Feeling festive

Just when I thought I'd finished my Christmas fairs, I came across another one - a Victorian Christmas Fair at Hesslington church, yesterday. It was a lovely event complete with a town crier who made announcements such as: Santa arriving, and that there was only one jar of jam left on the preserves stall. It was a really festive and fun event, with Christmas music and mince pies...

I sold 11 books, bringing the grand total from this year's fairs to 122!!

On a personal note - we bought our Christmas tree yesterday, so it feels like Christmas is really on it's way now. At 7ft 3" it's the biggest yet, and so far none of the cats have climbed it. Last year Lister was just a kitten and loved climbing the Christmas tree, but this year he seems a bit wary of it. He fuzzed up the end of his tail to show it how big he was when it arrived home yesterday (only the end of his tail mind - so he wasn't fully committed), maybe he was upstaged by its sheer size, but he hasn't tried anything yet...

Busy times

I've been so busy lately that I've hardly got any writing done - this is quite typical for this time of year when marketing is a priority, and of course there's all the Christmas stuff to do. But this morning I've had a whole morning to work on my book, oh the luxury! It's quite hard to get back into a story when I don't have time to do a bit every day, but the words are flowing again - it's that pesky character Iver No-Idea, there's just no shutting him up once he gets going...

It feels quite odd not to be going to any fairs this week, my first editions have been selling like hot cakes this Christmas, some of them were going home to be read as a bedtime story, some were being read by children, even at the fairs (waiting for raffle prizes to be announced can get quite boring) and it's lovely to think of many of them being opened on Christmas morning...

There's still time to order from my online shop
http://www.anne-m-stephenson.com/page7.htm

Book signing at Christmas fairs

Yesterday I did the last of this year's Christmas fairs, and what a season it's been. I've done 7 fairs in 15 days, and at times it's felt like I was on a Christmas fair treadmill, but it was well worth it, I've sold 111 books!!
The people I've met have been so friendly and interested in my books, that it really didn't feel like work at all, in fact sometimes I think I go to fairs for a rest - I don't have to multi task at a fair, I just spend an few hours talking to people about books. I even met a young aspiring author at a school yesterday, and if she's reading this - good luck with your books!

Doodle series

The rewrite of the next doodle book is going well - Eric is on the ski slopes, and having enough trouble staying on his feet, without his doodle, Iver No-Idea turning up with helpful advice, and his doodle dog, HB careering off after ski poles...