Category: Updates and information

What next, that is the question…

On By kepagewriterIn Updates and informationLeave a comment

Okay, so I have finally finished proof reading Shattered Reflections and I am actually – against all the odds – still quite pleased with it. I think that I have solved all the issues that have been pointed out to me. The proof of that, I guess, will be what the wide world makes of it. A little bit scary that, but while I will continue to write even if no one buys this book, that is not the same as not wanting to be read. Everyone wants to be read. To me, that is more important than the amount of money I might make. Numbers of readers, that is my main concern. So I have to have faith in it. I have to hope that others will love the characters as much as I do, will think it relevant, touching, emotional.

The proofs have gone back and I am glad – while I obviously think Shattered Reflections is good – that I do not have to read it again. I will be happy to say it is finished and put all my notes and work away. It is tempting to keep tinkering but that is more to do with fear of actually putting the work out there than improving the book.

So the big question is what to write next and obviously I have ideas and I have been writing bits and pieces in the meantime. I try to write everyday, even if it is only a couple of hundred words. (The real world, where I have to go back to teaching in September, keeps intruding. How rude!) To that end, I decided to look through the draw where I have kept all my writing. Twenty odd years worth of writing as it turns out. Things that I had forgotten about. It is strange in some ways that Shattered Reflections should be the first thing to be taken to fruition. It certainly isn’t the first thing I’ve written. There are any number of projects here, some more complete than others. The question is whether it is a worthwhile exercise to actually look through it or whether it would just be a huge exercise in procrastination. I mean, could anything I thought when I was 25 still have relevance, still be worthwhile. Its hard to know.

Of course, there is also promotion and marketing to be done for Shattered Reflections when it is becomes available. And I am quite looking forward to the opportunity to work on my website and on learning about all the ways the Internet can help me. I am determined to be pro-active even though it is not really my nature. It has to be.

It is all excitement from here on in, then. For new projects and old. For the future. You’ll be hearing from me soon.

Another week goes by…

On By kepagewriterIn Updates and informationLeave a comment

It has been a strange week. I have now read Shattered Reflections three times. Just when I thought it was almost time to move to the next step, approve the proofs and then it would be the excitement of sales and marketing. Then, some inconsistencies were pointed out to me and I realised I needed to check through it all again. Square one, hello, here I am again. Starting to wonder how I ever thought this manuscript was ready for public consumption. Hello, also, nerves.

So, I have neglected everything else. No twitter. No facebook. Barely read my e-mails. No writing on exciting new project. No working on website.  No point in having a snazzy website if I have no book to sell. That makes sense, right. But I worry that having taken the first tentative steps towards marketing myself that I am now instantly disappearing. Its taking too long. Furthermore, Shattered Reflections is starting to feel like a piece of coursework that I have marked too many times. I’m thoroughly sick of it. I want to work on something new.

Still I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. This next week should see the proofs ready. The website should be up. Facebook page should be ready. Hears hoping, anyway.

A Book with my name on it

On By kepagewriterIn Updates and information2 Comments

So, I am working through the proofs of Shattered Reflections. It is exciting for a number of reasons. It is strange (and, of course, most excellent) to see the words I’ve written in the form of a book rather than the manuscript on my computer screen. It makes it so much more real.

This also makes it more scary. My emotions fly between wild enthusiasm and being absolutely petrified. They also fly between thinking that my work is great and thinking what on earth do you think you are doing. Mostly I know that what I have written is good but this knowledge doesn’t stop me thinking that nobody else is going to agree.

Next step – when proofs are sorted – is to sort out a Facebook page. So I will be calling on people then to like it.

 

 

A strange exercise in self promotion.

On By kepagewriterIn Updates and information4 Comments

So it is a week since I started this strange exercise in self promotion and I have to say the net result is I am a bit rubbish at it. Others seem to excel at it. Easily sharing opinions, keeping the public aware of them. By contrast, I worry about every tweet, every word and letter until I lose momentum.

I posted my blog and people liked it. If I sound surprised then this is because I am. Perhaps you wonder why I wrote it if I didn’t expect this to be the outcome. Well, of course, I hoped. But in reality, the pessimist in me expected it to languish lonely in cyberspace. It’s strange to me that people I don’t know might randomly come across my blog and read it. Of course, this is the very definition of reading a book but walking into a book shop and plucking something off the shelf seems natural to me. It has taken me a while to realise that I could treat the Internet in the same way, that people treated it in this way. It makes me feel old to think that reading a book you have physically in your hand is becoming increasingly old-fashioned. Old, and a little depressed.

It has taken me a while to realise how the Internet works – I don’t mean the nuts and bolts of it, I don’t think I’ll ever understand that – but the way people treat it, think of it, work with it. I always vowed that I wouldn’t use Twitter or be the sort to post every thought on Facebook. And even now when I realise the usefulness of it, I still find myself hesitating. At heart I am a quiet person. (Okay, all those of you reading this who actually know me, you can stop laughing now.) What I mean is, I have never really put myself forward. It feels a little like volunteering information that no one asked for. So even as I am typing this it still feels strange.

As for the rest of my week, it has been spent in anticipation. The proofs of Shattered Reflections are ready and I am just waiting for them to arrive so I can start the project of editing them. Excitement bubbles under until they arrive.

Hello world!

On By kepagewriterIn Updates and information2 Comments

I have never been so nervous. This is the start of something new and I feel the usual amounts of trepidation that you feel when you put a new project into motion – will it work, will I be able to do it, will people care, read, be the least bit bothered about what I have to say. Not only that but I will be allowing people to read what I have written, something that I previously only allowed those the closest to me to do. If the people who might read my work were sat in front of me, armed with red pens in order to correct and change, I could not be more anxious.

I have been writing for years now. In fact, as long as I can remember I have tried to put stories together. It stresses me out when I cannot write and if I’m not actually writing, chances are I am thinking about what I could write. It seems about time to try and actually see if what I have written is good and to get myself some readers.

Having recently become unemployed, I decided that it was time to have another try at getting published. And this time I was determined not to lose heart, give up or become depressed by the rejection letters or – in some ways worse – good but we can’t guarantee a market so no type letters. Publishers are as cash-strapped as anyone at the minute so of course, it is not a good time to be trying to get started. Nevertheless, I was determined that this time something was going to happen.

Things have changed a lot since I last tried to get published about 10 or so years ago. My teaching career had taken off and teaching being what it is, I had little time for writing or to put in the hours it takes to find an agent or a publisher so it all went on the back burner. Now I’m back and there is a whole new way of doing things. I have to admit that I was a little bamboozled. Where to start, what to do first, I’m still not sure if I’m taking the right path. I’d welcome advice from anyone who has been down this road. I look at my computer and I sometime just want to scream “Help” at it. And of course, it just sits there smugly, unaffected by my panic.

Other days are more productive and I have found some sites (www.authonomy.com, for example) where I have posted my writing and where comments have been good and that has helped a lot. I’m learning how to share my work through facebook and twitter and try not to sit anxiously checking for notifications when I have done. Most excitely, I have decided to publish through Createspace and Amazon and am currently waiting for the proofs so I can check them. Excitement and anxiety fight with each other for supremacy on a daily basis but now I have started down the road there is no turning back. Which is good because I am nothing if not a coward.

So, I will be keeping everyone updated of my progress through this blog, both with Shattered Reflections and with new projects that I am working on.

Hello world!

On By kepagewriterIn Updates and informationLeave a comment

I have never been so nervous. This is the start of something new and I feel the usual amounts of trepidation that you feel when you put a new project into motion – will it work, will I be able to do it, will people care, read, be the least bit bothered about what I have to say. Not only that but I will be allowing people to read what I have written, something that I previously only allowed those the closest to me to do. If the people who might read my work were sat in front of me, armed with red pens in order to correct and change, I could not be more anxious.

I have been writing for years now. In fact, as long as I can remember I have tried to put stories together. It stresses me out when I cannot write and if I’m not actually writing, chances are I am thinking about what I could write. It seems about time to try and actually see if what I have written is good and to get myself some readers.

Having recently become unemployed, I decided that it was time to have another try at getting published. And this time I was determined not to lose heart, give up or become depressed by the rejection letters or – in some ways worse – good but we can’t guarantee a market so no type letters. Publishers are as cash-strapped as anyone at the minute so of course, it is not a good time to be trying to get started. Nevertheless, I was determined that this time something was going to happen.

Things have changed a lot since I last tried to get published about 10 or so years ago. My teaching career had taken off and teaching being what it is, I had little time for writing or to put in the hours it takes to find an agent or a publisher so it all went on the back burner. Now I’m back and there is a whole new way of doing things. I have to admit that I was a little bamboozled. Where to start, what to do first, I’m still not sure if I’m taking the right path. I’d welcome advice from anyone who has been down this road. I look at my computer and I sometime just want to scream “Help” at it. And of course, it just sits there smugly, unaffected by my panic.

Other days are more productive and I have found some sites (www.authonomy.com, for example) where I have posted my writing and where comments have been good and that has helped a lot. I’m learning how to share my work through facebook and twitter and try not to sit anxiously checking for notifications when I have done. Most excitely, I have decided to publish through Createspace and Amazon and am currently waiting for the proofs so I can check them. Excitement and anxiety fight with each other for supremacy on a daily basis but now I have started down the road there is no turning back. Which is good because I am nothing if not a coward.

So, I will be keeping everyone updated of my progress through this blog, both with Shattered Reflections and with new projects that I am working on.