Category Archives: Writing

Q3 Mid Quarter Progress Report

Posted on by
Reply

We’re half way through July and things are happening.

I have the edits back for Carol’s Christmas and I have it away with my friend, Carole for her to check it out and proofread – don’t worry, she’s an author as well. I hope to get this off to two of the lovely lady’s who shared their cancer story’s with me for them to check it over as well. I kind of want their approval before I proceed any further. My plan is to publish this book in October, which is Breast Cancer Awareness month. I also want to donate some of the funds from the book to the Breast Cancer Foundation. I’m thinking $5 for paperbacks and $1 for the ebooks. That’s my thinking at this stage.

I was thinking about publishing another book this year, but I think I will hold off on that, and focus on writing, because I have my editor booked for Finding Faith, my first Racing Harts book for the end of September 2025, which means that I will probably publish all three Racing Harts books next year.

I’m well on the way with my Men in Kilts series, which will be released in 2027. It sounds like a long time away, but I don’t want to burn myself out trying to write and publish 12 books a year. I’m already stretching myself to writing two books at a time, because I want to start publishing under my new pen name next year as well.

My new pen name will write Speculative Fiction – which is anything other than normal. Pretty much Science Fiction, Romantasy (Romantic Fantasy), Urban Fantasy. This is my first passion, and I want to write these again. Some will be spicy (full of sex), some will be sweet (kissing at the most), but it will be dark, because that seems to be where my stories have been going.

But never fear, because while I like writing dark, I like light and fluffy too, and for that reason I’m really enjoying writing Quin and Stef’s story in my first Men in Kilts story. It’s not quite a Romcom, but it’s pretty close, so very light-hearted.

Towards the end of the year I will have a publishing plan going forward, at this stage, I’m enjoying the writing process still, and can’t wait to get Carol’s Christmas out to you all to read. I had a lot of fun writing this book, which is another Women’s fiction. It has a strong female lead who discovers that money isn’t always the answer, and that people matter more than you think.

Progress Report

Posted on by
1

We’re half-way through 2025, how did that happen?

So I thought I better update you on progress I’ve made so far. I’ve published Finding Sam Healey, thanks to those who brought a copy. It was a low key entrance into the world, but I’m seeing some results, so that’s great.

I’m currently working through edits on Carols Christmas, which is a modern day retelling of the Christmas Carol. This is due to the editor on 26 June, and I’m steadily getting that finished. It isn’t a big book – clocking in only just at 40k, but I love the story, and the fact that so many people helped me to write this book is just mind blowing. Thank you to everyone who has talked to me during my research into Breast Cancer. Two of them will get to read the finished product before anyone else for their comments and thoughts before I release it, which I’m hoping to do in August 2025.

I’m battling my way through my Angel story for my new pen name. I’m only struggling because I keep running out of time when I’m editing so much at the moment. I want to try and limit my writing to three months, so getting a story written in three months, which is totally doable for me. I just need to be a bit stricter with my deadlines.

Once Carols Christmas has been through the editor, I have the first of my Racing Harts books to be edited. There are three of them. Finding Faith, Gaining Grace and Having Hope. Those names might change, but that’s what I have at the moment.

Writing-wise, I’m in the process of making vision boards and plotting out my Men in Kilts series. Hence the very odd photo I posted yesterday (if you didn’t see it… here it is again… I can’t stop looking at it, for all the wrong reasons so I can’t use it. It’s AI generated…)

He’s rather stunning, but I can’t take my eyes of her missing thigh…and what is her arm and hand doing???

There are seven books in that series so far, and it will be a fictional New Zealand Town that it’s set in, and I can’t wait to start delving into the lives of these men who like to wear kilts (Thanks Mum!)

So the next six months will be busy with writing, finishing off the first angel book, then two more, and starting on my Men in Kilts, and editing the Racing Harts. All going well, I might get one of the Racing Harts books out by the end of the year… Fingers Crossed.

AI Strikes Again

Posted on by
Reply

I received an email this week from a regular writing group I’m part of, (James Blatch Learn Self Publishing) and they mentioned Sindo Hane who had listed a series of 100 books written since April 2025.

According to them, it’s written by AI, because who can write and publish 100 books (that’s approximately 2 – 3 books a day) – in 50 days? And if you can, can you share your secret please?

And who is going to read those books? Someone is, which means that the market is going to be saturated with AI produced books when it’s already hard to be heard above the noise of other authors on the writing platforms such as Amazon, Kobo, Apple, Nook and Google Plus. All this while there are places on the website where you have to acknowledge that the books are produced by AI. People are also advertising on Facebook that you can produce books using AI, and Amazon will pay about thousands of dollars. How they get that when Jo Bloggs author is struggling to get traction on the platform is just beyond me. And they’re charging people to learn how to do this. (I recently reported one as misleading information.)

What does that mean for an author like me who is still trying to get a market share of the readers?

Well, it makes life harder, that’s for sure. Because it means I have to pay more for advertising for people to pay attention to my books. It means I have to be clear about my intention with my books as well, including my mission statement / vision statement, which are things that I have been working on.

I’ve been slowly learning about marketing, but it takes a while for someone like me who doesn’t have a selling bone in their body to try and sell my books. I can only hope that people will find me and read my books and work their way through my backlist.

Selling on my own website and then teaching people to buy direct from me is another option, but again, we need to get people to find me first.

I guess we just have to keep hoping that people will ignore AI produced books and continue to follow real people and real authors who are producing quality products out there.

To Work or Not to Work…

Posted on by
Reply

I was listening to an Author podcast this week which went on about the benefits to being a full time writer and not working a normal 9 to 5 job anymore. They were making it sound like it was the ideal for EVERY writer out there.

And once again, I was reminded that I don’t need to write full time and that I require the outside world to actually be a well fulfilled person.

Don’t get me wrong, if you want to be a stay a home, full time author, all power to you. I, for one, can’t do that because a) I can only write about 1500 words per story and b) I need the stimulation of a good conversation, or action going on around me. Also work can be inspiring. I wrote Cursed Love about Insurance assessing, because that is what I did for 13 years of my life. I wrote Compromising positions because I was a gardener for nearly six years. Who knows what will come from me working in a hospital.

I listened to another podcast a while ago, and the lady, a writer and an airline hostess (or steward, or whatever non-pronoun word they use now) and she enjoyed working so much, that she worked part time, and because she’d been doing it for so long, she was able to choose what flights she wanted to do.

I write best in the morning, and I can work on two stories at the same time, so I can get 1500 per story. But after lunchtime, I can’t get my brain to focus solely on a story. In fact, mostly after lunch all I want to do is nap. But I can edit in the evenings, and this is what I tend to do, if I haven’t been working in the afternoons. Because by the time I finish work at 6pm, drive home, and then have tea, all I want to do is go to bed.

So writing full time isn’t for everyone. If you don’t think that you want to be a full time writer, then you don’t have to be. Don’t let others put their opinions onto you and tell you it’s the only way. There are different ways of obtaining the same thing, and for now, I’m happy to write and work part time.

Excitement is building

Posted on by
Reply

After what seems like forever, I’m finally back writing. I think it was only two weeks, but when you’re a writer, two weeks can seem like two years. And because I write when I have a spare moment, and before I go to work, an hour a day feels like a lifetime ago. But I managed to get in three writing days, and a couple of days editing.

I have Finding Sam Healey up for pre-order, and I’m working out what my next projects will be. I have a little bit of writing to go on my last Racing Harts story, and then I think I will write my Cinderella retelling. Editing-wise, I’m working on Carol’s Christmas, and hope to have that out, maybe October or November. But it could be earlier than that. It’s still all up in the air.

What isn’t up in the air is wanting to sell my books myself. From my own website. With my ebooks, that means I’ll make 90% of the costs, rather than 70% (or as low as 60% with an aggregator). It means that I can also provide paperback copies to New Zealand readers at a more reasonable cost as well. I already sell my books for $15, but I’m looking at increasing the costs, mostly due to the fact that it is costing me more to getting them in, but it would still be reasonable. $25 plus $5 postage.

With selling on my own website, I can offer more merchandise as well, like bookmarks, and other publications that aren’t available through any other platform. It also means I can offer discounts on my eBooks, and currently I’m looking at selling them at US$2.99 through my website, while increasing the costs to $4.99 through the other book places (Amazon, Kobo, Apple, Google, Smashwords and other online retailers.

I want to get serious about selling my books, and this is one way I can do it. I would love to sell more paperbacks, but I’m still working out the nuts and bolts of advertising.

So watch this space…something big is happening here soon…

Formatting Lessons Learned

Posted on by
Reply

When I was home full time, I used a notebook as a ‘To Do list’, and I always felt like I’d accomplished something when I got things crossed off that list. Lately I’ve been wondering why I haven’t been as productive with my To Do list, and it’s taken me until now to work it out.

Yes, call me blond if you want, but the reason I haven’t been as productive is…wait for it… because I’m working again, so I don’t have all day to get tasks done. It was kind of a bolt out of the blue to come to this conclusion, then I chastised myself for not realising it sooner.

I’m very tough on myself, I try to hold myself in high esteem, but I also have to remember that I am only one person, trying to make my writing work for me, and not against me. Writing is something I love to do, and I don’t mind doing formatting etc to make my book look pretty. I used to follow India Drummond’s helpful tutorial on YouTube on how to format my print book, but when I went in there recently…It’s gone! And instead of an hour that it normally took me to do formatting, I spent six days nutting it out myself, with help from a couple of downloaded templates. The thing is, I don’t want to cut and paste my book into a template. I’ve just spent a massive amount of time setting up the mirror margins and the type font etc. I don’t have time to cut and paste, but you know what? It would have been quicker.

One lesson I did learn, was to not use page breaks when I finish a chapter. Use a scene break. Have odd and even numbered page numbers, and learn how to break the pairing with the previous scene break. I have to say that I am pleased with the overall result, but it took me days of yelling at my laptop and cursing the internet for being dodgy at crucial moments, because it would decide that it needed to think before it would allow me to do something, and I was already five steps ahead. So I would have to be patient (something I don’t have a lot of) and let things do it’s thing, then try again.

The good news is, the ebook was a lot easier to format and was done in about an hour, and now, Finding Sam Healey is up for pre-order. I’m so excited. I can’t wait to see how people find it. If you want a copy of the paperback, or ebook, let me know, you might get an early copy so that you can spread the word about this book.

Betwixt and Between

Posted on by
Reply

I’m in a weird space at the moment, between formatting a book, writing two and editing another, it’s one of those moments when you wonder if it is all worth it.

I listen to writing podcasts, and they say that there aren’t many who make money writing overnight, and I get that. But I will have 8 books published soon, and I’ve only made about $120 from them all, in total. ther the end.

I know that most writers don’t get a lot of money from writing, but is my writing that bad that I won’t make any money from it?

When I’d editing a story, I get to a point where it’s like – this is the worst thing I’ve ever written, why did I even bother, and then I get a note from my editor saying she loved how I pulled everything together in the end. Does that mean that the rest of the story is… well… crap?

No, it just means I’ve read it over about thirty million times, and the new sparkly glossy idea I had no longer carries the sheen that it had. Instead, it’s a polished diamond that will go out into the world.

And I know that the more books out there, the more money I will make, but if I make $100 in 10 years, does that mean it will be another 10 before I crack $1,000?

Don’t panic, I’m not giving up writing. My brain wouldn’t allow me to do that, but I do sometimes wonder if it is worthwhile trying to make some money out of it. At least I have another fourteen years until retirement. That’s if the age hasn’t been raised again by then.

Getting things Done

Posted on by
Reply

I’ve been on tenterhooks all this week because I knew that my edits would be due in this week. And until I get the edits, I’m a bit of a nervous wreck, because I don’t know if my editor has liked the story or not.

The deadline passed, and my nerves grew even more, because what was going on. Was the story really crappy and she was taking a while to get through it? Did the storyline not come through properly? Were my characters flat?

On Friday I got a message from my editor. “Hey, I hope you’ve had a good week. Just wanted to send you a quick update that I’m nearly finished with your copyedit and expect to have it back to you mid next week. What a story! Wow!” I hope that means that she’s enjoying the story!

I’m also in the process of putting a store together to sell my books direct as well as through Kobo, Amazon, and Draft2Digital. If I do this, I will probably make the books cheaper for people to buy the books through me, and more expensive if you buy through other retailers. As a result, my website is looking a little different at the moment, but it’s a work in progress.

I’ve been writing Grace’s story, and I hope to get that finished next week or the week after. My Angel story has kind of ground to a halt, because my characters need more work. They aren’t dimensional enough. I need to make them more ‘realistic’. Hopefully it’s a small glitch that I can work on and get back writing in no time.

I’m also editing Carol’s Christmas and working my way through those. I’ve also been back to my lady friends for some more information from them about their procedures to fill in the details that I missed the first time around. The ladies have been really lovely and helpful, and I really appreciate their time.

A Moment in the life of a writer

Posted on by
Reply

My mental health has been discussed here a lot, but lately it has been on the up and up. I have the occasional day when things don’t quite go to plan, but that is normal whether you have a mental health issue or not.

Yesterday (Saturday), I had a bit of a blip. I’d written about 5000 words over various stories, and while that is normally something I’m extremely happy with, I told myself that it would probably all be deleted when it comes to editing.

I was tired and on my drive home, I managed to convince myself that I was a completely pathetic writer and that none of my stories were any good, and no wonder I didn’t have sales, etc.

By the time I got home, had dinner and ruminated some more, I was at the point of tears. I knew that it was wrong, and that I was over-reacting, but I couldn’t seem to shake myself out of the melancholy.

I was so upset and wound up about my writing. My partner, very attuned to my moods asked me if I was okay. When I told him, he told me that 5000 words was impressive, and if I wasn’t a successful writer, then I wouldn’t have so many books published (7 books) (Yes, he is a keeper). I had a cry, snuggled with him and then went to bed.

This morning (Sunday), I woke up feeling a lot brighter and happier, and able to look on yesterday’s blip and recognise it for what it was. An overtired reaction to something that my brain ruminated over. knew

Everyone has moments where they overthink something, or over react to something that happened in their day. Sometimes it’s tiredness, it might be stress, or it could be something else altogether. Just remember, it is only a blip. It isn’t the end of the world, or the end of your mental health. It is just a day where you refer back to your earlier self, before you had the tools to help you cope with situation.

Recognising that I was over-reacting was a good thing, because I knew that I would come through the other side and still have my mental health intact.

If you have a bad day, remember it is only one moment in time. And sometimes we need the bad times to remember how far we’ve come on a good day.

The Meta and AI controversy

Posted on by
Reply

The big news this week was that Meta used a pirate website to download millions of books to feed into their AI – Llama3.

My books weren’t included – I’m not a big enough author or earning enough for the pirates to warrant accessing my books, but a lot of my writing friends from around the world have had some or all of their books pirated, and then fed into Llama3 in order for it to ‘learn’.

And then people wonder why writers hate AI.

I was a fan of AI until this came out, because I find what Meta did was morally wrong. They used a pirate site, which had already ripped off hundreds of thousands of writers by taking their work and selling it (most often without the author’s knowing or receiving payments for it) and then Meta used that, along with everything else on the site, which includes doctorates and other university grade papers to make their AI ‘intelligent’, instead of approaching people and asking if they could use their resources.

Of course, Meta isn’t the only company that has probably done this, but because Meta is a social media giant (with Facebook, Instagram and Threads), it has acquired more notoriety.

While what I was doing was feeding my own books into the AI program I was using, illegally taking something that wasn’t theirs to take in the first place is just downright wrong.

But what can we do about it? Well, nothing. That’s the annoying thing. Authors could do a mass walk off of Facebook / Instagram, but where else are they going to go? There is no other popular social media out there that is like Facebook or Instagram. The closest to Threads (Metas version of Twitter, or X as it is now known) is Bluesky, but there is no other equivalent for Facebook, because it is THE social media platform. But I will be checking out some others, including Mastodon and Vero.

There is Whatsapp – but that means giving my personal phone number out to people, and I don’t want to do that. There is also Snapchat and Pinterest. And while Pinterest interests me, I’m not sure that Snapchat or Whatsapp are really places an author can use – maybe they can, but I’m not sure they’re the right places for me.

There is TikTok – but I’ve been avoiding it – not because I don’t want to do it, but because my audience isn’t there. Mostly my audience are on Facebook or Instagram, and how do you convince your followers to leave and try another social media platform?

Of course, there is my website, but until I can work out how to have more contact with people on there, like having a chat function so I can share information that can go out to all of my followers. I do weekly blogs, but that isn’t what people want. No one except my mum and a couple of other people read these posts. (If you do, leave a like on the facebook page.)

So, what do I do? Do I suck it up and stay? Or do I show Meta the middle finger and find another social media platform to share my news? You tell me.