My Blog
My musings about the world, self publishing, living abroad, and my author career.
Short stories and editing
The last few weeks I've mainly been working on three short stories - one as an exclusive for newsletter subscribers, and two to submit to other places. When/if they are published I will post links and tell you more about them. What I have learnt from doing this is...
Dreaming in audio
Most people describe their dreams as vivid pictures they see in their mind's eye. But I don't think I've ever experienced that. While I very rarely remember my dreams, but when I do I'm sure that they are narrated. It's like the voice in your head when you read to...
Newsletter launch
I am launching a newsletter to let you know how my writing is going. I will send out a message once a month with an overview of how I'm doing, as well as something I've written. This maybe a short story, a character interview, or an excerpt from something I'm working...
Summer holidays
The Dutch take a relatively pragmatic view to the issue of school summer holidays, and stagger them across the country. School holidays are set nationally, though some of the dates are only advisory and individual schools can choose their own. But the summer ones are...
Vakantiebieb
Dutch public libraries have an annual offer, where for the months of July and August they provide a pre-defined list of ebooks freely available for all library members. These books are all in Dutch, but they cover a variety of age groups (from 4yo to adult) and a...
art journals
All four of us have our own art journal. It's a place to do stuff that gets kept. (I must admit that pretty much all other children's art gets binned...eventually. Some of it gets displayed first.) It's a place to try out different techniques and see how they work....
six month review 2018
So at the beginning of the year I set myself some goals, and now we are halfway through the year it's a good time to look back and see how I'm doing on those. My goals for 2018 were: focus on writing improve daily routines look after me talk to friends First, writing....
Plant identifications
What's the first thing you do when you have a new house? Go round the garden and identify what new plants you have, of course! (Well, actually first we picked the ripe fruits and have even made our first batch of homemade jam and relish from it.) We are lucky to have...
My new Facebook Page
I have just published a Facebook Page for me as an author. I have been playing around with doing this for a while, and today actually pressed publish on it. This is the next step for me taking myself an an author seriously and trying to build up an audience before a...
“I never thought…”
Last week I intervened with another child in what was potentially a life-threatening situation. The parents were not within view, and the child was being a bit silly. I'm not going to go into detail, as nothing did happen, but there are a number of lessons I drew from...
Buying a house Dutch style
We have just bought our second house in the Netherlands. It's just round the corner from where we now live, and even closer to the children's school. So we are very happy and looking forward to moving there and not moving again! But first we have some renovations to...
Guest post – 10 Minute Novelists’ Conference Can Change Your Writing Forever!
Here is a guest post from Katharine Grubb of 10 Minute Novelists all about their conference in the summer. It sounds great, so if you're thinking about it book quickly before the tickets sell out! ***** In this saturated market, you can’t afford to be a mediocre...