Trying to Focus on a wet Thursday in Feb...

OK time to focus - no not go and drive a Focus - focus on books! But what to do first...?

Create a book - I'm busy painting characters for my next book, and they're coming along very nicely. They're still just hanging around deciding what to do though...

Sell a book well hopefully you can help me with that - go on, buy a book... you know you want to! I'll even sign it for you - it'll be just like meeting at a book signing... except that we won't meet, and we won't have to go out in the cold - well, I will, obviously, I'll need to post the book. But I don't mind, honestly!

Get Lost in a Book - I could very easily go and light the fire early and curl up with a book that someone else has written - all the work is already done, all I'd have to do is to start reading, and allow myself to slip into the imaginary world that's already been created... hmmm sounds good... but no, I shall go and create something new!

Fighting distractions

I'm fighting distractions this morning, and apparently I've already lost, as I've just noticed it's past noon and I haven't started the main mission of the day, which is to create a quiet / busy book. The delivery of two new books is not helping either - they're sat on the table, just within reach, tempting me to start reading, but once I get lost in a book I won't get anything else done - am I addicted to new books I wonder...? I suppose as addictions go, it's not a bad one to have...

So what do authors do when they're not writing...?

The wonderful thing about being a writer, is that I don't feel like I'm expected to be a certain way - I refuse to be put in a box... so what was I doing this weekend while I was away from my computer and neglecting my blog...?

I was at a family party where I found myself having a bucket of water poured over me soon after arrival, as part of the ice bucket challenge, then after drying off and having a hot cup of tea, I had a go with a JCB - as you do, on a Saturday afternoon...

Yesterday I realised that fabric shops are just as dangerous as bookshops when it comes to buying more than I went in for... I only went in for a real of thread, but then I saw some amazing fabric with sheep - knitting sheep at that - OK, I admit it, I'm easily distracted, but I think that's what makes life more interesting - I just never know where my day is going to take me - in reality or my imagination...

All a writer needs...

All a writer needs are an imagination and the tools to write with...

But a room with a view would be nice, the beach maybe, with the tide coming in, the waves rolling up the beach, coming closer with every rush of water, until the sea has reclaimed the beach and chased everyone back to the land.  And still the sea comes, rushing up sea walls, taking back its territory, dragging man made structure into itself and reducing them to rubble.

Ok so maybe I don't need a view... but it would be nice...

Struggling with my promotions hat... which seems to have shrunk...!

Struggling with my promotions hat... which seems to have shrunk...!

It's been two weeks now since I zapped my files off to the printers, and since then I've been trying to be creative in a different direction, namely I've been blogging and putting posts on facebook and generally trying to squeeze my head back into my promotional hat... but it doesn't quite fit, much like a pair of jeans freshly washed - and shrunk!

This is the time when a mainstream author would have a backup team (who presumably all wear their promotions hats every day, and are comfortable in them...). But as a self publisher I feel a bit on my own - even my cats seem to have deserted me in favour of cat baskets and beds about the house.

My mind is now getting distracted by thoughts of designing a new promotions hat... one that will not shrink while I'm busy wearing my author hat or editing hat. It needs to be a design that will inspire out-of-the-box thinking, possibly something flamboyant, but without being big and flappy, it's quite gusty outside today...

Maybe I should take inspiration from Aline's hat in A Face Full of Snow - the one that Eric thought was a alien on her head... It has eyes on stalks, and looks as if it could see round corners to search out new ideas...

Limited editions and gingerbread moose...

I now have my print quote, and number mashing has given me a headache - I think my brain runs better on words than numbers, a bit like putting the wrong fuel in you car...

As a self publisher I need to decide how many books to have printed, the bigger the print run the cheaper per book they are to print, but the figures soon add up, and this one was never going to be a cheap book to produce with all the colour photos that I just couldn't leave out. So I'm thinking I might do a limited edition on this one, and then future editions will have fewer photos... we'll see.

Meanwhile, I got distracted as I tend to do and baked some gingerbread moose...

How not to write a blurb...

So my task of the day is to write a blurb for my forthcoming book...

I made a start, I made some notes, then I remembered that there is a formula for writing blurbs - buzz words, and ways of making a blurb stand out, so I googled it...

I read some advice about how to go about it, the best one seemed to be to read the blurbs from similar books to get inspiration, which lead me to a well known on line book seller, and that's when inspiration turned to distraction - after reading some blurbs, I then progressed to the 'look inside' option, and I was soon totally absorbed in reading some first chapters, and now have a short list of 3 books that I simply have to read...  so what now - well maybe I should analyse what took me from market research to need to buy... or maybe I should just get my head down and write my blurb...