My Blog
My musings about the world, self publishing, living abroad, and my author career.
Cover reveal (guest post)
Have you ever held onto a secret you've been dying to share, and then finally...you can? For the last few weeks I've been helping Angela and Becca at Writers Helping Writers keep a BIG secret...what the next book in their thesaurus series will be. It might seem...
Feeling my age
This is me from about ten years ago, more or less. Dressed as Pippi Longstocking for some reason. All day no-one could keep a straight face when they looked at me. And yes, it was a work day. I had to be careful not to turn my head too quickly, in case I poked anyone...
Mixing languages
One of the joys of having children who speak two languages is watching them learn them both. Hearing them talk to each other in a mishmash of them. Helping them learn words that they only know in the other language. That they can teach you words that you haven't...
lessons learned
So, a new year has just started, and it's time to look back over what I've achieved with my short stories. I published four, two weeks apart between Thanksgiving and New Year. Publicity and promotion is hard. Most of the time I felt like I was shouting into the wind,...
“What if…” and a book launch
One of the most useful questions to a writer is the question, "what if". What if the world was green, or vampires were real, or you could travel through time. The whole of fiction is based on asking how things would work if the way the world works was different....
Annual review 2018
My goals for 2018 were: focus on writing improve daily routines look after me talk to friends My writing has gone well, although I haven't hit the target of 1000 words a day over the year, I have written more than I did last year. I've also edited a series of short...
Self publishing 3 – self-editing
Just writing a piece of novel-length prose is hard enough, but then you have to polish it and revise it to make it even better. The first draft of a story is often referred to as a vomit draft - just writing it all down as fast as you can to get it out. And then you...
Stocking activities 2018
Here is my annual list of what we have done to celebrate Sinterklaas, Advent and Christmas. This year we struggled, as now both children are at school and have after-school activities there is less time to fit in an extra activity. So while we did do them all, some...
Comparing baking to writing & a book launch
One of the things I enjoy doing is cooking. I love baking, and making meals from scratch. My Mum us an awesome cook, and growing up we were privileged to have good quality and varied food, which is something I emulate in my family. But I never really started cooking...
My best books of 2018
I have been making an effort this year to keep track of what I have been reading. Anyone who knows me knows that I love books and can often be found hiding somewhere with my nose in a book. Increasingly that is a digital book on my phone, which makes it more difficult...
Being a target
One thing I've found recently is that there are alot of tools and services that are being targeted at me as an author. With the rise of self-publishing there is also the rise of people selling things to those who want to self-publish. And while some of those are...
New book live
My next short story is live now on Amazon and free through Kindle Unlimited. What Jack found Five year old Jack finds a fairy in his garden, and so he and his mother find themselves entangled in a conflict between rival fairy clans. Surrounded by fairies wielding...