Dear Abyss, there has been a hiccup...

 August 2026

Dear Abyss,

There has been a hiccup. The printer who has done such an excellent job printing my previous books is sadly no longer printing, leaving me looking for a new printer for my book. I want this book out in time for the Christmas markets, so hopefully I will find a printer soon.

In the meantime, I have a summer fair to attend at Clifton Library in York on Saturday 15^th August. I’ll be gathering my books together and taking them out to find new homes at a book signing. Please pop in if you are in the area!

 

Dear Abyss, Picture book brewing

 May 2026
Dear Abyss,

It seems that the closer the book comes to being finished, the more bits and pieces I find I need to adjust or add. I’ve painted a whole new picture for the final page, as the original was not quite right.

The cover is almost finished, putting pictures and words together in adobe, and I learnt a few new things as I went along. It seems every time I produce a new book I learn some new things; I’m still playing with some fancy word art to bring the story to life even more. At some point soon I’m going to have to stop playing and get this project finished.

Bye for now

AMS

Dear Abyss, The book is finished, I think... sharing the journey of building a picture book.

 March 2026

Dear Abyss,

The book is finished, I think… all the words and pictures seem to be getting along, so I’ve closed the book (file), and come out from under my rock to have a play with technology.

We’ve already had false spring, and now we seem to be dipping back into winter again, …resisting the temptation to go back into hibernation here, but with a theme of sleep, there is a good deal of yawning involved, from the characters and the author. I really must write something more lively, but it is a bedtime story, so I’m probably on the right track with yawning… zzzz

Bye for now

AMS

January 2026

It’s January, and it’s raining…

So… here we are in a new year, well 22 days into a new year if we’re counting. But can we really count days that never seem to get properly light? I think bears have the right idea; we did the gathering of food and stuff ready for Christmas, so now we should be hibernating and living off the stuff we gathered (or just sleeping).

So how is the book coming along?

I think the characters may have gone into hibernation after being neglected over Christmas, certainly the paint brushes had forgotten how to paint! But during these dark days of January the paint has started to flow again, the cogs of the imagination are turning slowly and the characters are coming back out to play…

 

  

Tis the season, well the season to be getting ready for the season at least

Tis the season, well the season to be getting ready for the season at least.

I have two Christmas fairs booked in and around York and will give more details nearer the time. Christmas is a big time for gifts and what better gift than a book! So it is the time of year when I gather my books and a pen, and go out into the world to encourage as many people as possible that mine are the perfect books to wrap and give this season.

And also: the picture book is still brewing, technology has not been my friend this week, and just when I thought I had the upper hand with the new scanner, it had other ideas and decided it didn’t want to send pictures to the file I wanted them in, and would much rather save in a different file type to the one I need. So I’m going to be having another play with the scanner once I’ve finished here, and get the pictures I want, where I want them…

Never a dull moment in self publishing…

 

Books don’t write themselves, they are often dragged kicking and screaming to the finish line.

 Picture book brewing!

September finds me knee deep in paint.

 

There is still a picture book brewing, and at this point I have to remind myself that
books don’t write themselves, they are often dragged kicking and screaming to the finish line. There is always a technical issue of some kind; in this case it has been a dead scanner. I battled with the old scanner to no avail, before giving in to the inevitable and buying a shiny new one.

Shiny new things can often be very nice, but in the case of technology I find that new usually means different, and that means working out how to get the new appliance to do what I want it to do, but we have now come to an agreement, and seem to be speaking the same language.

A few draft scans have been done and inserted into the text of the book, so the first draft is now taking shape and the magic of pictures and words merging together to tell a story has begun…

When spinning plates fall...

 It seems that spinning plates was not the best way forward… they all came crashing down and are now going down with the sinking ship that was my website. And why did I allow my website to sink, well, because the shop was an expensive experiment that didn’t bring in the sales I had hoped for. And so for now I’m settling back into my blogger account, where I’ve shared so many of the ups and downs over my years in writing, illustrating and self publishing.

So what is next? I have a book finish! There I’ve said it, so it will have to come true because I am nothing if not stubborn, and I have a gem of a story to tell… The characters are a little different, and consequently harder to pin down into illustrations, especially as drawing is not my first language, but they are well on the way, and now that I’m not spending so much time playing with my website, I have more time to bring this project to a finish line.

The hardest thing about self publishing is having to do everything myself, and sometimes a writer just needs to write, and draw, and paint… and figure out why the scanner no longer scans… OK that feels like more than enough to be going on with, I’ll see you all at the other end of the paint box.

Self Publishing is all about stubborn

 Self Publishing is all about being stubborn… why?

·        As a self publisher you’ve likely already come up against some sort of barrier in traditional publishing: not securing an agent, not finding a publisher to publish your work, or simply decided not to send any more work out to squelch about in a slush pile.

·        Finding out that writing the story is not the end of the process, there are more skills to learn: editing, formatting, illustrating and making all of this stick into a memory stick to send to a printer.

·        Then there’s the promotions and marketing, and generally getting the word out there, about the amazing new book that you now have to sell.

·        There are websites, and blogs and a whole host of ways to get a book noticed online.

·        And pretty soon you realise that writing the book is just the beginning, and learning curves keep hitting you, sharper and steeper than you thought possible. The sense of achievement at rising to each new challenge is amazing, but also exhausting.

So what keeps a self publisher going? Sheer stubbornness and an unshakable belief in the book or books, that have to find their way out of the boxes and into the hands of readers…

So that’s where I’m at, feeling exhausted but stubbornly carrying on…

Turning minor disasters into picture books

The Puppy in the Cat Carrier

Minor disasters happen all the time, but life’s little mishaps make great scenes in picture books, the messier the better.

A rolling dog is very annoying and smelly. Even if you don’t at first notice the smell, the flies soon will… and as you continue your walk, wondering where that awful smell is coming from, and why it seems to be following you home, your first thought may not be to sit down and do a quick sketch. But this is the sort of minor disaster that makes a wonderful scene in a picture book, even if it does bring back unpleasant memories as you draw the picture.

Getting knocked over is another scenario that doesn’t instantly feel inspirational. While sitting on the ground, assessing if limbs are still all pointing the right way, and giving an excited puppy the sort of look that conveys, even to him, that he should probably stop running around with the hat that fell off with the impact of the landing. And just maybe shaking the hat until it was dead, may not be the best idea, although the flying strands of wool would suggest that it was already too late for the pompom.

But it wasn’t all disasters, there was the joy of watching a tiny puppy grow and grow, until he grew into himself…

And all this from a puppy who came into the family masquerading as a cat, you’ll just have to read the book to see how that went.

The Blurb:

“Orphaned puppies” they said. “Won’t get very big” they said…

But has he really been mistaken for a cat? 

And if he’s not a cat, then what breed of dog can he be?

He just keeps getting bigger and bigger until…

Book Dedication: (and a little insight into the story behind the book)

For Kim, who persuaded me to “come and see the puppies”, though in truth I only actually ‘met’ one. The others were being carried around in the peripheries, working their own magic.

For Finley, I’m not sure who chose who, but when the moment came to hand you back, no one was letting go, though no one quite knew why. So we took you home and loved you, not really knowing what you would turn into, or when you’d stop growing.

For Phil, for putting up fencing, and then more fencing…

For Jessica, Mitchell, Fraiser, Rosie and Willow; Finley hopes you’ll all carry on dropping food and playing, but mostly the food bit! (Except for greens… you’re on your own with them.)

For the cats, for learning to live with a dog. 

32 page full colour picture book.

IBSN 978-0-9560232-9-2