I have had a few readers tell me how much they have enjoyed it, and that it was definitely worth the wait! Phew!
If you read it and love it, please do leave a review, every bit of feedback helps other readers to choose whether or not to give it a go, and also gives me the momentum to keep writing.
In publishing The Return of the Earth Angels, I have hit my first major writing milestone – I have now written and published just over ONE MILLION words!
My lifetime goal is five million, which roughly equates to 100 novels. It has taken me 15 years to get to the first million, so I need to step things up in order to reach five! I wanted to mark the occasion somehow, and seeing as I don’t do anything that will win me any medals, my best friend’s suggestion of a medal seemed perfect.
I wore the medal for launch day, and it certainly made me feel like a winner! I already have my next two books in mind, the first is the fourth book in my children’s series, which will be out in Autumn, and then the next is one that I’m really looking forward to writing, but no spoilers to reveal yet!
Then I plan to get book 12 in the Earth Angel Series out next year, which will conclude the series. It has been quite the journey, I must say.
So I managed a grand total of two blog posts this year… wow. I wanted to recap the year to prove that I wasn’t just lazing about, but it’s been such a crazy year, this may take me a while!
I miss the days when I blogged regularly, and it was a diary of sorts. I could check when I released books or attended events. But ah well!
So the highlight reel of 2023-
I moved from my studio into a new shop unit in Bastion Mews, where from July to Christmas, I ran Wish You Were Here, Letterpress Studio & Lifestyle Store. I ran workshops and sold handmade crafts as well as my cards and prints. It was a massive learning curve, and after six months, I hadn’t had any people wanting to print on a regular basis and share the space, and I couldn’t keep it up on my own, so I decided not to renew my lease, and put everything in storage.
I finished writing The Magical Dragon Mirror and released it in July, with the official release taking place at the Legendary Llangollen Faery Festival in August.
I made a lot of pants, in a variety of mad fabrics! I also made some leggings and sweatshirts, and hope to make lots more.
I attended many markets, print fairs, craft fairs and wayzgooses selling my wares, and had a fabulous time! Particularly loved the monthly market at the Fold in Bransford.
I helped to organise and run the Harry Potter experience at Hereford Cathedral for the official Harry Potter book night. Had a lil too much fun battling Snape!
I made lots of creatures, some knitted, some sewn, some crocheted. You could say it was the year of the creature making for me! I made 9 crocheted whales, two crocheted triceratops, several knitted frogs, and many felt animals. My own bears (designed and hand stitched by me) started selling really well in my shop, so I even started making them again too. I also made a ton of pumpkins and also crocheted a cardigan and a jumper!
In January, I became the editor of Small Printer, which is the magazine for the British Printing Society. My amazing team and I have produced 6 issues, and have received many compliments! It has been quite a task, fitting in the voluntary work around trying to earn a living, but it has been fun!
And finally, with the help of Lucja Fratczak-Kay, my amazing friend and fabulous artist, I designed a witchy bullet journal, which only went live on xmas eve, so if you like bujos, have adhd and are witchy, go grab a copy! (Bujo of Shadows)
I also got to spend time with my favourite people, and favourite doggo, though probably not nearly enough time.
I have many plans for 2024, hope to share them with you on here soon!
Merry Christmas!
A quick edit to add that I also helped to plant, weed, and water our veggie garden this year, where we successfully grew lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes, beetroot, beans, kale, radishes and potatoes! Pulling up potatoes was an excellent dopamine hit!
Over the last couple of years, I started a podcast where I would record my ramblings while actually rambling through the woods with my doggo. I would just hit record and talk about whatever came to mind, hoping a topic would emerge.
Which is pretty much what I’m doing in this blog post!
I am actually walking in the woods right now, it’s way too early to be out but Chouli was keen for once (she’s not a morning dog!) So we are in the woods, listening to the morning birdsong, talking to random dog walkers.
It’s not as easy to write this as it is to record a podcast, but I am determined to blog more, so here we are!
I had a great conversation with a guy yesterday who helped me to get some of my marketing mojo back (he clearly loves it, unlike me!) and one of the things we discussed was how important location is. That depending on where you grow up, your success in certain careers may be limited. That unless you surround yourself with people who are doing what you want to do, then it’s difficult to succeed. The example that comes to mind is Ed Sheeran. He wanted to sing, so he hung out at gigs, then started gigging, and he made sure he was in the right places to learn, to grow, to improve and to hone his craft that he loved. He literally put himself in the way of greatness. He didn’t stay at home, hoping and dreaming and wishing that maybe one day, someone would find him and make him a star.
Which I can confirm is not the route to stardom! Of course, becoming a successful author is slightly different. It’s a pretty solitary endeavour, there aren’t gigs to attend, but there are book fairs, festivals, workshops, courses, etc. The London Book Fair was an eye-opener, so many writers and publishers in one place. It was quite overwhelming, and though there was a sense of being amongst my people, there was also a sense of complete inadequacy.
Wow, a writer with imposter syndrome? How original!
It’s a weird thing, to have written books, but to not feel like an author. I don’t know if it’s because I don’t write every day, or because my books don’t pay me a living wage, or because I’m not surrounded by other authors. It may just be because authors don’t actually feel any different! Maybe they just feel like regular people who tell stories that get printed.
Hell, maybe it’s just because I’m a woman from the South Wales valleys, where dreams were simply not catered for.
But whatever the reason, it’s no excuse. Because I have written books, and I have amazing readers waiting for the next ones, and they don’t care if I feel like a real author or not, they just want the next story.
So all of that ramble to say, I plan to get writing, and thanks to that chat yesterday, I feel like I’ve got some of my marketing mojo back too. So be prepared, if you’re on my mailing list or social media, you may be seeing a lot more of me!
So last year, (how was it that long ago?!) I started blogging again, determined to get back into writing posts regularly, and strengthening my writing muscles while connecting with you, my readers.
But somehow, it’s been nearly a year since my last post. What the actual?
To be fair, it’s been very busy, I have published several more books for clients, become a step-grandma, moved my print studio and opened a shop, and published book 3 in my children’s series, The Magical Dragon Mirror.
So it’s not like I’ve been particularly lazy, but goodness, I wish I could stick to the things I’ve decided to do!
But I have also filled my time with random shit that I didn’t need to be doing, like scrolling insta, watching reels, and zoning out in front of Netflix/prime/disney. I once had an app on my phone that calculated how much time I spent on apps. I worked out that in one month, I wasted the equivelant amount of time that I could have written 150k words.
My whole life, I have thought that I was just a bit crap with making good habits, with sticking with things (I’m most definitely a quitter) and then, thanks to my hours and hours of scrolling, I started to realise that actually, the likelihood is that I have ADHD.
Now I’m not a label fan, and I’m not rushing to get an official diagnosis (nothing against it, just not something that would help or benefit me personally) but the realisation and the understanding of the underlying reasons for certain behaviours has helped me immensely. Mainly with just being a bit kinder to myself. I’ve also stepped up my supplement game and found that I’m not quite so exhausted, and I can recognise the approaching burnout and rest before I get ill.
I have gone through periods of anger and mourning. Anger that no one ever saw it, including me. Yet when I say it to people I know, their response is ‘well of course!’ And mourning for all the lost potential, and for the support that I could have had, that might have meant my finances weren’t such an atrocious mess for so long.
But then, the flip side is that not knowing meant that I pushed myself harder to do the things I found so difficult. I set deadlines and wrote whole novels. I completed projects after the initial dopamine hit wore off. I pushed through the tiredness and exhaustion. So, in essence, I got things done that many with ADHD cannot.
Because I assumed I was a regular human with a terrible memory and little sticking power, so I had to override these things. Now there’s a reason for it, I do find myself not pushing so hard, so of course, things don’t get done.
I’m still learning so much about myself, still learning the ways that work for me, how to best take care of myself, and how to not annoy the people around me. But I know that the label won’t do anything for me other than help my understanding of how I approach life, and how I interact with the world.
So I’m not going to promise to write this thing regularly, because I hate breaking promises, even though I seem to do it a lot.
And I’m not going to say that book 11 is coming soon, or the six other books I want to write. To be honest, I’m just doing my very best to keep creating an income, keep surviving, and not burn out. So, really, any content I create is a bonus, because honestly? Writing has not been a lucrative thing for me. I don’t make my living from it. In fact, it’s probably cost me more than it has made.
Of course, that’s because I suck at marketing and find it completely impossible to do anything consistently, which I think I’ve demonstrated with this blog!
So if you want to read more of what I write, please buy my books, if you already own them, buy them as gifts! Or you can just chuck me a few quid to paypal.me/theamethystangel
Or if you live near Hereford, pop to my new shop and buy some cards. Would love to see you! My insta is @wishyouwerehere.store
So that was a bit of a rambling info dump, but hey, welcome back to my blog! There may or may not be another new post soon.
Just in case no one has told you this recently. Xx
So. I blogged four times last year. Yes. A whopping grand total of 4. And one of those was about how I never blogged anymore. And another was about how I needed to relax more, because there was too much to do.
Isn’t ironic? Don’t you think?
(Just as a side note, I was supposed to be going to Alanis Morissette’s concert in Birmingham in September. It was postponed, obviously, and I find it quite ironic that it would have been the first concert I’ve been to in 12 years, and only the third one I’ve ever been to in my life. And it was cancelled because of the plague.
Pretty much like the first flight you’ve ever gone on crashing down…)
Anyway, it’s been on my mind for the last few months to start blogging again, because though I love Instagram, and tolerate Facebook, there’s still nothing like sharing actual thoughts in a semi-coherent fashion and then posting them online for the world to read.
Because, after all, I’m a writer. Well, I have written. One of my other plans this year is to write something every day. Whether it’s a poem, a bit of a novel or a blog post.
Guess what won today?
I have no desire to talk about last year. Not because it was a terrible one for me personally, but because I’m sure, like me, you are tired of hearing about it, and wish people would talk about something else already.
But I will share that I was very busy at the latter end of the year with publishing work, and was very pleased to have published a new novel, The Girl Who Loved Too Much, and also the paperback edition of The Old Soul’s Handbook, and then I also helped to publish a collection of short stories called Delayed Dreams, and a book on the hidden gems of London called Lost London. I’m also in the process of publish a new book called Burglar to Buddha, under our Not From This Planet imprint, Labradorite Press, and also the new Heal Your Home book by Adrian Incledon-Webber. So I haven’t been slacking by any means, in fact, I have spent way too much time on my laptop.
I’m not going to make any wild promises, but I do hope to write on here more often. You have been warned.
Do you relax? And by that I mean, do nothing and just chill, while awake in the day? I think I have somehow lost the ability or the gene to be able to sit and do nothing, because even when feeling ill, I still find it difficult to simply BE.
Doingness has taken over. I must be doing something all the time, otherwise I am wasting time. And because time is precious and finite, wasting it is the ultimate sin.
Which means I find myself chatting to a friend online, while watching Netflix, while eating dinner. Because doing any of those tasks on their own would waste time. And I write a blog, while also editing a book, while checking my email and drinking my tea. Or I sew while watching a movie while talking to my partner.
When did multi-tasking become the only way to be? What happened with just sitting and having a cuppa? What happened to eating a meal, and noticing the tastes and enjoying each bite? Why do I feel the need to cram as much as I can into every waking moment of every single day?
In case you were hoping for solutions, I better warn you now, I have none! Other than – if you feel the same way, then becoming aware of your addiction to doing is the first step in changing it. If you want to change it, of course.
I know that part of my issue is that there is just so much I want to do. So many creative projects, so many work projects, so many things I enjoy… at times when I find myself with some spare time, I get overwhelmed at all the possible things I could fill it with. Sometimes I get so overwhelmed, that all I can do is something domestic and mundane. Relaxing is never really an option. Not when the car needs washing and clothes need folding and the firewood needs collecting and the kitchen needs cleaning.
Being addicted to doing has never really been a problem for me. You could say I’ve thrived on it. But by the end of last year, even though I hadn’t achieved all I’d planned to, I hit something of a massive slump. I felt depleted and exhausted, and in early December I had no energy to do anything at all.
I saw my kinesiologist and got back on track, but it took a long time for my mojo to return. Then in the new year, I got a virus. Now, having got over that and getting myself back on track, I find that I don’t have nearly as much oomph to get things done as I once did, and I wonder if I ever will again.
It’s tricky when the mind and the body are not in sync. When my mind is trying to beat me up and make me feel bad for not getting everything on my to do list done, and my body is saying – I need more sleep, just sit for a while, and it’s okay, you can do things tomorrow – it leaves me feeling more exhausted.
So I plan to use my trusted friend – EFT – to do some reprogramming. Because if my body needs rest, then I need to feel okay with resting, and relaxing. Because feeling guilty about it certainly isn’t going to help my body either. I’m also exploring this whole topic in my new novel, which will hopefully help me to work out a way forward too.
How do you relax? Do you multitask too much? Do you feel guilty for chilling? Would love to hear from you.
No time to relax? Stare at this photo for a full minute and imagine the sound of the waves on the pebbles…
There’s a concept in the spiritual/new age beliefs that says that you create your own reality. That whatever is going on in your life – you have chosen or created it, perhaps not on a conscious level, but on a subconscious one.
I do believe this to be true, and I see a lot of people hating this concept, because they think that they are to blame, or at fault for their illness, their bad relationships, their circumstances, or their situation.
But the way I see it, is that if I am responsible for creating what I am currently experiencing, then I am capable of changing it. If I am not responsible, and it is the creation of some outside person, deity or force, then there is absolutely nothing I can do to change it.
I am powerless. I am at the mercy of the whims of the unknown.
So I prefer to see myself as being the creator of my reality. Because I find it empowering to be in control of my own situation. Because even if there is something I cannot change – I can change my perspective of it. I can change my experience of it.
When it comes to health, if there is a dis-ease or issue in my body, I do what I need to do to heal. I change my diet, I see a professional therapist, I change my thoughts, and I nurture and care for myself. I do not blame myself, berate myself, hate my body, fight it and punish it for failing me. Because even though I believe that I created the issue, it doesn’t mean that I consciously wanted that particular illness. It just means that my actions/thoughts/beliefs up to that point created it, so I need to change them in order to heal it.
When it comes to finances, instead of blaming the economy, my job, or taxes, I now look at where I am spending unnecessarily. I look at what I can save, where I can make more money, and learn how to manage it better. I change my beliefs and my thought patterns.
When it comes to relationships, I no longer blame the other person for what is not working. Instead, I go within, turn up the self-love dial, and make sure that I am in complete authenticity with myself and with them. I make changes in my own behaviour.
When we blame, we hurt. When we take responsibility, we heal.
Perspective is everything, and how you see things will be the way you experience them.
I have just started to contribute to Unsplash! If you have no idea what that is, and you’re a blogger or someone who uses images a lot, you need to check it out. Unsplash.com is where you can get fabulous, … Continue reading →
A new blog post on theamethystangel.com, my experiences with creating book titles! It is at the forefront of my mind as I try to come up with a title for the latest book I am writing in a new trilogy.
As a follow-up to my previous post on self-development seminars reminding me of casinos, I wanted to look at the idea from a slightly different perspective.
My first post looked mainly at the angle that perhaps the organisers and hosts of some of the events, did not have the best of intentions when it came to the participants. That they were unscrupulously making money from people who were in a vulnerable stage in their lives, looking for their purpose.
In this post, I want to look at the intentions and point of view of the participants, and perhaps how they may be searching for the magic ‘key’ and how that may not be very realistic. After all, the seminars and workshops wouldn’t exist if there weren’t scores of people looking for the magic formula to make their lives amazing.
I feel that quite often, beginner’s luck comes into play, when someone goes to a seminar for the first time ever (or indeed buys a lotto ticket or visits a casino for the first time) and they go through a transformation that changes their life for the better. Suddenly, they’re telling everyone they know, and they start attending more and more seminars, hoping to improve their lives even further. But then things plateau out. The changes become less dramatic, and the person then starts spending more, upgrading to the more advanced packages and seeks out the next big win desperately, unaware that they are gambling away more than they can afford.
Image from Shutterstock
The thing is, that first bit of luck may have happened in order to encourage the person to improve their lives, but as with anything, no one can expect to make big changes and improvements without actually doing some hard work.
Yes, that’s right – the magic key really is just hard work. As well as passion, perseverance and determination. Of course there will still be the jackpot winners who appear to magically manifest all they desire with very little effort, but I bet if you were to delve deeper you would find that they too, struggled before that win.
As they say, all over-night successes have been ten years in the making. So if you find yourself voraciously attending seminars and workshops, and yet your life is not working out the way you would like, please do ask yourself why you are doing it, what you are looking for. You may find you already have all the information you need, all the support you need, and really all there is left to do, is put in the hard work.
I would love to hear your thoughts on this, please do comment if anything I’ve said has struck a chord with you.
Twin Flame Blog 