Facing my fears

I am going to keep this short(ish). I just wanted to do a little writing/life update...

Towards the beginning of May, I received my third and final round of edits from my editor Stephanie for EVERY TRICH IN THE BOOK, which I handed back four days later and since then, I have been working mostly on my WEIGHTING TO LIVE series. I have read through each book a few times and made small edits whilst working on acknowledgements, dedications, doing some cover research, planning and writing a new author bio, which will go up once I get it approved by my editor.

I have also changed my author photo (...we'll pretend it wasn't taken over ten years ago). I wasn't planning on changing it but a while ago, Trigger (my book publisher) asked me to send them a handful of photos and this is the one they chose and after seeing it again, I realised I wanted to use it too. Even though I have gone through quite dramatic changes physically in the time since it was taken, I don't feel like I differ *too* much from the girl in the photo - that, or I'm simply being delusional.

Trigger also made me this beautiful banner to use for my Twitter account which I absolutely love and am mildly obsessed with the blonde against the red hair. In Twitter related news, I have been doing my best to Tweet more regularly and am really enjoying it. I'm certainly not prolific, but at least I am tweeting more than once a year.

Lastly, I have been doing a lot of thinking recently about the novel I have been banging on about since the dawn of time. I have talked about it a lot on this blog but if you weren't aware, in a nutshell, I have written two drafts of a novel - the first nearly five years ago and the other, well over a year ago. My initial plan was to work with the two drafts I already have but after some soul searching, the answer was blindingly obvious, which I decided to ignore for a while as it would mean a HECK of a lot of work but after hearing that V.E. Schwab had to rewrite Vengful (the sequel to Vicious which is out this autumn), I just knew I had to face my fears and admit that I too need to rewrite the whole thing. The story and characters have been in my life for well over five years but to be perfectly honest, I don't think I have been ready to write this book, until now. In that time I have not only developed as a writer, but know exactly what I want to do with it and now have (limited) experience on my side. The earliest version of it was the first draft I ever wrote of anything and was written whilst being very ill. The second attempt was made during a very hard time for me mentally and in writing it for a third time, I hope I can make it everything it truly deserves to be. Call me corny but I believe this is the book (series) I am meant to write, so I want to do it justice. I will be reading through it when WEIGHTING TO LIVE is completely finished then see how I'm feeling about it then. Who knows, I might decide against it and just work with what I already have but in my heart of hearts, I know what I need to do.

...Talking of V.E. Schwab, I received some very special post recently in the form of the Forbidden Planet Signed Collectors Edition of VICIOUS. I read Vicious a few years ago and absolutely adored it and once I finish my current book (THE THORN BIRDS by Colleen McCullough), I think it's about time for a reread.

Before this post turns from 'short' to long, I will bring it to a close ... so until next time,
Cara x

The Thief of Dreams

This picture has absolutely nothing to do with
the blog post but I like it and it's the
Royal Wedding today so...

She's gone quiet on us again boys, but does her blogging silence mean she has finally given up on writing? 

...of course not, darling.

A writing/life update will be coming to you in the next few weeks, I just thought it was about time that I posted a little piece I wrote well over a year ago that I did in the hope of being published on a popular writing blog ... which naturally closed down before I could actually send it to them. It is as relevant to my journey now as it was when I first wrote it so I thought why the hell not post it here instead...

To me, there is nothing more terrifying than the moments where you feel like giving up on your dreams. The times where your self-belief goes on strike and all you are left with is the crippling doubt and fear that you are doing the wrong thing. If someone were to try and steal something from you, your desire and sheer force of will to hold onto what they were attempting to take would kick in and make everything else go out of the window. So why when it comes to our self-belief, are we able to willingly let our dreams be taken from us? And from the most feared of thieves out there; ourselves.

I should probably introduce myself, for I am the guilty thief of many of my most cherished dreams – killing ambition in its tracks through fear I’d just end up failing, or packing it all in when I’d start to hear the small but insistent voice in my head telling me I am no good. Now, as a woman nearing thirty, I have a whole list of crimes to my name, and all the thief has left me with is regret.

About four years ago I started writing and even from the very beginning I knew, without a doubt, I had found the thing I wanted to do for the rest of my life – it just felt completely right … but did that stop the thief of dreams from trying to rob me once more? Of course not.

In the last four years of my relatively short writing journey I have learned many invaluable lessons that have helped me grow as a writer but recently, I realised, the most important lesson I’ve come to understand is three small but powerful words: don’t give up.

I am currently in the process of marketing a book series I’ve self-published via Amazon and truly believe it has an audience out there somewhere ... but trying to find them on the other hand, especially when the competition is so fierce, is daunting. So far, what little feedback I’ve had on my series has been fantastic, but there are still moments where I feel like everything I am doing is fruitless and times where it seems pointless to even bother, leading me to inevitably question if I am any good in the first place.

So far, the thief has tried everything it can to make me quit, knowing my weaknesses and exploiting them but so far, I have clung onto my little dream of being a writer for dear life and have long since passed the moments in the past where I would have just given up. I am now the Kevin McCallister of thief dodging.

But after everything we have been through together, I think the thief is happy for me, even brushing away a tear from its balaclava-clad cheek.

I have nothing to fall back on – I don’t have a degree and I’d be at the bottom of any career ladder, tripping clumsily over the first step, but you know what? If all I come away with is a hefty amount of self-belief and the will to persevere then that will be the most fulfilling, worthwhile experience of my life. I finally feel like I am getting there because I believe I am.

I have always been helplessly drawn to the extremes – I can either be a dreamer or my toughest critic and I succeed and fail in my estimation at least a thousand times a day.

But would I change it?

I wouldn't dream of it.

Until next time,
Cara x

BIG News!!!

Instead of me writing a whole new post, saying exactly the same thing, I thought it would be easier just to paste this over from my TSW/trichotillomania blog (here)...

***

I have been sitting on this news for MONTHS now - waiting (im)patiently for the time where I would be able share this with you all. Well, the time has finally come and it brings me great pleasure to be able to tell you that ONE OF MY BOOKS IS GOING TO BE PUBLISHED!!!

I will start at the very beginning and try my best to tell you all in a nutshell exactly how it happened...

Last December I was contacted by Trigger, a new independent publishing house dedicated solely to mental health who were interested in publishing one of my books that I had previously self-published on Amazon: MY DATE WITH A RAZOR about my battle and eventual recovery from trichotillomania and dermatillomania. After speaking to them further, and doing quite a bit of research, I couldn't think of a better home for my little book and so in early January, I signed with them and here we are!

Since the beginning of this year I have been working on and off with my lovely editor Stephanie to expand the existing book; create more chapters before and after the diary of my journey to recovery (which makes up the main body of the book) and implementing changes that will hopefully make it the best it can be. It's my first time working with a professional editor/publication house which has been such a valuable experience and to be able to see how a book comes together has been priceless and so very exciting. They also changed the title to EVERY TRICH IN THE BOOK which I absolutely love and is so much better than the original.

Last Thursday Trigger released the cover for my book and here it is!!!!

I genuinely can't believe how beautiful it looks. I wanted something pretty but this completely blew all my expectations out of the water.

Here is the blurb:

Since her early teens, Cara Ward has suffered from trichotillomania (hair pulling disorder) and dermatillomania (skin picking), two forms of mental illness that are still often hidden away in shame. Feeling embarrassed and confused by her own behaviour, Cara kept quiet about it for years. 

But in June 2013, she was left housebound by a condition called Red Skin Syndrome. The only way to get better was a harrowing and difficult withdrawal from all topical steroids. Despite her anxiety and doubt about whether she was doing the right thing, she kept going and made a full recovery. As a result, she knew that she could “beat her own mind” and overcome anything else she put her mind to. 

And so, over a period of just seven weeks, Cara documented her struggles to gain better control of the disorders that had left her scarred and ashamed for years. Through sheer determination and willpower, Cara found a way to get to the best place she’d ever been with her trichotillomania. 

Every Trich in the Book details Cara’s triumph over trich and derma, using humour and honesty along the way.

The book will be released on 9th July (UK) and 15th October (US) and you can preorder the book here.

It's looking like it will be a couple of very exciting months for me, with my five year TSW anniversary coming up in June then my book release in July. I will be talking very soon about my journey to publication in a post on my other blog dedicated to my writing journey (here), so definitely keep an eye out for that if you want to find out more.

To be honest, it was only when I saw the 3D cover to my left last week that it suddenly felt like an actual book and not just some lovely dream.

Who would have thought five years ago that I'd have clear skin that wasn't reliant on any drugs or that one of my books was going to be published - I hadn't even started writing properly back then and it was only a what if on the back of my mind.

Life has the ability of changing beyond your wildest dreams. Trust the journey you are on and always remember that your current situation is only temporary, no matter how permanent it might feel.

So much love to you all <3
Cara xxx

It's a marathon not a sprint

It's Sunday evening and I am sat on my sofa in the middle of such a concentrated spurt of energy that I feel superhuman, which seems fitting seeing as an Avengers movie is currently on in the background. The reason for this energy spurt is naturally down to food, more specifically sugar. An hour ago, things were very different. An hour ago I couldn't even move from the sofa and began to understand why walruses move the way they do as I was so painfully full. You have the burst of energy to blame for this blog post.

So another two and a bit months have passed since my last entry and although I knew this would happen, and I even said as much in my last post, I am saddened by it as I did want to try to keep this blog updated a little more than I have. My silence has been nothing to do with not having anything to say and more to do with the fact that I've had so much to do and so little time to do it in that this creative outlet has naturally been neglected. I do not even have enough time to look over what I wrote in my last post through fear of repeating myself so I will plough on anyway and attempt to update you on everything that has been going on in recent months.

It's been an odd year so far - very exciting for the most part but nevertheless, it's been intense and as a result, I've suffered physically, setting some kind of record for picking up colds and viruses. At the beginning of the year I pretty much told everyone I know that I would not be able to see them much in order to dedicate all my spare time to writing until I have somehow managed to forge a career for myself in it (lol to never having a social life again). As a result, I have had no aforementioned social life and my days have followed a pattern of getting up at ridiculous o'clock to write before work then coming home only to write again. Saturdays have been a mixture of errands and more writing with Sundays technically being my day off, although that sometimes hasn't gone to plan.

I am little confused how to go about explaining everything I have been doing recently as I've been working on multiple projects at once, (on one occasion, three in one day) so I think for the sake of not losing my mind, I shall write bullet points of everything I have been working on in as few words as possible as all my life seems to be at the moment is words.

• On the day I wrote my last blog post on Saturday 27th January, I decided to start working on a brand new short story as part of my WEIGHTING TO LIVE series. It took eleven days over a month or so to write the first draft and work on general edits, finishing on Saturday 3rd March and coming in at a total of 5,454 words.
• As I am looking to really try and get my WEIGHTING TO LIVE series out there (for the millionth time) I have read through all three books in the series twice then made small tweaks and changes to it. 
• Now moving onto the project I have been working on since the dawn of time that I've banged on enough about in this blog. I think I said in my last post that I had just finished reading through the latest draft of it and making a rather hefty list of edits. Well, I started doing said edits in late January but in mid-February, when another very exciting project started up again, I had to down tools on it to focus on that project. I do hope to be able to return to it later this month and my long list of edits. When I have finally finished said list (in roughly April 2023...) I endeavour to start from the beginning and edit the entire book. I want to go in more detail about how I'm editing it but I will leave that for another post on some unknown date.
• I mentioned in my last post about working on a VERY exciting writing project, which has really heated up over the last month or so and has taken up most of my time. I emailed over the latest batch of edits yesterday which felt wonderful as I'm very happy with the work I've done on it. When I can talk about it, I am excited to go into more detail and the editing process which has been eye opening.

The plan for next week is to try and take things a little easier when I can just in case I have to work on any edits that come in before my deadline at the end of next week for the very exciting project. When I know there will be no more to do on that project for the foreseeable future, I will be working any spare moment I have on the WEIGHTING TO LIVE series until it is updated with whole new covers then get get back to the fossil of a project I've had to put aside too many times now. It's kind of painful having to keep the names and details of so many things I'm working on a secret and calling everything 'project'. I have also desperately wanted to try and find time to promote CURING MY INCURABLE ECZEMA but as I am not a magician who can conjure time, I have put that on the back-burner.

Even though this has been the most exciting time of my life professionally, I have had moments where I've felt completely and utterly overwhelmed and as if I am wading through mud. There have been a fair few irrational tears as a result of tiredness but somehow, I've pushed through and not given up. I am slowly learning that this journey is a marathon, not a sprint and at this moment, I feel at peace and accept that things will get done when they're meant to. For the first time in my life, I am doing things properly and not rushing to get them done through panic and fear. It's a nice feeling. I suppose that's also down to the fact I have a full time job that I actually really like and am proud of. Even though it is hard working full time whilst also trying to forge a whole other career, there is something wildly exciting about knowing you have limited time and have to make the most of every single moment and I feel like I've achieved more with fewer hours than I would have done if I'd had the whole day at my disposal. Having limited time makes you use it more wisely. But please give me more time writing gods.

I wanted to finish off by quickly mentioning Joanna Penn. I have talked about her before on this blog but in a nutshell, she is a very successful British self-published author who writes fiction and also non-fiction predominantly about selling more books. She also has the most fabulous writing website, www.thecreativepenn.com and makes podcasts and YouTube videos which I love. What I like about her is that she is honest - even though she loves writing, she wants to make money and her videos and advice is to the point and actually helpful, unlike others in her field. What's great is when I am at work and I am doing something monotonous that I don't need to concentrate on, I am able to listen to her videos which never fail to inspire me and keep me going.

Ok, about halfway through writing this post, I had a sugar crash and felt once more like a walrus, so I shall leave it there and make a vow to NEVER EAT AGAIN.

I will hopefully be back much sooner this time as I've missed writing here too much. This blog has been a part of my life for years now and has taken me through many phases of my life... yes I really need to stop now as this walrus is tired.

Until next time,
Cara x

The Balancing Act

This picture has nothing to do with the post - I
just suddenly decided I wanted a picture
here ... enjoy.

Forgive me whilst I try to come to terms with the fact that a month and a day has passed since my last post. These entries are for no-one but me - a diary in which I can look back over everything that has happened in my relatively short writing journey. I am very different now to the girl who started this blog back in November 2014, well over three years ago. Over time, I have drifted from my little piece of the internet as I felt like my posts were starting to merge into one another with no real news to report - the gaps between posts becoming wider and wider until they were gaping chasms. One constant through the years is that I love writing. Four and a half years ago when I first put pen to paper (more like fingers to keyboard), I knew exactly what I wanted to do for the rest of my life and during all the highs and lows, that has never changed - what has though is my approach to the journey I have ahead of me. One thing that appears to have remained the same is my unparalled ability to waffle - I haven't even got to the point of this post yet but somehow I have already written a rather meaty paragraph. I shall try to keep the rest of this post brief.

Since my last post the emotions I have experienced are overwhelmed (is that even an emotion?!) followed by deflated then hopeful and lastly, excited - that is how I feel right now as I send this post into the ether. A lot has happened in my bookish world. I still have a long way to go but for the first time, I actually feel like the path I am on is the right one. I have made many mistakes in my short writing life but now I realise that I needed to make them as I most certainly wouldn't be in my current situation without them.

The day I self-published my book, 'CURING MY INCURABLE ECZEMA' was the day I put up my last blog post and I can honestly say I was not prepared for the support and love I received. I was blown away. The book currently has SIX five star reviews on Amazon and Goodreads which so far remains unblemished by a lower rating. I mean, people told me leading up to publication that they couldn't wait to buy it but I never expected they actually would. I wrote this book for me - a way to finally be able to move on from those two years of mental and physical pain and I was not only able to do just that, but I also had a book I had written that I was immensely proud of. Now, I have my journey in one place and that feels wonderful. I have to say it's been a little surreal seeing people post pictures of it on places like Instagram and Facebook - amazing, of course, just a little mad. About ten days after publication though, I started to feel slightly flat. My life had been the book for over two months, a period of my life where I completely burrowed away from the world in order get it done and with that, and the most incredible reaction upon publishing it, when it all died down, I felt like I had lost that spark. I missed being desperately consumed by a project and so in mid January, I decided to re-evaluate my goals - work out exactly what I should do next and when I had written down everything I knew I needed to do, I found hope was slowly trickling back into me. It's funny, but I remember whilst walking to work on one of those very flat days, asking for guidance, and I got it - a voice in my head telling me exactly what I needed to do. It told me that the first thing was to change all the covers for my 'WEIGHTING TO LIVE' series. If you have read my blog before then you will know this is an ongoing saga in my life but for the first time, I have been able to look on the situation objectively and have realised that I need to get them done professionally. I am currently saving up and should have enough to do it next month as they are certainly not cheap. I am also working on a couple of other things relating to the series but as it's still (very) early days, I will keep all that to myself, for now.

After deciding on what had to be done with that particular series, I knew the time had come to start working on the draft of a novel that has been part of my writing journey from the very beginning, and something I have blogged about many times before. Last week, I started reading through said draft, which I coincidentally finished today. I haven't been writing long enough to say this with any kind of real experience but there is truly no feeling more wonderful than reading through a draft of a book you have written which shows real promise and makes you more excited than you have ever been. I have been working on this particular world and characters on and off for a long time now and it has gone through many changes but I feel like now is finally the right time to finish it and make it a real book. This June will mark five years since I started working on it and I plan for it to be the last. I have not given myself any deadline but the book will be my primary focus.

I'll also be doing little bits and pieces of unobtrusive marketing for 'CURING MY INCURABLE ECZEMA' as I think I should - it would be daft not to. Lastly, I have just signed a contract for something rather exciting which I will share with you when I feel like the time is right. I should really be shouting it from the rooftops but until I feel like it's safe to do so, I shall keep shtum. The fabulous thing about it is that even if it doesn't work out, it's still a very exciting thing to happen in the first place - ooo cryptic...

So we currently stand at four different book projects that I am currently working on, which will be done whilst in full time employment. What I need to achieve with such limited time is daunting and scary but it is also exciting knowing that every day I am working towards a career I desperately want. I have told all my friends that I am in hibernation mode for the foreseeable future so I literally have nothing to do but work on reaching my goals.

Oh my goodness, this really was a long post. I genuinely didn't realise when I sat down to write this that I'd have much to say ... I was mistaken.

I shall not make any promises as to when I might be back, dear writing diary friend, but I will return at some point and I think I have given you quite enough to be going with for a little while at least...

Until next time,
Cara x

And just like that, six months passed...

You probably think I had given up but the funny thing about writing is that I know I never will. Instead of writing a whole book trying to explain what has happened in my life over the last six months, I thought it might be wise instead to share some of the highlights in manageable, bite-sized pieces:

Cover for
CURING MY INCURABLE ECZEMA

• I moved to London in July and now live with my best friend, which is pretty much exceeding all expectations.
• Barely a week after moving, I started a new job which is just fabulous.
• I decided to settle in and enjoy my time in London so I spent the summer and early autumn making many enjoyable mistakes and really living life to the full - seeing friends, collecting memories and generally loving life.
• On 6th November I suddenly decided I wanted to finish the book I started working on back in March (about the skin condition I went through) by the end of the year and as a result, my life has been nothing short of insanity. 
• I finished said book which is available to buy NOW and is titled, 'CURING MY INCURABLE ECZEMA'.

Since early November it's been 5.30 a.m. starts and no social life writing and editing it but honestly, I've loved every single minute of the process. The subject matter is very close to my heart and something I am immensely passionate about. Red skin syndrome was my life for well over two years and even though it was extremely tough, it's something I feel privileged to have gone through as it not only gave me great skin but taught me exactly what's important in life. I have uploaded a little video where I talk about the book in more detail (which can be found here). 

A couple of weeks ago, something that could potentially be very exciting on a bookish level happened but until it's confirmed, I shall stay quiet and instead keep everything crossed that it works out.

I will leave it there for now (I told you it was going to be a short one...) and simply say Happy New Year!

Until next time
Cara x

SaveSave

And breathe...

Oh my GOD the last few weeks have been intense to say the least. Both personally and with everything to do with my books and blogs, a lot has happened and it's impossible to take it all in. Brace yourself, I actually plan on keeping this post short (well ... short-ish).

I mentioned in my first post since changing my name from Lily Divine to Cara Ward that I probably wouldn't be putting up old blog posts but after reading through them all, I realised I actually wanted them up - I might be masquerading under a pseudonym in them but I think they're important. They document most of my journey as a writer so far and for that, I am eternally grateful for their existence - to have a record of how it has been and how much I have done. It also made me realise that I have been following the same pattern for years and everything has ended up staying the same - I've had lightbulb moments galore, inspiration, excitement, doubt, fear then ended up making excuses as to why X hasn't happened or how Y is still in the works. On the flipside, I have still achieved so much in my relatively short writing life and besides, life is unpredictable, things happen out of our control and nothing is simple - you are doing the best you can. Life gets in the way and it has the ability at times to unravel even the most ironclad of plans.

My Twitter account has continued to be neglected - I mean, I am using it a lot but mostly so I can scroll through my feed for news, along with liking and retweeting stuff, but I can safely say that nothing original has come out of my account in quite some time. I finally sorted the paperbacks for WEIGHTING TO LIVE and CHANGES but a few weeks ago, after something fabulous happened, I decided to make one for SIXTEEN MONTHS too and within 24 hours, not only had I formatted the book file, sorted out the cover and uploaded it, it was live and available to buy on Amazon worldwide. I am astounded by how fast Amazon KDP is and exceptionally impressed with the quality.

Since my last post I have also been sorting out any remaining Lily Divine switchover admin, book covers and their alignment, book descriptions on amazon and many other fun jobs of that ilk BUT most of my time has been spent on my Trichotillomania diary which I self-published late last week, titled MY DATE WITH A RAZOR. It took a lot of work but I am amazed by how much I was able to achieve in a short space of time. I read through it twice in the end, making little corrections and edits after both read-throughs, I made a cover (which I am OBSESSED with), formatted the kindle and paperback editions and finished the trailer this Monday (which you can watch *here*) and apart from tying up a few loose ends this week, I am completely DONE!

When things finally settle down (I feel an excuse coming on...), I plan on working again on my non-fiction book about the skin condition I went through while also working on the draft I finished late last year which I have talked about in many previous posts.

I'm feeling very positive - I'm not going to beat myself up for what I haven't achieved and instead celebrate what I have done, which is quite a lot actually.

Cara x

WEIGHTING TO LIVE series available NOW! Plus the epic tale of one woman's cover saga...

I am happy to report that my entire WEIGHTING TO LIVE series is available on Amazon worldwide NOW! *Links to buy the books at the bottom of this post*

It has taken a lot of work to change everything over from Lily Divine to Cara Ward but it's all been worth it and I'm feeling SO excited about getting them out there. Without further ado, here are the covers for my three books:

I couldn't be happier with how they look now - they've come a LONG way and I thought it might be fun to show you just how far they've come...

Original cover for WEIGHTING TO LIVE (don't laugh)...

Back in February 2015, for some reason I got it into my head that I needed to get WEIGHTING TO LIVE up as quickly as possible and as a result, the cover suffered. My mum drew really cute illustrations but it all went downhill when two things happened: 1. I used a really cheap grey and orange paint that was not only patchy, but made the paper crinkle (and showed up hilariously when I scanned it). 2. I then proceeded to outline my mum's lovely pictures in a black felt pen ... very badly. Check out that workmanship on the swan's beak ^^^. 

It didn't take long before I realised it was a total disaster and so one night, I started messing around on the very basic Paint program installed on my laptop and came up with this:

Then this:

After that, I played around with the cover design much more until I finally decided on this:

When I knew I had to rejig the covers because of the author name change, I thought I might as well play around with the fonts too and after a few trial runs, I chose this as the final cover for WEIGHTING TO LIVE:

In a bid to not drive you insane, I will show you both the CHANGES and SIXTEEN MONTHS cover progressions but as it's pretty much the same story as WEIGHTING TO LIVE, I'll not bore you with going over everything I've just told you...

Original CHANGES cover, April 2015

  

*Still haven't mastered that black felt pen...

I used the following cover for quite a while until I realised it needed to be a little more dynamic...

....and so I came up with the next cover, which I used until I decided to change my author name.

And so here is the final cover for CHANGES:

Original cover for SIXTEEN MONTHS, April 2015:

I used the next cover for a while until I decided to change my author name.

Even though I really liked the design I was using above, I knew I wanted a complete change and so I came up with this for the final cover of SIXTEEN MONTHS:

Links to buy my books:

WEIGHTING TO LIVE eBook: UK (here) US (here)

WEIGHTING TO LIVE Paperback: UK (here) US (here)

CHANGES eBook: UK (here) US (here)

CHANGES Paperback: UK (here) US (here)

SIXTEEN MONTHS eBook: UK (here) US (here)
SIXTEEN MONTHS paperback UK (here) US (here)

***Also available from all Amazon stores worldwide***

I think that's definitely enough information for today. I think what I have learned more than anything over my self-publishing journey is that rushing to get it all done, is pointless - slow and steady always win the race.

Cara x

A Mad Month

I am going to attempt to update you on everything that has happened in the last month or so in as few words as possible. Heaven help me, I shall also try and do it in chronological order as well...

Late last year, I finished writing a draft of a novel that I am very excited about but kept putting off reading through it for fear it would be terrible and all my excitement was for nothing. On Thursday 6th April 2017, I decided to stop being scared and just do it ... AND IT WAS GOOD! Relieved, I then read through it again and ended up with a TWELVE page list of all the bigger and smaller things that need to change. The bigger issues were mostly parts where I had dropped a load of information just to get it down but now have to find a way for it to be seamlessly added to the book without it becoming more of an encyclopedia than a novel. After reading it again I think it's definitely, structurally at least, pretty spot on - I'm happy with the characters, the story and order of events etc - but I need to concentrate a lot of my energy into the first third of the book which isn't as fully formed as the latter two thirds. The first part is the introduction to the world, the characters and story etc and when a major event changes everything, that is when the book really gets interesting and I want to replicate that in the first bit. Not much has to happen per se, more just working on the way it's written and for it to be compelling enough to make the reader want to carry on reading to the exciting parts. I am also in a fruitless dilemma that I am in love with at least three of the male characters. Bummer. With everything going on with the Lily Divine to Cara Ward name change, I haven't been able to do much more with it than that but the second I have more time, I'M ON IT.

I have talked in the past about wanting to use Twitter more and now, I'm doing just that. I mean, I still don't tweet that much but, very slowly, I'm getting there. At the moment, I'm mostly retweeting anything I like and also interacting more with people I follow as before, I was only observing and not getting involved. Now, I make a point of liking the things I like and commenting on the posts and tweets that inspire me. I also have a new girl crush: Victoria/V.E. Schwab ... I say new but really more of a renewal of love. I already adored her work as a writer but as I didn't use Twitter much before, I wasn't aware of just how fabulous she is as a person. She is so honest and open about life as a writer and never fails to make me feel better and less alone. She also wrote a wonderful blog post that can be found (here).

Before I get onto the steps I've taken to transfer my books and social media etc from Lily Divine to my own name Cara Ward, I also wanted to mention that late last year, after suffering from Trichotillomania and Dermatillomania for more than half my life, I finally found a way of managing both compulsions. Over the weeks where I worked out how to effectively deal with both Trich and Derma, I wrote a diary of my journey which I have decided to self publish. Initially, I posted the diary on my other blog www.cara-pace.com but due to the personal nature of my diary, it felt more appropriate that I self-publish instead. I will be working on that from Monday but if I have time, I'm going to try and read it through before the end of the week

Now onto everything Lily Divine/WEIGHTING TO LIVE related...

After making the decision to change from Lily to Cara, I had to update all my social media accounts which was easy but after that, I decided, if I wanted my books to be the best they can be, I had to read them through again as I think I've developed and matured as a writer since 2015 when I first self-published them. On the whole I was happy with all three books and any changes made to WEIGHTING TO LIVE, CHANGES and SIXTEEN MONTHS were minor. I started working on those edits on Monday 1st May but after I had finished, I decided to read through them again, just to be safe and found a few more little tweaks and changes. My mum also read through them for me, a fresh pair of eyes to potentially spot any mistakes and typos I'd missed.

This week, I gave my covers a bit of a makeover (separate post coming very soon) then changed the font and names etc on my book trailers. For relatively small jobs, they took much longer than anticipated. There have also been MANY other jobs along the way that I've had to do but I think you get the gist of what's been going on. I also took author photos on Thursday night and decided on the one I've included in this post (*hiya*) then uploaded the eBooks which have now gone live but as I still need to sort out the paperbacks, I won't be publicising them just yet.

As per, after a pointless vow to keep this short, many words have been written so I will stop there for now and promise to be back soon when all my books are good to go.

Cara x

Starting Over & The Name Thief

I think the title says it all really and for any readers of my old Lily Divine blog, I thought I'd quickly elaborate as to why I've made such a massive change...

About a month ago, while checking my WEIGHTING TO LIVE series on Goodreads which I initially wrote under the pen name Lily Divine, I noticed another book coming up which had apparently been written by me - an erotic BDSM novel. Someone else had started using that pen name. At first I was a little miffed and to be honest, upset but then when I really thought about it, I realised that maybe it was for the best. For a while, I had been having a lot of misgivings about the name and even questioned why I used it in the first place. When I started my blog in November 2015, I wanted to keep my writing to myself but still be able to self-publish and so I used the name Lily Divine ... although now, I don't understand why I felt the need for all the secrecy. After talking it through with others they felt, as did I, that I should use my own name and so I started making the necessary steps to do just that. It's funny how something which starts its life as a negative can turn out to be very positive indeed so thank you to the name thief Lily Divine as you really did me a favour.

It's been quite a transformative time for me in the last four weeks. On Saturday 15th April 2017, I had a massive clearout unlike any other I'd had in the past and afterwards I felt so light, so focused. I then started asking for some guidance and somehow, I started receiving it. I find when you are open to the possibility of something, you get it. Not long after asking for guidance, the whole Lily Divine name theft debacle happened and I found that I had a path to follow without even trying. As you can imagine, it's been quite a busy time for me and I will explain more in another blog post very soon. I have reverted all my previous posts under Lily Divine to draft form which I might republish in the future as they document my entire writing journey so far but for now, I want a fresh start, a clean slate, in the hope that this time I go about things in the right way because I certainly wasn't doing that before...

Cara x 

TORN

It's been an odd but ever so exciting ten days since my last post, which I will try and tell you about right now. Nothing dramatic has happened, but I've learned a lot and feel so excited I could burst.

Picking up from where my last post left off, on Monday 27th March, I worked more on the non-fiction book I am in the process of writing all about the skin condition I suffered from and looked through my entire blog dedicated to it for any articles and information etc that I wanted to include and ended up finding a lot of stuff that really gave the book life. When the hour I had allotted to work on it was up, and as the day wore on, I began feeling increasingly confused and unsure of what I was doing and by the following day, I felt completely and utterly overwhelmed.

When I had accepted the situation and taken a moment to breathe, I did some real thinking and realised that even after everything - all the work I had done and the hours I had put into book marketing and other work projects - I was STILL going about things in the wrong way. I had spent so much time working but on stuff that was getting me nowhere - prioritising things that I shouldn't then panicking about it all. Do I ever learn? After that, I decided in order to really focus, I needed to down tools, stop working on the non-fiction book, come off all social media (bar Twitter) for a while and work out exactly what I needed (and truly wanted) to do. For years I have made the same mistakes and instead of learning from them, I have continued to do everything wrong. This time instead of giving up though, I regrouped and evaluated - I wanted to do things right for once.

As the subsequent days passed, my course was becoming clear and very quickly it was blindingly obvious that I needed to read the draft of the book I finished late last year ... but did I do that straight away? If you have read this blog before you will already know the answer to that so of course I didn't - instead, I kept putting off the task for fear the draft would be awful and I'd realise that it had no future. On Monday 3rd April, I spent half the day royally procrastinating, putting off the inevitable, until about 2 p.m., when I read some of the most extraordinary tweets by the fabulous Jojo Moyes and J. K. Rowling which were so ridiculously relevant to my situation, it was a little spooky. It felt like a sign, which I decided to take as such and as a result, I started reading through my much-feared first draft. I finished it a few hours ago and I cannot tell you how happy (AND RELIEVED) I felt. The draft's really good. Even though parts of it need a LOT of work (JESUS), it definitely has a lot of potential and even better, structurally, not much needs to change. I think I've got the characters, plot and all that DOWN, it's more the case of general editing and minor amendments. Thank you Jojo and J.K. for being my literary fairy godmothers.

The only real issue I face at this moment in time is ... what now? I mean, I have this draft that I want to put all my time, energy and love into ... but on the other hand, I've got to publicise my WEIGHTING TO LIVE series if it stands any chance of being read. Earlier I felt completely torn - what do I choose? - but now I think I've just got to find balance, something I've strived for in every aspect of my life, and failed miserably. I've always been all or nothing - finding no middle ground. I have to say though, that it's a nice conundrum to be in - I have a draft I cannot wait to work on and a book series I am desperate to promote. It could be worse...

The plan as far as the draft is concerned is to read through it again over the next week and make one mammoth list with any changes that need to be made - along with other bits and bobs along the way that need sorting - then after that, work through said list before going through the whole thing for one massive edit.

Apart from all that, over the last ten days I've found myself gravitating towards Twitter - not with book marketing in mind though but more in a personal way ... dare I say I'm enjoying myself?

I shall leave it there for now and will update you when I've got anything to talk about ... how very polite of me.

Until next time.

An Underwhelming 100th Blog Post For You

This is apparently my 100th post on this blog and in celebration, I will keep this short ... and actually mean it too!

I will start off with the sad news that I am experiencing severe Downton Abbey withdrawals after finishing the show on Monday. In a bid to get all of it done before my free trial of Amazon Prime ran out, my mum and I were watching as much as we could and finished just in the nick of time. Watching it every night became our evening ritual after working all day and now it's definitely hands down my favourite show of all time. I am about 1,000 years behind everyone in saying this but what a fantastic show - the writing, the acting, the setting, EVERYTHING! Simply perfect.

It's been an odd week and I have swung between positive and negative emotions at an alarming rate. There are times I have felt so excited about the future and want to do everything in my power to get my book series out there ... then other times where I feel like the old me is creeping in who just wants to give up and forget that she ever wanted to be a writer in the first place. So far, the new me is winning though and think it would take a pretty powerful force to stop me now.

As I've had to work on other things for most of the week, I've struggled to find real time to do much in the way of book marketing, but I still did a bit. On Monday, I worked a lot on my Facebook page but when it was all done, it was almost like, now what? I can't really understand the point of having one to be honest but I'm going to give it time and see what I can do with it. Apart from that, I've done some reseach and a tiny bit of Tweeting and pinning of quotes etc but all that went out of the window as the week progressed. I was pretty successful with the non-fiction book I've been working on for the last couple of weeks and here is my latest batch of word counts:

Monday 20th March 2017 - 1,417 words

Tuesday 21st March 2017 - 1,384 words
Wednesday 22nd March 2017 - 1,232 words
Thursday 23rd March 2017 - 364 words
Friday 24th March 2017 - 0 words
TOTAL FOR THE WEEK = 4,397 words

On Thursday, my hour was taken up more with organising and planning than writing and today/Friday, I just didn't have a single hour to spare to dedicate to it. Next week will be mostly spent sorting out and arranging chapters etc and so far, I'm extremely happy with its progress.

You are probably wondering where the rest of the post is after inflicting on you so many posts in the past that have resembled 300 p-age novel but I promised to keep it short ... and so I have! I shall make it up to you next week though with many unnecessary words - mark my literal words...

Until next time.

People are really nice

Without even trying, the weather this week has elevated my mood to ridiculous levels of excitement. There is nothing more wonderful than when the sun shines and it starts to feel warm outside. It's been a fantastically full and productive week and the hardest part of this post is knowing where to begin...

The non-fiction book I started writing last week about the skin condition I went through *that I talk about (here)* has continued to go well and at this point, I think it's safe to say that it's definitely going to happen. Here are my word counts:

Monday 13th March 2017 - 1,478 words
Tuesday 14th March 2017 - 1,372 words
Wednesday 15th March 2017 - 271 words (lower word count due to organising chapters etc)
Thursday 16th March 2017 - 1,693 words (such a great hour of writing)
Friday 17th Match 2017 - 1,394 words (another fantastic hour of writing)
TOTAL FOR WEEK TWO = 6,208 WORDS

I am still following the hour every weekday rule and it really does take the pressure off doing it like that - my attitude is laid back and by not having a word count goal, I don't stress about it, I just do what I can within that hour. Next week, I will be mostly using my hour a day to organise the chapters a bit and work out some sort of plan as this kind of book needs proper structure. Honestly, I am pretty excited about it and have actually found that by writing it all down and really forcing myself to think about what I went through, I am getting some much-needed closure. It has been nearly four years since I started going through Topical Steroid Withdrawal and I think the time has come to move on from it fully.

Midway through the week, I wrote an article in the hope of it being featured on one of my favourite writing blogs. I've done it mostly for myself and not for self-promotion and I'm happy with how it turned out. I sent them my proposal yesterday and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they like the idea and ask for the full article. If not, I'll just post it on here at some point.

I've continued to Tweet more this week but I'm finding that all my Tweets have become a little bit samey as I have mostly just been putting up the pictures I made with various quotes from my books on them. I am still getting used to Twitter again and I'm hoping over time I feel more comfortable with it as I used to love Tweeting.

In the last month or so since I added a page in the back of all my eBooks and Paperbacks promoting other books in the series, more people have been buying them. Before, I think a lot of people thought WEIGHTING TO LIVE was a standalone novel, which is a shame as I'm proud of CHANGES and SIXTEEN MONTHS, so it's nice to know that people are aware they exist now.

I think I'll make that do this week and pray that my productivity, along with the English sun, holds out a little longer.

Until next time.

5698 words

It's been a crazy week and I'm going to keep this short as I haven't got much time and will talk about a few other things I wanted to cover in another post early next week. If I had to sum up the week in a sentence I'd say it has been one of the most productive weeks of my life. Monday was dedicated to my other website as I had a lot of issues that needed to be resolved and now they are nearly sorted out (after a few months of confusion and stress), I feel so happy. Things finally feel like they are coming together.

This week I've continued to post pictures of quotes from my books on both Twitter and Pinterest, which I am still enjoying and just like that, most of my time vanished.

Because I apparently haven't got enough on at the moment, I decided to crank the madness up a notch and start a potential new draft of a book that has been a long time coming. It's a non-fiction book about the debilitating skin condition I went through for just over two years. It is a total passion project and it's not intended for any kind of financial gain - more an exorcism of sorts that I have been asked many times to write now by the people who have followed my skin story (under my real name). It will be nice, and almost healing in a way, to have a record of exactly what I went through before I forget it all as even now, parts of it are very hazy. I started writing the draft on Monday and because of a general lack of time and the process working so well with my other draft, I am only going to be writing for a maximum of an hour a day, Monday to Friday. The book might not even work out but so far, so good. If the draft does turn out to be viable, I have a rather strict goal of when I'd like it completed by, which is Tuesday 6th June 2017; the four year anniversary of going through my condition (I am a total sucker for important and meaningful dates). A quick tally of my word counts for the first week:

Monday 6th March 2017 - 1,241 words
Tuesday 7th March 2017 - 1,370 words
Wednesday 8th March 2017 - 1,308 words
Thursday 9th March 2017 - 1,379 words
Friday 10th March 2017 - 400 words
TOTAL FOR WEEK ONE = 5,698 WORDS

Ok, well, this post is much longer than I expected, sorry! I will be back early next week with yet more words, you lucky, lucky thing.

Until next time.

"Because I'm worth it"

This is going up a day earlier than planned as I'm doing something shocking: I'm going out, and to a place that isn't my local supermarket - I'm even getting on a bus and everything. I say it's shocking because my life has been hermit chic for quite a few months now and my days on the whole follow the same pattern: up at 6 a.m. - eat breakfast and work for an hour or two, followed by a power walk that ends in a trip to Sainsbury's before I sit for the rest of the day in front of my laptop. Living the dream basically. I should probably be lamenting the fact I haven't got much of a life at the moment, especially for a woman in her late twenties, but really, more than anything, I just want to get on with the hope that if I keep working hard and don't give up, maybe my life might be a bit different someday soon.

After realising last week that I was going to do book marketing MY way - less businesslike and more creative - I've been very busy. One of the first things I did last weekend (I think it was then anyway) was put up the prices of all my books on Amazon. WEIGHTING TO LIVE went from 99p to £2.39 for the eBook (here) and from £5.99 to £6.99 for the paperback (here). The eBooks for CHANGES and SIXTEEN MONTHS went from 99p to £1.99 and the paperback for CHANGES (here) went from £2.99 to £3.99. There were many reasons for the price increase, one being that potential buyers might have thought a lower price meant my books weren't as good but mostly, I did it because I'm proud of my little book series and a lot of time and love has gone into them and I think they deserve to be a higher price. Surprisingly, with the relatively small amount of marketing I've done so far, I've had a few sales, so it hasn't seem to put anyone off.

I also did something a little cheeky. On my Pinterest page under my real name, one of my boards (called FASHION LUST) has over three thousands followers (no idea why though) and so I decided to pin one of my book trailers for WEIGHTING TO LIVE to the board as I felt the move wasn't IN YOUR FACE marketing and could easily get lost, but there might be a chance that at least one of those three thousand people might watch the video and want to find out more. On Monday, I also posted one of the quote pictures I talked about in my last blog post and plan to put one up on Twitter and Pinterest most days until they run out. I also set up a brand new Facebook page for Lily Divine as for reasons unknown to me, it's apparently imperative I have one and finally, much to my abject shock, I've continued to tweet and really enjoyed myself.

On Tuesday afternoon, I decided to tackle a few books I really wanted to read and after finishing #GirlBoss, I moved onto Writers' & Artists' Yearbook 2017 (here) and had the most wonderful time reading it. With every page I devoured, the more excited I felt about writing. If you are an aspiring writer like me, the book is a MUST - not only is it a directory for all the publishers, literary agents etc out there, but it also includes many wonderful articles from established writers and industry professionals that I found so helpful and gave me a lot of insight. It's the kind of book I'll continue to dip in and out of in the future because I learned so much. Feeling inspired yesterday, I then reread a few of my favourite bits from Stephen King's On Writing which I adore before I had a massive clearout. A perfect couple of days basically.

And so here we are, on a chilly Thursday morning at the start of a new month with the hint of spring in the air and a faint hope that things will work out ok.

Until next time. 

Winging it

There is something ever so disconcerting when you realise it's already been two weeks since your last post but only feels like a handful of days. It's been a busy few weeks. The first week was taken up mostly with work on other projects that needed to get done but I still managed to do bits and bobs with regards to book marketing and definitely didn't waste any time. Amongst other things, I worked on and finished some promotional pictures which I'm going to use on social media that have some catchy/memorable quotes from my books. Here are some examples:

It wasn't until the morning of Monday 20th February however when the planets finally aligned and I was ready to get my books out there and by the afternoon, I'd done so much research and sorting that I even tweeted:

Are you more shocked by the statement above or the fact that I tweeted something? Yes, I have been tweeting this week and it feels good. Even though I wanted to use Twitter again for marketing purposes, to be perfectly honest, I've enjoyed using it again for me and for now, I'm going to do it just for me and see what happens, because sometimes these things need to grow in their own time.

Apart from that, I bought the Writers' & Artists' Yearbook 2017 which I plan on reading after I've finished #Girlboss and I have been doing LOTS of research on book marketing. On Monday I binge watched The Creative Penn's YouTube videos *here* (which I've already discussed before and am a fan) and also found interviews with top self-published authors on how they sold so many books. It's funny, but after a while, the more videos I watched, the more I realised that their methods, which worked wonderfully for them, just aren't right for me. For a start, most of the people I watched started marketing years and years ago when there was MUCH less competition and the likelihood of being seen was easier. One of the authors said 'Something had to be done when I was only selling six books a day' and all I was thinking was Girl, you sold six books a day without marketing?!!

Midway through the week I did some thinking and feel that if I want to really succeed in this already oversaturated market, I've got to come up with a different way of going about things - a new angle. The other reason for wanting to do things a little differently is that every author I watched treated their books like a business and not as a passion. I know that sounds dreadfully simple of me and I know I've talked about this before but it really does bother me that I've got to do all this stuff completely unrelated to writing and books, like build up a mailing list etc, to be successful as a self-published writer. I JUST WANT TO WRITE! I want to write when I want to write and not feel under pressure that I've got to produce X amount of books per year to keep readers happy and buying. I hasten to add I am not having a go at these authors - I like them and their books very much and totally respect what they are doing but I just want to be me. I want to write because I love it and sell books because people like them. I don't want it to be this clinical business where I start to resent writing.

As the title suggests, I'm going to wing it somewhat - try stuff out to see what sticks and probably fail along the way - but most importantly, keep a firm grip on three important, but easily forgotten, words: DON'T. GIVE. UP. I believe in my little book series and think they have an audience out there, I just need to find them. Easy...

Until next time.

Book Trailers, Animation and Harry Potter, oh my!

I shall try to keep this short but I felt it imperative that I update this little blog ASAP when I realised that on the 14th of this month, it would have been two months since my last post. As to why I haven't blogged, I have no excuse really but I will say that time is going so quickly that it's hard to keep up with everything. My blogging absence doesn't mean I have not been working on my books though - FAR from it. Since my last post, things have been busy to say the least. I spent the last few weeks of 2016 working like a madwoman on my website - nothing to do with books though. It's more a site that combines two of my biggest passions: writing and spreading awareness for the skin condition that left me housebound, along with a few other light-hearted subjects like Trichotillomania (the compulsion to pull out your hair). Work on my website continued well into January but when I had set everything up, I was finally able to move on to the thing I had been dreading since I self-published my WEIGHTING TO LIVE series back in 2015: book marketing. Yes, the time has truly come to put my heart and soul into promoting my book series but the abject horror of even the thought of it before has turned into an exciting challenge and now I think I am in the right headspace to really go for it.

The first job on the list was making a book trailer for WEIGHTING TO LIVE. Initially, I was just going to do the one but I got so into it that I decided to make two, along with another for CHANGES. As I have zero experience in filmmaking, I was a little unsure what to do for the best. To me, a 'live action' trailer was out of the question as I didn't have a good enough camera to make it look professional, nor the right props or scenery, so I went with what I thought was my only viable option: animation. I'm talking like I knew how to do that - no big deal, I'll just animate the next Lion King. I've never really done animation before - bar a project when I was in primary school and ate meals in lunchboxes - but I had an idea of how I could potentially make something appear to be moving, along with a bunch of pictures taken from my book covers, some (strained) patience, the YouTube Audio Library and Windows Movie Maker. At this point, I had a few thoughts of what I could do for the trailers but they didn't really take any shape until I started listening to potential music I could use via the YouTube Audio Library. Very quickly, all these ideas jumped out at me and I had a shortlist of songs and a starting point. The first trailer came together after about 2-3 days and by the time I had finished it, I knew exactly what I wanted to do for the second and in another 2-3 days that was done too.

With the trailer for CHANGES, I knew I wanted to take it in a completely different direction - less upbeat than the two for WEIGHTING TO LIVE - but again, it wasn't until I listened to more music from the YouTube Audio Library that I knew exactly what I was going to do. Armed with pictures from the original cover, I got animating. I feel it important to say they are not Pixar's answer to a book trailer but I am very happy with how they all turned out and put across the message and feeling I wanted them to. I enjoyed myself so much that I all I wanted to do afterwards was animate EVERYTHING. Here are the three trailers:

WEIGHTING TO LIVE Book Trailer #1

WEIGHTING TO LIVE Book Trailer #2

CHANGES Book Trailer

And so, that is where we are now - the book trailers are up and I suppose my desire to keep animating is more to do with my reluctance to get on with the nitty gritty of book marketing than anything else. I have a list as long as my arm of things that need to be done and from now on I am going to be blogging regularly as I try to navigate the world of book marketing that still leaves me feeling slightly nauseous. I obviously want people to buy my books but not at the expense of being pushy or becoming one of those 'book entrepreneurs'. Essentially, I don't want to lose the love of writing to be successful - the end goal is to write for a living, and not sell my soul in the process.

In other news, remember when I said that after I had finished my draft I could finally read Harry Potter and the Cursed Child? Well, I did that so naturally, I bought the book and was VERY excited to read it ... but as I was so busy setting up my website etc, I didn't have a chance to read it until the start of January when I came down with an awful cold and forced myself to rest. And what did I think of said book? To be perfectly honest, I think I'd find it hard to be an objective reviewer for something like Harry Potter as, let's be real, anything from that series I'd have given 5 stars BUT I did enjoy it. More than anything it was an absolute joy revisiting characters that I love and essentially grew up with. I would (and will) definitely read it again and even though it's had mixed reviews, I'd recommend it. I will say that I am a little mystified as to why (the goddess) J.K. Rowling didn't write it herself but it's still worth a read.

And well would you look at that? My vow to keep this short has naturally meant I've written the next War and Peace so I'll say goodbye, for now, and promise to be back soon with more tales with the girl who hates book marketing.

Until next time.