I’ve decided to write a blog each month – now I have to keep it up. Will be quite a feat considering I’ve only written six blogs over the last five years. I don’t usually publish work without running it past Lesley (my editor) so you can expect this to score 80% grammar wise. I’m looking at my blogs as a letters to friends.
Last month I attended half of the National Writers Forum in Auckland – had planned to be there for the full event but Ethan (grandson) rang and asked if I’d cook pizza for ten for the Friday night; a belated 16th birthday celebration. I decided to toss the weekend but when I rang Jenny (CEO NZ Society of Authors) she talked me into going for the Saturday afternoon and Sunday. It was fantastic. The highlights for me were John Marsden’s keynote and his workshop on ‘Plots that Work’. Networking and catching up with friends is always great value and I came home bubbling with energy and determined to get back into my novel – have been side tracked with work for our local museum, and my garden.
This month I’ve put Shadow of the Boyd up as an ebook with Smashwords and set up PayPal for sales. I’m going to put it up in Amazon too as a friend says I can use the same epub file. Then I’ll add River Crossing to Smashwords and a collection of my published short stories as I get time. Once I’ve got my back-list up I’ll take a look at the dreaded marketing side of epub. Now that I’m retired I’m trying to organise myself into spending time on this, but writing wins hands down.
Anna (neighbour and good friend) and I are going down to Rotorua to spend Labour Weekend with Nyrene (daughter) who is working with me on Judging is Lethal and we are planning on work-shopping the clues and false leads – the trickiest part of the plot for me. Then onto Hastings for three days to catch up with Sue (sort-of sister) before driving back home. Will be a neat holiday. And then it’s back to work – writing.