books to edit, papers to grade, exams to check) that I’ll be happy to get any writing of my own done at all, let alone get the website running the way I want to.

The extra time also enabled me to try my hand at something I’d never considered doing: copywriting. One of my best friends is a gifted yoga teacher and the most intuitive person I’ve ever met. Selling herself and putting her thoughts into words aren’t her strong suits, however. Luckily, we’ve learned this month that putting her thoughts into words is something that comes natural to me, so I now write copy whenever she needs copy written. And it’s great fun, too! It isn’t a skill I’m considering adding to my services (yet), but it’s definitely something I want to play around with some more. I.e. if you are looking for someone to go over your book ads, your web content, anything, shoot me a message at marielle@mswordsmith.nl  and I’ll have a look in exchange for an ounce of gratitude or karma points.Read More →

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As you can read in my review of Joanna Penn’s The Successful Author Mindset: A Handbook for Surviving the Writer’s Journey, one of the practices the book made me want to pick up was that of setting intentions and reflecting on the results on a monthly basis. I’m officially starting tomorrow, but now I’ve caught the intention bug, I wanted to take a moment to consider the past month, and reflect on what November has brought me. So here goes.

Projects done

One of the projects I worked on last month was to reread a sci-fi novel that I edited last August. It was the first time I went over a novel again to check on how the writer had incorporated my comments and it was such a good experience in that it made it very tangible just how much my reading of a work helps writers to tell better stories. It was also quite flattering to see how much of my advice was taken into account. If you’re interested in this particular book, you can get it for free by joining the writer’s email list here.

I also worked on the outline of the second book in the fantasy series I’m writing. Read More →