It’s Saturday morning and it’s -2.5c outside, which is, at least, warmer than the -3.3c that it was yesterday. As usual, I know that’s nothing compared to what a lot of you are facing but our lovely harbour insulates us from the weather so we’re spoilt rotten. It means a few indoors days for me because I don’t do well in the cold, and it’s Plough Monday on Monday so I’ve begun the day by making a slightly wonky cottage loaf as a practice run for then. That’ll go in the oven and be eaten warm for breakfast, which is good and the cats are home, which is also good.
I’m making the most of the last few minutes before I wake my family at 7.30 and coping with a strange mixture of feelings because I’ve just converted the manuscript of the first book I ever wrote, all ready to upload it to Kindle for publication in April.
Part of me is thrilled, part of me is so aware of how much I’ve learned and a lot of me is wishing that my parents could have seen the dream I’ve always had of being a proper writer who earns a decent living from her work coming true. Thankfully, they saw the short stories becoming a success, but books were alway the long term goal. I can’t thank my wonderful readers enough for that, but nor can I help thinking of the days half a lifetime ago when I began ‘Sweeter than Honey’. So much has happened that I never expected to, but most of it has been good so I’ve been lucky.
Or have I? One of the things about Christmas is that you catch up with people and if I wasn’t such a nice person at least some of the time then I’d have been quite annoyed by how many people conflate success with luck while forgetting all the years of hard work and research that have got me to this point. I’m still in touch with a few people I met on my creative writing course and I’m the only one who’s had anything published. This probably has quite a lot to do with the fact that I was the only one who took the risk and put my short stories in an envelope and sent them to a magazine. They got published and I learned my trade from my lovely editors at My Weekly, People’s Friend, Bella, Take a Break, The World of Cats, Patchwork and Quilting and lots of other places.
After that, I collected a fair few what they call ‘kill fees’ which is where a publisher buys a book and then decides not to publish it after all or goes bust until I started wondering if I ought to warn publishers that I seemed to be the kiss of death. Then I found my natural home with Kindle and Kindle Unlimited and the rest is happy history.
I still love the characters I created back then, and I hope you will too, but right now it’s time to get on with the final edit of the next book in the Amy Hammond series and make the most of this indoor time to tidy the house, work, and plan for the better weather. Stay safe, stay warm and most of all, thanks for reading!
Today’s picture is of a frozen Poole Park lake and an equally frozen-looking seagull. I took it last year, but it still seems to be just as appropriate now. Here’s hoping that the weather will have warmed up when we meet again on Wednesday and I shall have been down there to enjoy it.
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