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Discovered a book website last week, called Libboo.com. The idea is that authors put their books on there, then readers sign up to become ‘buzzers’. They then ‘buzz’ the books to their social media sites and the more ‘buzz hits’ … Continue reading
The day has finally come! I am ready to reveal the two new covers for The Earth Angel Training Academy and The Earth Angel Awakening. (The cover for The Other Side will be revealed in a couple of weeks) Jason of Dark Horizons Media has been working all hours on the graphics, and has been incredibly patient with all of the tweaks I have asked for! I have also had help from Liz of Madapple Designs. I really am very much in debt to their patience with me, and very thankful for their talents!
The new covers for The Earth Angel Training Academy and The Earth Angel Awakening will appear on eBooks and print books in the next couple of weeks, when I upload the slightly revised editions. Until then, prepare to ‘ooh’ and ‘ahh’ :
For those who are unfamiliar with the term, here is the Urban Dictionary definition:
Pantser : A NaNoWriMo term that means that you ‘fly by the seat of your pants’ when you are writing your novel. You have nothing but the absolute basics planned out for your novel.
The alternative to this is the plotter. The definition:
A person who plots.
A person who plots on a regular basis.
A person who has indeed plotted before.
A person who is currently plotting.
I do not plot. When I write, I do not need to know what’s going to happen next, I do not need to develop characters or arcs or twists. In fact, it is completely detrimental to my writing to know any of these things in advance.
Which is why I am still working on my new book. I started it with a very rigid plot and structure, and it has been a case of just filling in the blanks. I understand that many writers work in this way, but I personally find it irritating, boring and incredibly difficult.
Once this book is finished, I vow to never work with a plot ever again. I will forevermore fly by the seat of my pants.
Rant over.
If you are planning on writing a novel this year, sign up to Nanowrimo.org, and get yourself a copy of the awesome ‘No Plot? No Problem!’. Just don’t read it in public, you will get funny looks.
Just wanted to write a short post to explain my lack of quote pictures, oracle readings (though I did a longer one to make up for it the other day, you can check it out here!) and blog posts.
There are two major demands on my time at the moment – my work and house renovations. I have been at my desk every day, working, and then sometimes painting floors and walls until 2am. It’s all going in the right direction, and I am certainly not complaining that I have so much work at the moment! When I decided to do the publishing work full-time, I had no idea it would get this crazy this fast! One of the authors I’m working with has just published his book, Alchemy of Age, and it is now available on Amazon. And another author I am working with is about to release his book in the next couple of weeks, we’re just making the final adjustments! I will post more information on that book soon.
So please be patient with me, I am also working on my new book, and I will get it out into the world as soon as it is ready. Have been working on getting the new covers ready too, there have been a couple of technical hitches on that front which has slowed the process down.
In other news, there had been a journal entry on one of the copies of The Doorway to PAM on bookcrossing.com, you can view it here. The person who caught it and read it gave it 8 out of 10 stars. Pretty good I think!
I also joined Flickr, out of curiosity as well because someone said I should check it out. So I uploaded some of my quote photos on there, but I have absolutely no idea what I am supposed to do now! Any suggestions are welcome.
When things start to overwhelm me, I remind myself of this:
I have been wondering recently why it is I write. Why I can’t choose an alternative profession, why I couldn’t have been called to do something that I could train for, then get a job in and get paid well for, all the while still helping people and making a difference.
I believe that writing, for the natural writer, is not a career choice. It’s not even a choice at all. It is a necessity, something they must do, or else what is the point to life?
As well as that, for me, writing is a way to chase away the demons of mortality. I write because my fear of death is so strong, that I need to create something that will live on past my lifetime. I write about life after death because I need to believe that it is real. I need to believe that my soul will continue even when my body is still. And when I have departed for that other realm, that alternate dimension, there will be something tangible left behind that will declare that I was here. That I lived. And that I had something to say to the world.
Writing for me is not about the money, or fame (which is a good thing, as many writers never see either) but about quelling my fears and the fears of my readers too. I write to express the worst-case scenario in my head. I write to experience things through my characters that I am curious about, but have no desire to experience in real life. I write to get my darkest fears out of my system. I write to experience the different parts of myself, in a way that’s safe. I have always seen writing as my personal form of therapy. Years ago I would not have felt comfortable spilling my thoughts and secrets to a complete stranger whilst laying on a hard couch, but I would eagerly spill my thoughts onto the diary page in an inky scrawl, that no one but myself could decipher later on. My diary understood me better than any human being on this planet. And best of all, my diary never tried to give me any advice.
So why is it that I have been so stuck recently? I have been finding it so difficult to commit words to the digital page, that I find myself procrastinating on my writing to the point of craziness (is watching that youtube video really more important than finishing my novel? No, I think not). Have I stopped writing because I no longer fear my mortality, and therefore can find an easier way to make a living? No, that’s not it. Is it because I have simply run out of things to say?
Well, anyone who knows me even a little bit will know that it’s definitely not that either.
I’m beginning to think that perhaps it is because I have been a little too happy recently. To be a writer means to be tortured, to feel things deeply, to hurt, to experience more ups and downs than a roller-coaster enthusiast, all in the name of gathering experiences and feelings so we can write about them. In the past few years, while writing my previous books, I have experienced the highest highs and lows so low, that it seemed impossible to recover from them. And all of those things are what makes my writing interesting. (I hope).
But recently, I have been on very even ground. Life has been tootling along quite nicely, quite easily, and very evenly. Which, considering my slightly weak stomach, is preferable to the steep slopes I have hurtled down in the last couple of years. But unfortunately, this wonderful, drama-free existence does not inspire me to write.
Which brings me to the conclusion that I must choose. Between being happy, or being a writer. Are those two things really mutually exclusive? Is it possible to write about the pain of heartbreak while having a whole and healthy heart?
I’d like to think so. Because quite honestly, this is not a choice I am willing to make.
In fact, I am going to choose, right now, to be happy, and to continue my writing. To have faith that this feeling of being stuck will not last, and that the words will flow again. And that I will publish my next book in September.
If you write, and you experience these moments of being stuck, please comment on how you get through them.
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Have you asked the Angels for help today? Or the Faeries? Because they are just waiting for you to say the words. I realised today that I had been getting overwhelmed by the amount of work I need to do, … Continue reading
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A little haphazardly, admittedly, I’m new to the whole book crossing thing! I should have made note of which number book went where, but I forgot… Anyway! They are out there, in the following locations in Monmouth – La Piazza … Continue reading
On my Facebook page I have been posting images with quotes on them, mainly from The Earth Angel Training Academy, The Earth Angel Awakening, The Elphite and my new (as yet unpublished) book, The Other Side.
I have posted them all here on my blog so that anyone who isn’t on Facebook can see them. You can see them here (or click on the link in the menu above)
This is one of my favourites so far, and from the way it’s gone viral on Facebook, it would seem to be a popular one with everyone else too. If you like my page on Facebook, you will get updated when I post these pictures and when I post my Oracle Readings on youtube. Please feel free to share these pictures with friends.
As an Indie Author/Publisher, I have inevitably ended up with copies of my books that are unsaleable for various reasons. I had a box of books destroyed by a courier (bent pages, ruined spines etc) and have had books returned from shops that have closed that are too beaten up to sell as new. I thought about selling these books at a discount when I do fairs, but then offering a damaged product didn’t appeal to me. As a book lover, I like to get a nice shiny copy when I buy a book, so I couldn’t bring myself to do that. I thought about just giving them away, but then I remembered BookCrossing.com. The concept is that you register a book, get a code, put the code in the book, and then release the book into ‘the wild’. The book is then picked up, read by someone, and they can log in with the code to say where they found the book, and what they thought of it, then they pass it on to someone else.
I thought this might be a fun way to get my books out there, but also an alternative kind of book tour! So I have registered four copies of The Doorway to PAM, and I have put a post-it note on the front of each book, saying that it is free. I have stuck a label inside, that says the book is on tour and what it’s Book Crossing code is.
I hope that people find them, pick them up, read them and then pass them on. And if I get a few more Amazon reviews that would be a nice bonus too!
I will be releasing these four books this week, and in the spirit of the book, I will be leaving one in a cinema, one in a tearoom, one in a pub, and one in a hotel. I thought about starting them from different locations, but as I don’t have a car at the moment, that may be a bit tricky, so I have decided to start them all in Monmouth, and then I can track to see just how far they travel! I will update their locations once I have released them, you can see them on my bookshelf on BookCrossing.com.
My label:
For the last year, I have been assisting fellow Indie Authors with their publishing ventures. Myself and my editor, Elizabeth Lockwood, under the name of Purple Self-Publishing Services, were helping them with editing, proofreading and formatting their books, as well as helping with cover design and the actual publishing process, in print and online. Recently I have decided to revert back to my business name, The Amethyst Angel, which is also my publishing imprint name.
Instead of just offering guidance and assistance on the publishing side, however, I wanted to create something of a community of Indie Authors, who help each other in the selling and marketing process, to make the whole process just a little less lonely. So I have created my new site, and on it, I have featured the authors that I or Elizabeth have helped, and their books. The website will grow and evolve, as we help more and more authors, and as the community builds.
Being an Indie Author does not have to be a solitary, lonely venture. Let’s join together and make the journey together! If you are an Indie Author, or you would like to be, please do get in touch, I love to chat!
Twin Flame Blog 