… or something.  Despite best intentions, I have not managed to blog for nearly six months (groan) after two posts in July, one of which represented a lot of research into book covers that I thought people would find useful, so it was disappointing not to receive feedback.

Never mind!  This isn’t meant to be a right old moan.  Instead, I want to do a catchup to cover what I’ve been doing writing-wise, which isn’t as much as I wanted, due to health issues.  But I did at least manage NaNoWriMo in November, which I did as a rebel, because I wanted to continue the edit of the first novel I am intending to self publish.  That went well and I ‘won’ with a healthy margin to spare, despite lagging behind initially.  I even managed to do a bit more after taking the screenshot above, so overall was pleased with my progress.

After that, I started to go through the novel from the beginning again to try to see if certain nitpicking grammatical and passive tense type things have been addressed.  Unfortunately, preparations for Christmas got in the way, and then a dose of ‘flu, as well as other issues.  So I haven’t got back into it properly yet, though I am trying my very hardest.

Other things have been distracting I must admit, such as following forums on Goodreads, and a great forum I discovered, SFF Chronicles.  I don’t know where authors are meant to find time for such things as FaceBook, Twitter and you-name-it.  And whether it actually rewards us in proportion to the time and effort spent away from writing.  But if anyone is interested in the reviews I have posted of books I’m reading in an attempt to declutter (paperback fiction), you can find them at Goodreads.

As well as fiction, I’ve been doing a lot of reading, mainly online, about marketing, promotion and the new buzzword, discoverability.  In fact, I am part way through reading a very good book about the latter, in its Kindle version – Discoverability by Kristine Katherine Rusch.  Although it is aimed at people with several books already published, and would undoubtedly benefit those with a range of novels, it also has some sage advice for writers who have not yet dipped a toe into self publishing, for example, on the importance of defining the correct categories to use when tagging your book in Amazon.  Quite a few of its lessons would benefit people just starting out, and I hope to apply them and be able to draw more benefit from the book as I am able to bring out more of my novels.

Just realised I’m in time for the beginning of a new quarter of ROW80, Round the World in 80 Words.  So I need to set out some goals:

1. Return to the edit and get at least the first 4 chapters rechecked for the nitpicking edits, in the next fortnight
2. Continue the edit and get it done by end March (fingers crossed)
3. Work out how to format a Kindle book including the front and end pages and what to put in those

I forgot to mention that I did complete one of my July goals:  to submit ‘Rian’ to the Hodderscape Open Submission.  So far, I’ve heard nothing back, but according to an update on their website, anyone who did not hear back by the end of 2015 is actually having their submission read for the second time!

Anyway, to showcase those nice folks at ROW80 –