I have really turned a 'page'

Taken from the balcony - I'm not even joking.

I am writing this post from Verbier in Switzerland and having a rather lovely time. I am here for work but since I decided to change things up a bit and get rid of all my excess baggage that I talked about in my last post here, there has been a subtle shift in how I feel about everything. Any free time this week has been spent exploring this beautiful town and just taking in being surrounded by the most incredible beauty of the mountains. No fondue as of yet but I have found the restaurant in which the fondue eating shall take place so it's only a matter of time now, my love.

I have been writing in tiny bursts when I can and have something I want to quickly talk about that has been a game changer for me: the app Pages. As I have been so busy recently and haven't had the chance to sit down properly at my laptop and write, I wanted something I could use on my phone so I could write on the go. I initially downloaded the Microsoft Word app but after finding that one a giant faff, I came across the app Pages that was already pre-loaded on my iPhone. With this (wonder of an) app, I have sent it all the word documents I've already set up with ideas for my book, plus old drafts, and am able to work on and refer to them whenever I need to. I have also been able to create new documents that I can email to myself in word format and download back onto my laptop. It's truly brilliant and means I won't waste any time and can just get on with it. With regards to the book itself, I am still bloody excited about the idea and the writing I have been able to fit in, I am immensely pleased with. At the pace I am going though I will probably finish it when I am in my fifties but with my new-found sense of calm, I'm just going to sit back, be happy and eat all the Swiss chocolate.

Until next time.

Getting rid of excess baggage

Pretty much straight after writing my last blog post I did some thinking about the amount of things I was trying to do in an attempt to change my life and ironically the way I was going, I would probably have had no success whatsoever and stayed exactly where I was. They say not to put all your eggs into one basket but by following that mantra, those darn eggs were bloody curdling. As my desperation to change my life increased, so did the amount of projects I took on, taking me further and further away from what I really want to do. I WANT TO WRITE GODDAMMIT!

So late last night, I started writing again - no planning, no big build up, no nothing. I just put up a blank word document and wrote. It's the idea I talked about in my last post and the one I am most passionate about. As of this moment, my priority is writing - promoting my self-published books is there in the background as something I will do when I can and all the other projects have been scrapped completely as they were acting like a dark cloud over my brain. None of it was making me happy and writing does so that is what I am going to do.

Normally in life before I embark on a change - whether it be weight loss or working towards a goal - I want a fanfare, a big resolution, documentation to mark down the exact moment I started something but this time I decided I needed to just do it. In the past it's always been the case that I can only get on with something after I have done all these pointless things and planned correctly. A.k.a., wasting time.

This blog probably comes across as a bit erratic and my views and goals seem to change every single post but that is life - things change, priorities change and life gets in the way.

My next blog post will probably come to you from Switzerland as I am there for work until 3rd April. Like I said in my last post, I am not going to have much time so my one goal for the week is to fit in some fondue. There you have it, a cheesy end to a cheesy post.

Until next time.

The life of a self-published author...

...appears to be 75% working on other things so you can live/eat/breathe, 20% marketing and promotion of books that have, at present, minuscule sales you can't live on, 4.9% faffing/procrastination and 0.1% actual writing time, but you are so tired from the other things that you collapse in a broken pile of aspiring author instead.


I am struggling to manage my time effectively enough to get down to what I apparently want to do as a career. I don't even have time to read a book and I STILL haven't found out what happened to that blasted couple in their romantic log cabin that I started reading LAST YEAR.

I am away later in the week for work for 8/9 days and will have no time to do anything then but the week after that, I have some real time off to potentially get everything in place so I can actually get on with writing again. I have been thinking a lot about the idea I talked about last year here and the desire to really get into again is taking over my thoughts. I am passionate about the world, the characters and story I have created - I just need to translate it to paper. The hard part. YAY! Also, there is a giveaway up on Goodreads to be in with a chance of winning one of THREE signed paperback copies of WEIGHTING TO LIVE which you can enter here or click on the giveaway widget to the right hand side of this page >>>

Books I didn't need from
Poundland in all their glory.

And one more thing: just get me out of Poundland. Last Friday, I 'innocently' went into Poundland for cotton gloves and came out with TEN BRAND NEW BOOKS. I have already documented my love for Poundland in a post here but if you weren't aware, the books they have in there are ridiculously good. I can't understand how they can sell them so cheap but I won't question it and just buy more books ... then stroke them (true story).

I will be back when I have anything worth saying/got more books from Poundland.

Until next time.

A beautiful pastel pink and green book haul from the unlikeliest of places...

I went a little wild on a shopping spree last week and spent a total of ... FIVE POUNDS (somebody stop me). What is this shop of wonders, I hear you ask? Poundland. Yes, I went into Poundland and came out obsessed. Such is life, I only went in for one thing...

In the midst of my new obsession, I somehow inadvertently made sure to keep my purchases colour coordinated. I am truly in love with the colours together and instead of putting them away, I have kept them next to me in a pile and spent my time picking them up, stroking them, then putting them down again and getting withdrawals. Let's take a closer look at the books now, shall we?

I can honestly say I never thought I would ever utter a sentence that included the words 'bought a book by Dannii Minogue' ... but how could I leave this ONE POUND book behind when it has a shiny pink title!?!? I have flicked through it and from what I have seen so far, it's jam-packed with glamorous things that my real life is definitely lacking at present. It's a bit of fabulous fun with a pink colour combo which dreams are made of. The other purchase is the cookery book Second Helpings of Roast Chicken by Simon Hopkinson and judging by the cover of this book alone, which I want to eat, I think it's safe to say that counts as a successful cookery book buy regardless of what is in the damn thing. Apparently it's a sequel to Roast Chicken and Other Stories that was voted the most useful cookbook of all time. I have just checked on Amazon and they are selling it, brand new, for £13.48 ... so that pretty much equates to the greatest moment of my life.

I also bought the ONE POUND dvd of Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason because HELLO, it's Bridget Jones.

Finally, these two loves of my life are something that I can't wait to use. My mum bought the larger one a couple of weeks ago and from the moment I saw it, I knew I had to have it. Apart from everything to do with my self-published books, I have been working on a lot of other things so to have an organiser of sorts which keeps everything together but at the same time, separates it all, is a must-have purchase. I also bought the small one because the large one would get lonely. I was doing the right thing.

I should also mention that the books are gently resting on wrapping paper I bought from Poundland which I want to plaster my walls in.

My plan after writing this post is to put the damn books away and move on with my life before I marry a notepad.

Until next time.

If I hear the word niche again I may implode.

If I want to succeed, I apparently must write within my specific 'niche' and stay there to really draw in the readers, then take all their money selling exorbitant books. I may be, at present, an unsuccessful, penniless writer with a solitary one star rating behind me on Amazon *breaks down* but I would rather have that, than put out shoddy eBooks with 200+ five star reviews from 'fans' just to make money. My favourite eBook of that kind being from a 'self-publishing guru' who said he had made all these people successful teaching them how to sell books and told us how we should do the same in his flowery eBook but in conclusion said he struggled to sell his books. Wow. There is one exception to the rule though: Joanna Penn. She is an author of both fiction and non-fiction books who has made a lot of money self-publishing and has a whole series dedicated to my nemesis: book marketing. She also has an utterly brilliant website called The Creative Penn (here) which is cram-packed with helpful information and tips. I follow her on Twitter and find her to be honest, clear and factual without making me want to be physically sick.

Things have been extremely busy with me and the more my determination increases, the stronger my lightbulb becomes. I work every moment I can and when I have a moment of downtime, I get up and start working again. I want this badly. I want to do the things I love for a living and work entirely for myself. I also changed over my covers (read all about that saga here) and updated the cover for my paperback CHANGES. I am so happy with how it turned out and next to WEIGHTING TO LIVE, I think they really complement each other. There are so many small jobs to do still that on their own, don't take too long but put them with a thousand other jobs like it and it ends up taking much longer than anticipated. It's exciting though and I won't give up.

I also want to talk about a book haul I have (...with a twist) but I'll save that for another post seeing as I have already gone on too long, as per.

Until next time.