Today is August Bank Holiday Monday in England and Wales. Not the UK, as Scotland has its August Bank Holiday at the start of the month. I’m old enough to remember that England used to do that too, and I
Musings on an August Bank Holiday
The Sign of Five | Bloggers’ Bash 2019
The Bloggers Bash Competition this year is on the theme of FIVE. quintus ~ cinq ~ cinco ~ fünf ~ pente ~ khms ~ wu ~ tano Or… in Bosnian, Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Serbian, Slovak and Slovenian, it is pet—
Question #AtoZChallenge
Do you question things enough? Sometime in March one of my regular newsletters mentioned this quote: The most erroneous stories are those we think we know best – and therefore never scrutinize or question. palaeontologist and biologist Stephen Jay Gould (1941-2002)
Author recommendations
What do you think of author recommendations? I can’t remember why I wondered this, whether it was an article I saw or a thought that leapt into my addled brain after reading the latest Goodreads authors newsletter. There may have
The Happy New Year Post
Family have left, friends have gone, the leftover food has all been eaten up or turned into soup and frozen, and I’m resolving to lose what I put on over Christmas without doing anything too drastic so I end up eating
How many series are you reading? (and #QOTM)
I was starting to spot reading challenges for next year, thinking I ought to do a non-fiction one to make me read a book I’ve had for years, which I deliberately put at number 5 in my list for this year
What do you think of Instagram?
I know I should be active on social media. As an author, the best way to get people to see your books is to be out there, saying hello and mixing with the crowd, rather than spending money spamming people
#IWSG for July | Is it worth it?
I’ve been seeing a number of the authors who have become friends over the last five years questioning whether it’s all worthwhile lately. I know what they mean because I’ve been thinking that too. If you’ve been going some time
#QOTM | Your Favourite Book
Another first Monday of the month, and I’d like to wish all my American friends a happy Independence Day. It’s also another Question of the Month, posed by Michael D’Agostino of A Life Examined. You can join in – just
Ask my characters some questions
When I asked in the winter what posts you liked best, ‘Character interviews’ came up – and I haven’t done any of those for ages. So I think I’d better solve that. I’m planning on posting these through July and August,
The dreaded DNF
How many books do you not finish each year? I seem to go through phases; I don’t know whether it’s what I’m reading or how I feel about the book and other things I have to do. Sometimes the book
Real life or just Fantasy?
No, I’m not caught in a landslide, although come to think of it, maybe I should put Pete and the Swede in one. I’m getting on well with the word count for Viridian System #2 – you can check on
Review Policy | Mine and Amazon’s
There’s a thing going on at Amazon, and I didn’t notice it till late November. Amazon are taking down reviews that appear to be swaps, i.e. you review my book and I’ll review yours. In some cases, they’ll even take
What you like
Last month I gave you a poll to find out what you liked (and by assumption, didn’t care for so much) on my blog. You also left useful comments and feedback; thank you for your time and effort. The highest
Poll: What do you like about my blog?
December is often the time for navel-gazing, for assembling ‘Best of’ lists, and over-indulgence. I’m going to crave your indulgence and ask for some feedback. Now that I have two series, one group project, and my dad’s memoirs to manage,
M Pax’s Realms Faire starts today
I signed up for this a couple of months back, not entirely sure of what I was letting myself in for. There is an organiser, M Pax, and a number of people who are hosting a tournament of on-line games (see link
Books and buying power
I read a wonderful post on pricing books, thanks to the Kid Lit Blog Hop last month. Julie Stroebel Barichello’s post ‘Thoughts on pricing children’s chapter books” explored what she did with her allowance when she was a kid, and
How do you choose your next book?
I had a small window in my time away from the computer the other day, and thought, I know, I’ll pick up a book. I had three listed on my panel at the side (I’d finished a crime mystery the
Sign up for my Blog Tour
I’m taking the Princelings of the East series on the road from September 22nd to 5th October 2015, with the help of the wonderful Tonya at My Family’s Heart. We’ll be scheduling posts for reviews, interviews (me and characters), and excerpts. If
Flash Friday Quote and Question
My options for today’s flash fiction post were: do 1000 words on ‘why I write’ which is today’s challenge from Chuck Wendig; write 1000 words to one of the random titles that came up a couple of weeks back when
The Indie Author in Five Words or less
If you’re an independent author and publish on KDP, you’ll have seen this in their July newsletter. It’s a video of authors trying to describe what it’s like to be an indie author in five words or less. I think.
Flash Excerpt and Question
A mash-up of a post for this Friday – it’s not really Flash Fiction, but it’s only 610 words, so it’s a sort of extended Quote and Question. This is from about halfway through The Perihelix (which I’m editing at present,
Are you on LibraryThing?
I joined LibraryThing a while back as an alternative to Goodreads, probably not long after Goodreads got sold to Amazon. I got it all set up, and occasionally copied a review over there, but I confess I haven’t done much
Rainy days or sunny days? – Book Blogger Hop
You remember I used to join in the Book Blogger Hop occasionally? This is a question I wanted to address at the end of March, but something else came up that HAD to be blogged about, so I postponed it
Quote and Question: Talent Seekers
To celebrate the release of the Talent Seekers as a paperback, I thought you’d like to have a quote and question from it this month. I’ll add any buying links I have for the paperback to this post as soon