Tag Archives: Writing

Finding New and Inspiring Things To Do.

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I joined a gym, not long after I started my new job, and it was a little hit and miss to start with, but I got into a program, and had a personal trainer (who also runs the bootcamp that I go to) and started to really get into it.

On discussion with my personal trainer, I decided to up the ante a little and now I am in a three day a week program. It isn’t about building muscle, because that isn’t what I want to do, at this stage. Instead we are doing some corrective work, and then some muscle work to help.

Corrective work is because we discovered I have hyperextension. I always knew I was a little kookie with weird elbow angles, and knees that want to go backwards, so I’m doing exercises to help strengthen those muscles to prevent injuries from happening. I’m also doing exercises for my Archille’s that I slightly ruptured in December last year.

As a result, my mental health has improved, and my brain is just buzzing with ideas, which keep flowing, and I can’t keep up! I have a notebook with story ideas that I might have to get a ghost writer to finish for me!

Overall, I’m really enjoying the gym visits. It helps with my mental health, and I listen to podcasts while I’m exercising. I’m starting to get into a rhythm of attending three day a week, and settling into a routine of writing, editing and gym visits as well as my work schedule.

Living Your Best Life

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It has been obvious to me lately that we need to be living our best lives.

So what does that look like for me?
Living my best life is being with those I love, doing the things I love, and not taking things for granted.

Stepping out of my comfort zone and trying something new isn’t something that I do often, but when I do, I’m always grateful for the opportunity to try something new. I always yearn to do the things I love, and I’m slowly getting back into doing those things again.

Writing is something that I’m passionate about, and as long as I can write, I will continue to do so. But recently I’ve decided to go back to writing the slightly off the wall books that I’ve always wanted to write, like fantasy and science fiction. Why? Because that is where I really enjoyed the story telling and developing a whole new world (worldbuilding). To a degree I get to do that with Tuivale and my Men in Kilts series, but it doesn’t have that fantasy aspect that takes the story to the next level, adding elements that are otherworldly, or just out of this realm of possibility.

I will continue to write contemporary romance and Womens Fiction, because I still have a lot of what if questions that need answering, but I have a need to express my inner weirdo to get it out of my head and onto paper.

Celebrations

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My son has just turned 21, which is always a big celebration, no matter where the in the world you live. But do we celebrate other things, like Book Birthdays?

I am probably one of the worst of celebrating. Christmas was never my thing, but I’ve always made a celebration of other people’s birthdays. I like to make people feel special. I’m up for celebrating anything, whether it is finally getting IT to finally do something we asked them to do 6 weeks ago at work, or a friend finally managing to get their wardrobe cleaned out.

But one thing I don’t do enough, is celebrate my own successes. I mean, I’m not raking in the money yet, which would be cause for a celebration, but I don’t really celebrate the release of a new book. By the time I’ve got a book released, I’ve read it over a hundred times and I’m ready to move onto the new and shiny project – which I think every writer can relate to. I’m excited that I’ve released a new book out into the world, but I struggle to really make the release something to celebrate.

And then book anniversary’s. I know what year a book was published, but until recently, didn’t keep track of the month it was published, so while Cursed Love was released eleven years ago, I can’t remember what month I released it. (And eleven years ago, my son was ten!)

When I finish a book, I don’t tend to celebrate, because I’m ready to move onto the next project and start the new shiny idea that is glowing (and growing) in my brain.

A friend of mine, who is a life coach, tells me that we need to celebrate those small achievements, the moments when we have done what we set out to do. We need to remind ourselves that celebration is normal in everyday life, and we should celebrate, and uplift and encourage others to celebrate too.

So I intend to start celebrating a bit more vocally about my books. I’ll tell people more about them, celebrate the topic I’ve chosen to write, I’ll spend time creating posts that celebrate what I’ve achieved, and help others celebrate their wins in life too. Because publishing a book is a win, in a world with AI bots churning out books by the day, any little writer knows that to write, edit, drip blood sweat and tears over a book, and then release it, is worth the celebration.

On the up and up

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A couple of weeks ago I wrote how I was suffering with the weather and down moods. I have since turned a corner, and now my mental health is improving.

And the reason for this, I believe, is catching up with a friend and talking about writing. It was as simple as that. We hadn’t been able to catch up over the previous few weeks because of weather related issues, or kids, but last Friday, we managed to catch up and mostly, we talked. We talked about writing, but we also talked about how we felt guilty because while we’d both been affected by the floods, we still had our homes and our properties survived unscathed, unlike a lot of our friends, and as a result, we have survivors guilt. Because we didn’t get the damage as bad as it could have been we felt guilty for feeling pleased that it hadn’t affected us.

We spoke about the trauma we both suffered having to evacuate and not knowing what we would be going back to, how the kindness of people we barely knew made it easier to cope. How we both emotionally broke down after it had all passed over because we were trying to be strong for our kids.

And then we talked about the power of writing, how cathartic it had been to write about our sadness and pain in various stories we’d written, and how it was our ‘therapy’, and how we felt so much better, mental health-wise, when we were able to find time to write.

I only spent two hours with Serena, but in that time, we found a companionship that went deeper than our writing friendship. We both had similar experiences and experienced the same emotions about the same things. And it was nice to know that someone knew how I felt.

It wasn’t until Sunday I realised just how uplifted I felt. How much lighter and brighter the world seemed. I was relieved that I’d finally turned the corner, because I wasn’t looking forward to spending another two or three weeks in that melancholy state, because even I don’t like myself when I’m in that kind of mood.

But sometimes, just spending time with someone who has a similar interest to you, can be all you need to was someone to shine a light so you come out the other side of the darkness, and realise that it was only a tunnel you were travelling through, and not a journey to the middle of the earth.

AI Strikes Again

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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…

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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

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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

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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.

A Moment in the life of a writer

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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.

Keeping up with Myself

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The last couple of weeks have been hectic. Learning a new job, writing two stories, editing Finding Sam Healey…

I have officially started into my normal roster, which means I’ve worked this weekend. Some of you are probably thinking – why would you work a weekend. Easy – I do it once a fortnight, and I get paid handsomely to do it. And you know what, there is plenty of time in each shift to do my own thing. So yesterday I started editing Carol’s Christmas! If this keeps up, I’ll run out of writing before I do editing!

But I have my regular roster, so I know when I have time for writing and when I’m working, so that gives me a clear idea of where I’m heading, because the last three weeks, I didn’t know when I was working half the time. But now it’s clear, I can set some boundaries around my writing time.

Because things have been so chaotic, I decided to focus on editing instead, and after missing my deadline, (and with agreement from my editor) I was able to get the document to her on Thursday. I will know how good, bad or ugly the story is by the beginning of April.

And now that is out of the way, I can crack back into writing. Which I have been itching to do, because I haven’t done it for a few days – maybe two weeks now. It will be good to get back into writing and I hope to have at least one of the stories finished by mid-April.

With all of the mess that has been going on, it is nice to finally be coming out the other side and starting to get back into normal and routine, because I cope better with that than chaos and crazy.