My Blog
My musings about the world, self publishing, living abroad, and my author career.
I am an author!
I published a book. A short story on Amazon. And people are buying and reading it. And I can't make up my mind whether I am excited that people are actually reading it, or disappointed that more people aren't! Every time I think about it my attitude is different and...
Self publishing 2 – improving
In the previous post in this series I wrote about the importance of sitting down to write. You can't succeed self publishing books if you have nothing to publish. As well as writing, and the pure drive to get words on the page, you need to be looking to improve your...
First stories now live
This post contains affiliate links. I have published my first short story on Amazon! And the second is available to preorder. The Weaver's Daughter One summer’s evening Kyra comes face to face with the Shadeling, a monster that has been terrorising her village by...
Big news
I have been rather vague about exactly what I'm planning to do to launch my writing career, partly because the details of it keep changing as I get new ideas. But I am now ready to let you all know what my plan is for the next few months at least, which is not at all...
10 Toys that last
Given that Christmas is coming round the corner I thought I would take a break from my usual blogging topics and write a list of toys that my children love and have loved for the last few years. As my children are now four and seven years old we're talking about up to...
Other things I’ve written
I've added a page to my blog listing links to stories and other pieces I've written. As I publish more things elsewhere I will add to it, so I hope it will grow in the future. But for now it has a respectable number of links on it! And if anyone would like me to guest...
Self publishing 1: writing
This is the first in a new series of blog posts documenting how to succeed with self-publishing. They will follow along as I do them and also be my story of how I did it. I hope they will help others succeed too, as well as providing me with a record of what I've...
Losing a home
My parents sold their house last week. The house they'd lived in since I was small. My first memories are when we moved into that house aged three - walking with my dad through the dining room, taking big steps over the rolls of carpet on the floor. The snow piled...
Finding gaps
My husband says the Dutch call the gap for a missing tooth a bicycle rack, but I must admit that I've never heard anyone refer to it as that. As you can see from the photo rocket boy has lost three teeth in the last few months, and the new ones are being slow to...
Reaching “the end”
At the end of last week I reached the end of the novel I was writing. Well, the first draft of it anyway. It's still rough and needs alot of editing, but I think that it is worth editing. Which is better than my previous one that I would need to completely re-write!...
Fighting spam
I set up my mailing list a few months ago and it's been inundated with spam sign-ups. Even with a double opt-in there are far far more sign-ups from email addresses that I think are spam. Reasons I think they're spam: 1) Overly complicated email addresses I could...
On metamorphosis
I am struggling at the moment - I know what I want to be (an author), but though I have a plan for how to get there I'm not there yet. I feel like I'm in an extended period of metamorphosis. It's nearly five years since I last worked in an office, and seven since I...