Sorry it's late!

I’m a little late with my post this week, but here we go….. Nothing new to report! It’s half term and my sister and niece are visiting so finding time to write is a little harder. However I am still working my way through the list of poetry forms and starting to see a book (or three) form.

As I have no news, I’ll answer a few more questions.

Does writing energize or exhaust you?

Both. It depends on what I am writing. The poems are harder emotionally as I need to tap into memories and feelings to get the meaning across. The novels are not so emotional (usually), although they can make me cry, even as I write them.

The emotional toll can have a physical effect too. Sometimes I walk away with more energy than when I sat, but other times I crawl from my computer straight to my bed. This could be due to how much coffee I drank while writing, but more testing is needed to be sure.

Do you try more to be original or to deliver to readers what they want?

I write because I love to write. I have too many characters in my head not to put them on paper. I keep away from rewriting storylines I have read, but within any genre there are commonalities found in every book. (Fantasy usually has someone who doesn’t know about magic find they are powerful. Murder mysterys always have a dead person etc.)

As an avid reader, I love discovering new authors and devouring everything they have published. However if I only ever sell a few books I am still happy to have written them. I write for myself. If people like my stories, great, if not, oh well, I enjoyed writing them!

If you could tell your younger writing self anything, what would it be?

Publish on Amazon! I spent many years going around different agencies and publishers because I believed that Amazon was vanity publishing and I didn’t understand how to make it work. I’m still learning. I lost at least six years by not knowing enough about the industry and how it was changing.

I’d also tell myself to learn more about technology. It terrifies me and even now I have to ask my children how to do stuff!

How many unpublished and half-finished books do you have?

I have twenty six stand alone books, five poetry books and at least two series starters that I am working on.

The alphabet series (26 books) are all stand alones, but work together. I am also working on a fairy series and an ancestors series. If that sounds like a lot it really isn’t for me. For half of them I just have a character or idea. However I have started 18 of them but they will not be ready for a while yet.

I am currently working on poetry books. I think there will be three in the acrostic to Zejel series but I am also working on a collection of love poems and a special book for crafters and card makers.

Until next time...

Grab a book. Snuggle up and read. A good story can take you anywhere.

Just believe.