Taxing Transformations

Remember the plans for quarterly tax returns? Simon Whaley finds out what writers need to do now, in preparation.

If there’s one piece of writing most of us detest it’s completing our tax return. So when George Osborne announced in November 2015 the Making Tax Digital scheme, whereby self-employed people, such as writers, may need to complete quarterly tax returns, many feared the worst. How much of our future writing time would be gobbled up by the need to be creative with numbers?

However, plans for this were dropped from the Finance Bill that went through parliament just prior to last year’s general election. But this tax story hasn’t been buried like a murder writer’s latest victim. It’s simply sleeping, ready to reawaken in the near future. As writers, we need to start taking steps now.

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Little Switzerland

Here in the Welsh Borders, we’ve had a lot of weather, recently. Well, I say a lot of weather, but, of course, what I really mean is a change in the weather. 

 

Just before I moved to Shropshire from the London suburbs, my urban neighbours would say, “Shropshire? Ooh, you’ll get a lot of weather up there!” And they were right, sort of. We do get a lot of weather up here. But we get just as much as anyone else. It’s merely that ours tends to be a little more varied.

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Snowless Sunshine Snapper

After all the snow we’ve had, a chance to capture some sunshine and green fields!

Stokesay Snapper Simon

Decided to stop as I was passing Stokesay Castle today, to take a photo. I thought it looked gorgeous in the early morning sunshine. Turns out it was a good …

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Cræft in the Borders

It’s a dangerous game coming to the Welsh Borders to give an author talk. If you don’t believe me, ask archaeologist and historian Dr Alex Langlands, who’s a friend of this area thanks to the popular BBC2 Victorian Farm television series.

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Busses

The world of writing is a bit like busses. Nothing for a ages and then three things come along all at once. Or sometimes four.

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Crossing The Threshold

 I love the way some projects take on a life of their own. Today, in St Martin’s in the Bullring (Birmingham) the third edition of the Crossing the Threshold toolkit was launched.

In 2007 I wrote a book entitled [amazon_textlink asin=’1845281748′ text=’Fundraising for a Community Project’ template=’ProductLink’ store=’simonwhaley-21′ marketplace=’UK’ link_id=’535df801-c7fd-11e7-9099-bfc6fb5e81ca’], which explains to community groups in a clear and easy-to-understand way, how to apply for grant money from various funding organisations. 

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Meet The Author – Wellington Library

Writing may be a solitary occupation at times, but not all of the time. Today, I was part of Wellington Festival’s Meet The Author event. A group of us (what is the collective noun for a group of writers?) gathered in the library and set out our stalls.

Setting out out stalls …

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A Numbers Game

 

Publishing is a numbers game. When a book is published, nobody really knows how many copies it will sell. They might be able to guess a rough figure during its first six months of sales, especially if the author has a track record. (Dan Brown will probably sell one or two copies when his new one comes out next month.)

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Are You A Pre-Loader, Or An Empty-Stomacher?

 

If there’s one thing that Ludlow does well, it’s food. Local food. Well, food from the immediate environs of Shropshire, Herefordshire, Worcestershire, Gloucestershire and the neighbouring Welsh counties (Powys, Monmouthshire, et al).

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