Authors Electric

December is a time for looking back and although I’ve written a few Christmas letters in my time reminiscing about what we have been up to as a family I have never looked back at what I have achieved as a writer in the past 12 months. To be honest I tend to play down many of my writing exploits, but with my memoir about to be published in the New Year it’s time for a change, a time to be bold and update my writing CV. In January I discovered a new opportunity writing for Paddler Press magazine .  My piece based on Silence was accepted on January 6th and the magazine arrived all the way from Canada on the 28th.   According to my diary I was also very busy writing lots of 100-word stories for my memoir. At the beginning of February I wrote a 100 flash for the Retreat West monthly microfiction competition.   By the end of the month, I was crowned the winner and I took home the People’s Prize as voted for by the readers. March was a month where life took on a ne...

Image Credits:  Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos. Many thanks to Julia Pattison for taking the photo of me at my editing workshop. Also thanks to Janet Williams for taking the image of me at a recent Book Fair. It was lovely taking part in a Book Fair in July. The last one I took part in was before the pandemic. It’s hard to imagine just how much that changed so much for so many so quickly. What was great was there was a good turn out for the fair (over 100 people). Like the authors present, everyone seemed pleased events like this are back.  In my part of the world, the nearest bookshops are miles away. I spread the word about the event as much as possible and my slogan for my marketing of the event was “bringing the books to you”. That is one of the great joys of a book fair.      Another is seeing a good range of books covering a wide range of ages and tastes. The organisers of the event also kept the writers well supplied with tea, coffee, a...

Happy New Year everyone. My goodness, January has started off well! I just came back from an invigorating run, my juice fast has left me pounds lighter and with a glowing complexion and my royalty statement hit six figures for the first time. Life is perfect!   It’s OK! You can keep reading. I made all that up for a laugh. I broke into a trot last Wednesday when I realised I’d forgotten to put the bins out, but apart from that, life remains much the same. I ate a lot of satsumas over Christmas, but they were accompanied by mince pies and Christmas puddings and selection boxes and suchlike. I’m still waiting for the royalty statement, but I don’t suppose I can retire just yet.   Last year, I took the plunge and booked myself on to a series of events all over the county. At each one, I met lovely people and learned how to dress my table and present my books. Height, interest and texture are all important and so is your pitch. It’s no good sitting glumly behind a stack of untou...

 Whisper it quietly but I don’t really belong here! I think everyone else on the Authors Electric blog team are proper published writers – me? – well I dabble a bit here and there but I’m NOT a proper Writer with a capital double U. I have everything I need to be a writer I’ve heard Joanne Harris, best-selling author of Chocolat and so many other wonderful novels, say “if you write, you are a writer.” But there’s always more than a smidge of doubt that creeps in telling me this is not really my world, my place is on the outside looking in, reading rather than writing. I may never write a best seller – some days I wonder if I’ll ever publish a full book! That does require actually writing it first and the longer I stick at it I realise just what a huge mountain I have to climb. Can I really do this or am I an imposter? My husband told me I didn’t know the “right sort of people” to be a writer. A friend told me when I started a writing class, “the first novel you write wi...

  I’m writing this blog in the peace and quietness of my study. Behind me is a stack with maths books for four children, paper tape to keep one of my children happy building stuff, a Viking helmet that needs a bigger box and Velcro dots to be attached to pictures. A few years ago I found writing a wonderful release at the end of a manic day. Just me and my laptop, daydreaming up stories when the kids were in bed. Such a peaceful, private hobby. Occasionally, hubby would bring me a glass of wine or one of the kids would wake up with some complaint, but my evenings were spent serenely and relaxed. Since then, life has taken on all kinds of twists and turns. My fun stories became a little more involved. I thought more about my characters and what they would like for dinner. Before I knew it, I had a novel and a publisher willing to look at it. I tried to explain that English wasn’t my first language and they were very tactful about what exactly they meant by ‘substantial editing...