A wedding and book titles

My baby brother got married last Saturday, so things have been really chaotic here for the last few weeks. We had loads of people staying over for the wedding and I’m so relieved to have the house back to myself again. It’s strange that it’s over now. We’ve spent the last year and a half talking about nothing else and now it’s over it seems strange not to be thinking about it and talking about it. The whole year so far has been leading up to it. It was a lovely day, although it’s nice to be looking back on it now instead of looking forward towards it.

Work is going ok, although I’m struggling to pick up enough hours. It varies week to week and some weeks are better than others. I’m saving up to get the River Maid edited which will hopefully be soon. I hoped to have it up by now, but things never go as planned. It will definitely be up in the next couple of months and then I want to get Bones 2 up before the end of the year as well. I can’t believe we’re almost halfway through the year already. Last year seemed to go really quick and this one is as well. They say that as you get older time seems to go by quicker, but I’m not that old yet. I still have so much I want to do before the end of the year. I’m going to write Bones 2 and 3 back to back, so once The River Maid is up it won’t be long before Bones 2 is up and then hopefully Bones 3.

I’ve been trying to think of a title for the sequel to Bones instead of just thinking of it as Bones 2. It needs a name, but nothing seems to fit or it’s already been used as a title. At one point it was going to be Iron and Blood, but Blood and Iron is already a common title. I then decided on Masks and Mirrors, but I’m not sure about it. It will probably stay as Masks and Mirrors if I can't come up with anything else. Some books are easy to name. They sort of name themselves or it’s really obvious what they’re title should be like Bones and Ashes. Others take longer. If it doesn’t come straight away though, it’s probably not going to come at all.

Some good news

I finally got some good news. I’ve been offered a job!!! Yay!! I’m really happy and relieved, although I won’t be able to start for a couple of weeks, but still, it’s such a relief to have a job again. I know some people who have never been unemployed and they don’t understand how hard it is nowadays to find a job. So many people are being made redundant and no ones job is secure. I’m going to be on a zero hour contract, which means that they won’t guarantee that I will be able to get a certain amount of hours every week. I just hope I will be able to pick up enough shifts.

Also, Bones is free on amazon today and tomorrow. I’m just using up the last couple of days of the KDP Select promo before the three months ends. Once it ends I intend to put Bones back up on Smashwords and B&N etc. I didn't like restricting it just to amazon.

Now that I have a job again hopefully things can get back on track with my writing. I have The River Maid sat here waiting to be edited. As soon as I can get the money together that can go off. I'm at that stage now where I alternate between thinking it's the worst thing ever written one day and actually quite liking it the next.

When she was just a girl, she expected the world

It was my birthday last week. I was 28, which is quite a scary age to be. I’m getting close to 30 now and really far away from 20. When you’re young, birthdays mean presents and cake, but as you get older you realise birthdays are there to count the number of your years. It makes you think about all the things you still haven’t done and all the things you will never do.

I still don’t feel like an adult. I always thought that when you hit your late twenties you would know things, who you are, where you’re going, but I’m just as lost and unsure as I was when I was 16 or 21. I’m still figuring things out. Maybe you never reach that point of knowing, or maybe it will come when I hit 30.

My mum and little nephew got me another hamster. I wasn’t sure about whether or not to have one, but I missed having one and I don’t care if I’m too old. She doesn’t have a name yet. Usually, I know immediately what their name is going to be. It’s always after a sci-fi show or anime or something, but I’m still thinking. I will now spend the rest of the day trying to remember how all the tunnels went together. I have enough rotastak stuff to build a hamster city for half a dozen hamsters, but the only problem with it is that it takes forever to take apart and put together again.

RIP Padme

Pad passed away a couple of days ago. I knew it was coming. She had stopped going in her wheel and she wasn’t moving out of her bed except to eat and drink. I went to check on her in the afternoon and panicked as she wasn’t in her house and I couldn’t see her anywhere in the cage. I thought she’d escaped, but then I saw her curled up asleep in one of her tunnels. She’d moved some sawdust into it and made herself a little nest. She looked like she was sleeping. I thought at first that she was, but she didn’t move when I tapped on the side. I know she was only a hamster, but she was loved and she will be missed.

I started to watch the new Titanic series on itv. It was written by the same guy who wrote Downton Abbey, so I was expecting it to be good, but I just can’t get into it. The chronology is all over the place and I don’t really care about most of the characters. I think there’s just been too many Titanic films and series.

My brother is recording Game of Thrones for me. I can’t wait to see Brienne. I’m rereading the books at the moment and just started the third one. I forgot how awful George R R Martin is to some of his characters. I know they say you should make your characters suffer, but he really does the most awful things to them.

I have an interview tomorrow. Fingers crossed it goes well. I don’t want to get my hopes up too much, but I really need a job. I’ve gone through what little savings I had and my mum is having to help me out this month so I can cover all my bills. I hate having to borrow money from her. Maybe one day my books will start selling well and I will be able to help her out a bit.

So, it's been a while....

So, it’s been a while since I last blogged and once you get out of the habit of blogging the harder it is to get back into it. I’m still looking for a job which is mostly why I haven’t blogged in a while. I’ve been a little down and I don’t want this to be a place where it’s me whining about my life. There’s so many people who have it much harder than I do and I would rather this be a happy, positive place even if I’m not feeling that way myself.

I’ve been watching Game of Thrones on dvd for the last couple of days. We don’t have sky atlantic so I had to wait for the dvds to come out to see it, but I knew I would love and adore it from the videos posted on youtube. I have one more disc to go, but I really don’t want to watch it. I don’t want the series to end. I know the second one is due to start in a few days, but I probably won’t be able to see it until it comes out on dvd in a years time. I remember reading the first book when I was in my teens. It’s strange, I haven’t read it in over ten years and yet I can still remember so much of it. I’ve been meaning to reread the series before I read A Dance with Dragons, but my copies are buried among hundreds of other books. I might buy the ebook versions and that way I will never lose them again. I’ve started buying ebook versions of a lot of books I already own if they’re not too expensive. I’m one of those people who vowed they would never buy an ereader as I love my books too much. Now, I can’t remember the last time I bought a hard copy of a book. It’s the same with music. Once I got an ipod that was it and I never bought an album from a shop again.

It’s Earth Hour tonight and I will be turning off my lights at 8.30pm. If you don’t know what it is you can read about it here

Bones and Ashes free on amazon

I nearly forgot to tell you that Bones will be free on amazon over the weekend through the KDP Select programme. At least it should be, unless I signed it up wrong. I don’t see how anyone will be able to find it, unless they’re specifically searching for it, but you never know. Maybe someone will stumble across it who wouldn’t have normally.

I kind of feel like Bones isn’t pretty enough compared to the other YA book covers out there. I like that it’s different and not like every other YA novel, but I know people are attracted to pretty covers, especially girls in ball gowns, which seems to be the big thing in YA covers. Bones is kind of an ugly duckling next to them. I would like to get a cover done professionally at some point when I have the money. That could be a while though given my present circumstances.

So, Bones should be available from Friday through to Sunday on amazon for free. You can download it here on amazon us and here on amazon uk. It could be a couple of hours though before it appears as free, so you might need to check back later.

Pancake Day!!

It’s Shrove Tuesday today, which means Pancake Day! I always get excited about it. I love pancakes, but we only ever have them once a year on Pancake Day. I like them plain with lemon and sugar. I know it’s not very exciting, but it’s how we always had them when I was younger. I don’t think they celebrate Pancake Day everywhere in the world. I have a friend who lives in Holland who thought I was crazy one year when I said it was Pancake Day. Although as he lives in Holland, he can have pancakes all the time (so could I, but it wouldn’t be the same). I’m not particularly religious, but Pancake Day is a bit like Christmas, more of an excuse for families to get together to cook and eat.

I enrolled Bones in amazon’s KDP Select programme a couple of days ago. I took it down from Smashwords on the 7^th February and then I had to wait for the various retailers to remove it from their sites. It took nearly two weeks for everyone to remove it. Once you enroll in KDP Select, amazon then gives you three days in case you change your mind, which is good of them. After that you’re bound to it for three months before you can opt out if you want too. We’ll see what happens. I had nothing to lose by trying it and it’s only for three months.

The job hunting isn’t going so well. There’s so few jobs to apply for. A lot of the ones I’m applying for have closing dates in the middle of March. It could be over a month before I start hearing back from them - that’s if I even hear back from them. I’m trying to stay positive. My mum keeps saying something will turn up, so I just have to hope she’s right.