“I am excited about what the future will bring, and I think the best is yet to come.”
Alonzo Mourning
Thank you so much Spidey for finding a quote so perfect for how I am feeling right now.
Actually, my feelings are a mixture of nerves and excitement.
It is literally a WEEK until my book baby is officially published!
A WEEK!
How has nearly twenty years passed, since I first had the idea for this book and started to write words on a screen?
Did I ever think that it would really be a ‘thing’?
No.
I never thought I would be a blogger, with an award winning blog, either. I just excitedly posted all manner of stuff, and people seemed to like it, then the best thing happened. I got recognised for it!
The same goes for my work. I always put 110% into my job, and the excitement I have for working with my class is palpable. And the rewards are huge, at the end of every year. Not financially. Everyone knows a teacher’s salary is rubbish. But emotionally. Seeing a child read a word for the first time, unaided, or crack the code of how to add a number to another, independently. Priceless moments. Watching them develop into these amazing little human beings with empathy, and seeing their imaginations grow, because we have helped them to learn to access the tools they need to succeed in life. No better feeling.
And similarly, I have an excitement for my book baby. Nervous excitement, as I said. You never know what might happen, but the feedback I have received from beta readers, and some advance readers has been enough for the excited butterflies to be going crazy in my stomach for the last few weeks! I can only hope that other readers feel the same about my story, too!
Who knows?
So… tell me, what excites you at the moment?
And… have you preordered, yet? The Kindle version is available to preorder, or the paperback will be out from the 9th Feb! Check out the blog tour that starts tomorrow!
“A smile is a curve that sets everything straight.”
Phyllis Diller
Well, thank you for that, Spidey. You know exactly how I feel about smiling. 🙂
Personally, I feel so much better, when I have a smile on my face. Even if times are tough, that slight upwards curve of my lips, sets the tone for how I approach things.
I guess a smile helps to send positive hormones around your body, and they will make you look at situations in a much brighter way.
Equally, greeting someone with a smile (a genuine one, though) eases moments too. I know that as long as I have a smile for my parents, when opening the door every morning, and more smiles for my pupils, the parents leave, reassured, and the children come in happier, too.
I am known for having that smile on my face. When I was at university, I was described as ‘that smiley, curly haired girl from Birmingham’. See, the smile was always noticed first!
And I am totally unable to put a false smile on.
Even if I try and smile to mask any hurt or upset, it is quickly picked up on by those closest to me. Because that smile won’t reach my eyes. (That’s how you can tell anyone’s genuine smiles – if they smile and their eyes shine, or even crinkle at the edges, that’s a real one. If they are all teeth, but the eyes are a bit dull, and wide open, hello fake smile!)
Equally, a smile from a stranger can be worth more than you know. It costs us nothing, but benefits us by exercising plently of facial muscles, and can give someone who may be feeling forgotten, a real boost.
So… today, I won’t ask a question. Today, a challenge. Try and smile a little through adversity, and see how it might change your outlook on a situation.Or give someone who looks like they need it, a smile.
Have a peaceful Sunday Peeps. Smile, and enjoy your week! ❤
When you have a dream, often there is an inspirational person out there, willing you to dream this dream.
Why keep it at dream status?
If you want to achieve something, you are the only one who can do it. And if you don’t, there are many people out there with the gumption to take their dream, which might be similar to yours, and fly with it.
BE that person. Live your dream!
Okay, so you want to be that person. But, life, you know. Too much going on. Work, family, commitments. They all take up so much of your time, that there is none left to achieve your goal.
Nonsense.
Unless your dream involves a huge amount of planning, and maybe finance that you have to raise, there is NOTHING stopping you getting on the ladder to climbing up to that dream cloud your idea is sitting in, and reaching it.
It may be small things to start with, but if you want to buy a house, start looking. If you want to streamline your life, start decluttering small parts of your house. If you want to write a book, cut down on the TV you watch, and put some words to paper.
They may not be your dream achieved, but they are the starts. And everything has to start somewhere!
So… tell me, what dream do you have, and what step can you take to make it come true?
“If you want to change the world, pick up your pen and write.”
Martin Luther King
Thank you for the pearls of wisdom, Spidey!
I know that a few words from you might not feel like you are changing the world, but they may just change your world.
You see, your words, once published, could lead to followings or sales, that change your life.
And there are plenty of us out there, who want to be best-selling authors, or have posts that go viral, for good reason.
But, in order to even have a chance, you need to actually write those words, and get them out there.
I am nervously excited about the book release, and those who have read it in advance, are already asking if there is any more to come from the characters.
You see, some of the secondary characters have developed quite a personality, and want to be written about too. And I have the ideas, the basic outlines of at least two stories to follow, I just need to put pen to paper and write!
Only then, will I get a chance to change my world, and hopefully, change the world a little too, by bringing smiles on to the faces of my readers.
So… tell me, what would you try and change in this world, or yours, with words?
Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently.
Henry Ford
Firstly, welcome back to Spidey and his wisdom on this first Sunday of 2020!
Today he brings with him a quote full of insight.
Often, we complete a task, then find out we didn’t quite get there. The first feeling is failure. time to lament how rubbish we are, and wallow in self pity.
What if i told you that was poppycock?
Fail is not negative.
Fail is this:
F - First
A - Attempt
I - In
L - Learning
You see, this is where you have to embrace the power of YET.
Just because you didn’t get it now, doesn’t mean you’ll never get it. It just means you need a little (or lot) more practice, and you can get there.
It’s all in the power of the mind, and your perseverence.
I nearly succumbed to the whole “I am cr@p” thing this week, after being elated at getting the proof copy of my book, Marriage Unarranged. I have read, reread, tweaked, edited, submitted for feedback, changed and reread this manuscript so many times, I was sure there would be no errors…
Then a dear friend who is reading for review purposes came back to me with a note to say she was enjoying it, but there were a couple of niggles, with silly punctuation errors (only a few) and a couple of spelling slip ups, and that she knew how hard I had been working on this, so to make it better, to check it one more time, with a fine tooth comb.
I was, initially, devastated. How could there be any more errors? I have worked my backside off to get this baby perfect!
But she gave me a couple of examples, and when I checked, lo and behold, she was right.
Drat!
Now I really did have to go through it again, not reading the story, but looking at the mechanics. That is one of the toughest things to do. I can’t even read aloud in a monotone voice, because I am one of life’s storytellers, and as I read words, the emotions and accents come out naturally. (Ask my class and colleagues… they love me reading Rastamouse – Irie, man!)
After posting in one of the extremely supportive groups I am a member of, on Facebook, I got lots of ideas, and started looking through the book with a ruler, pen and my Post-its. Then, I pulled up the word document, and the formatted Vellum version, and corrected the errors I had been told about. And went on from there, finding a few missing full stops, or speech marks, and a couple of spelling errors that I wouldn’t have picked up easily via spell check, or grammer check, as they were real words, but not the right ones.
And one of the members offered to proof read the document again for free, in exchange for a testimonial for her business website.
Note to all wannabe writers out there: publishing a book is an expensive business at the best of times. You can get sucked in by vanity publishers, or stuck in a vicious circle of finding the best editors/cover designers/formatters etc. and find that money can leak through your pockets so fast, if you aren’t savvy. I have had to spend some, but I have to say, compared to what I have seen others mention about their spend for a book, I haven’t done badly at all. I have relied upon word of mouth, and recommendation for many services, and by being open to helping others, I have found many people willing to help me with a lot of the services that you would usually pay for. Looking it up, the average self published author will spend between $2-4000 for a book. I think my spend, once I order my author copies, including editing, cover design and some promotion, will be $1200. So, if you find anyone offering, genuinely, to help, from beta readers to covers, consider the offer carefully. It can help you cut your costs, but make sure you trust them, and are confident of their recommendations and work too.
So, now I await the feedback from my proofreader friend, then I can resubmit the files, (hoping page count doesn’t change – that affects the cover size, and my designer is on holiday, and of there are any alterations, it might mean that the paperback is delayed) and hope my version of perfection is acheived, finally!
Here’s hoping the next time Spidey visits, there will be a much improved version of my book available! It’s just not quite there, yet!
So… tell me, is there anything you can’t do, quite, YET, but are persevering over?
And, if you did want to preorder the Kindle version of my soon-to-be released book, just click on the following link – getbook.at/Marriage.Unarranged
But I Smile Anyway... 