Writers’ update and Meeting the author blog

It’s a funny old world being a writer.

Many authors somehow manage to fit everything in between school runs, caring for dependents or working full time to pay the bills. Sometimes all three. It’s only when you get to know the individuals behind the social media presence that you realise how many are also coping with illness, disabilities or have other events in their daily lives which make you wonder how they cope.

My ‘normal’ world came to a grinding halt around 8 years ago, after an accident which changed my life forever. It took a while to adjust but opened up a whole new world, and now I can’t imagine it any other way. If I could go back and change history, would I do it? A difficult question. It would be nice to have the freedom of travelling without logistics making it a military operation, but if it hadn’t happened, would I have become a published author? I doubt it, life has a way of taking over.

Even if my books will never be best sellers, I gain enormous satisfaction from writing them, and from producing my weekly short stories. My mother’s comment when reading one of my books was ‘Quirky,’ and I think that describes them to a T. If you’re interested, you can find them on my Facebook page here:
Facebook author page

Having a holiday break, where Wi-Fi was intermittent at best, and non-existent at worst, was a blessing in disguise. Having to keep up with social media to be informed what someone had for breakfast can be time-consuming, but the other side is where bloggers take time out of their own busy lives to help publicise your books. They can also be great fun, so if you want to know the connection between geographical location, penguins, sombreros and unicorns, you’ll find the answer here:
Meeting the author blog

It’s important for any writer to be an avid reader, which sometimes gets forgotten in the rush to meet deadlines. Despite being in the course of reading five books, I borrowed an old but excellent book of short stories from the hotel library whilst I was on holiday. Okay, I admit I brought it home with me, but I did leave one of mine in its place. 😀

I’ve been beta reading for friends, and was delighted to see the success of the Victorian series of Caster and Fleet, by Paula Harmon and Liz Hedgecock. Although I initially thought crime and women sleuths wouldn’t be my preferred choice of genre, I thoroughly enjoyed them – well written, intriguing stories with an accurate historical background. Check them out on Amazon and I’m sure you’ll agree.

As for my own books, it was my intention to revise and republish my first book ‘Changes,’ by the early summer, assuming it would only require a few tweaks and a new cover. Despite re-writing it almost from scratch, feedback has shown that it’s still not quite right, and might even be better split into two separate books – one a romance, and the other a non-fiction memoir. Both will take a lot of work, so perhaps it would be better to put it on the back-burner for a while, and concentrate on my long-neglected mystery/horror, or even write something new.

Meanwhile, if you all rushed out and bought one of my other books,
Amazon author page USA
Amazon author page UK
it might provide sufficient royalties to be able to sharpen my quill pen and replenish the supply of papyrus. Alternatively, I could buy some food for the unicorns, or a bottle of wine for me. Decisions, decisions.

Thanks for stopping by. Call again next week and you might even find a short story.

© Voinks July 2019