Tag: Desiccation

Contemplating a #New Year #Book Blog Tour

Desiccation ebook_image(300 pixels)Publication Day for my Urban fantasy novel Desiccation in mid-December came and went without much panoply on my part. This was mainly because I was suffering from post-flu exhaustion and felt in no mood to uncork the champagne, let alone shout from the rooftops. Despite this, a modest number of wonderful people — some of them my fellow bloggers — purchased my book and, to my absolute surprise, I’ve sold paperback and kindle editions in equal quantities.

So a big thank you to all you early birds. And an especially huge thank you to Dave Farmer, who read my book over a course of a few evenings and found the time to review it on Amazon and on Goodreads before Christmas, giving it 5 stars.

Indeed, most of the world seemed distracted by the pre-Christmas rush, followed by post-Christmas malaise, plus the stagger on into New Year with no time for reading and little money left for buying books. And would you believe it, about a week before Christmas I caught a cold on top of the flu? — albeit not a bad one, but enough to drain me of any energy to market my book and enough to make me lose my singing voice just when I needed it most.

Anyway, enough of that. I’m feeling like my old self today and raring to jump into the driving seat of my virtual convertible to vroom around the blogosphere on a tour.

All invitations most welcome!

As a little post script, I’d like to add that Jamie Noble Frier, the super-talented artist who produced my book cover, now has his blog interview questions to hand and should be guesting here soon.

And yet another post script — I’ve just revised my Publication Updates page to include links to all the places around the world that my book is available to buy!

Time-hop: 1967, the year when an elite boarding school went to hell #science fiction #fantasy

Andy’s eyes turned a piercing black. He picked up the guitar — Samantha’s dreaded electric guitar — and held it above his head, a warrior brandishing his weapon. To his right, one of the Three Graces stood poised, her skirt halfway up her thighs and a bass guitar in her hands. To his left stood another of the Graces, her arms raised and her fingers spread like the talons of a descending eagle over an electronic keyboard. Behind him, the most butch of the girls sat twirling polished wooden sticks behind a set of drums.

Desiccation (excerpt ch 23) 

Click here, to find out more

Dreaming of a yellow teapot and awaking to publication day #urban fantasy

ebook_image

yellow teapot

Still pinching myself to check that I’m awake, but somehow I’ve managed to achieve publication of my urban fantasy novel Desiccation. It is now available to buy in Kindle or Paperback format at Amazon.

You may ask what a yellow teapot has to do with publication day. Anybody into dream analysis around here? Personally, I think it indicates that writing, editing, formatting, and publishing can take you to the brink of insanity. It also indicates that I watch too much Nordic Noir on television, not that I know if the Scandinavians are into yellow teapots.

In my dream, I was inside a giant yellow teapot manoeuvring it into a parking space outside a golf club. Once I’d parked it, I climbed out of its top (the equivalent of a sunshine roof) and magicked the teapot down to normal size, after which I proceeded into the golf club to search people’s coat pockets as part of a covert operation to solve a crime.

Well there you are. If you think my yellow teapot dream is weird, I can assure you it’s nothing compared to some of the weirdness in Desiccation.

If you would like to find out more, please do visit my page Desiccation (Blurb).    

A Child’s Eye View — The Pond

Pond

Aware that I haven’t posted much in the last week or two, I thought to delight you with this busy picture of pond life that I drew for my Nature Study homework at the age of eight.

Working on a story set in a school — albeit a senior school — has made me think back to my own studies as a child. At primary school, Nature Study and Art were my two favourite subjects. The main character in my novel, Desiccation,  is a 15-year-old science scholarship girl who discovers that not everything in the universe runs according to the textbook.

I am nearly there with publishing, but it’s taking longer than I expected. First I took a short break to visit family in the Isle of Wight. Then I had flu. After that, in my attempt to catch up with the final proofing and corrections of my novel, I gave myself a frozen shoulder by spending too much time on the computer. But I’m on the mend now, thanks to homeopathy and qigong exercises.

Will return to regular posting, plus visiting everyone’s wonderful blogs, as soon as possible.

Missing you all, of course.

The Proof of the Pudding is in the Reading #Indie publishing

Proof Copy of Desiccation

The proof copy of my urban fantasy novel Desiccation has arrived! Here I am posing in front of my bookshelf that’s populated with the works of all those literary greats who have inspired me to write.

When I showed the book to my son, Joshua, he inspected the front and back cover, browsed through a page or two (just like someone visiting a shop or library) and declared, “Wow, it looks like a real book!”

I am so excited. But now to stay level and proofread it through with absolute concentration. The formatting looks good, but there might still be a sneaky little typo hiding somewhere.

My eBook version is ready, but waiting for conversion to html after I’m sure there are no typos in the paperback copy.

Then it’s all systems go.

But before  cracking on with the last stage, I’m taking a breather until next Tuesday to spend time doing something other than book-related stuff.

Am exhausted, but jubilant…

See you all next week xxxx

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