A big success

Let me begin by explaining that I am not at this point, referring to my books (as much as I long for the day that this will, in fact, be the case.) As it is, at the moment I don't think that there is much danger of me knocking JK off her perch. No, the Big Success referred to in the title is in fact the charity evening that we organised in memory of Dad. As per usual for me, not a lot went according to plan. We had spent months planning and as the evening drew near, tensions were running high as my sisters and I could not agree on certain aspects of the evening. Should we wear tee shirts with the hospice logo? How should the raffle with nearly 60 prizes be organised? Should we have a seat plan as advertised? Should one of the acts be included? And on it went. One act I had been thrilled to book couldn't make it. I had given him the wrong date, deep sigh. (Thank goodness I checked!) A lovely young singer did not own her own equipment so we didn't know if she could perform. And we're we going to sell enough tickets after a slow start. Were we charging too much? Or enough? How much food should we order for the buffet? We couldn't find a dj for the disco....The stress of it all!

On the day we decorated the room and it looked amazing. Great start. Then people began to arrive and we had sold over 150 tickets. Most of our family and friends were there and we were thrilled and amazed at their support. I made a speech. We had music. A dance act cancelled as they were double booked. There was food, we had a raffle, but ran out of raffle tickets half way through and had to run around trying to get more from the venue. The singer was delayed, but set up later. My son was the amazing compère, there was a dressing up corner, we organised gift bags for the ladies and activity packs for the children. There was dancing. There was alcohol. And the room was filled with love and fun.

With the support of a national bank agreeing to add to the total, we raised over £6500.

And just for the record, I am STILL editing and STILL finding mistakes in Albie. I know this has to stop now so I  am on the final read through and then it's going for publication. I'm off to Cyprus next weekend so I have set myself the deadline of completing this by the end of my holiday then it's going straight off on my return. I've been at it for months and I need to let go. Fingers crossed. Procrastinate no more. I'll keep you posted
 Xx

Build an audience for your writing

There are some useful tips here that fellow writers and aspiring writers might find useful.
http://www.authorspublish.com/11-ways-to-build-an-audience-for-your-writing/

A Comedy of Errors

My eldest son is currently working in the French Alps for a children's leisure company. We were lucky enough to go out at the weekend to visit him in the beautiful (high!) resort of Val D'Isere and set off on Saturday morning. Just how daft two mature adults can be in trying to reach their destination rather defies the imagination! We got to Geneva easily enough, despite a slightly delayed flight, but spent half an hour wandering about looking for our hire car. We got lost on the way to the mountains. We were late arriving spent an hour going backwards and forwards looking for the agency holding our apartment keys. When we found it there was a notice saying that they were closed but our keys were in the safe. The safe was outside and required a code which we didn't have. I phoned the emergency number to be told that we did have the code and on further investigation we did. There it was, printed on the email they had sent. We gathered the keys and paperwork and proceeded to the car park. They had no record of us, they said and the car park was full. Twenty minutes of arguing and they suggested that we might have a ticket with the keys. We looked. We did.

     With the car parked we proceeded to the apartment block but didn't know what room we were in. Another ten minutes going through the paperwork again before I realised that the details might actually be in with the keys. They were. And so it went on. Over the three days we spent ten minutes trying to push open a door that said pull (finally rescued by a chuckling local), spent an hour trying to return from a ten minute journey (wrong turn....easy mistake), allowed ourselves to be charged €30 for TWO drinks, fell asleep in deckchairs in the snow, tried to put money into a credit card slot at a toll on the road, drove down the mountain in the dark in a blizzard and got lost again when we tried to return to the airport. Luck, not judgement, got us back in the right place. Really, we shouldn't be allowed anywhere unsupervised and I pity our children for times to come as we get older and dottier!

We had an amazing time though, got to spend time with the eldest, who took his dad skiing whilst I took photos and drank  creamy hot chocolate. I had my IPad and took some great snaps of what I can only refer to as Christmastown, and one of the most beautiful places we have ever seen. And not to leave the book out of things, although it is finished, I decided on one last read through and still found another half a dozen mistakes. Exhausting all round! 

So that was my Easter weekend! Feeling a bit stupid, all things considered but we got there and back in one piece and now have another lot of memories to share. 

But we will be going Package on our next trip. We can't be trusted otherwise!

I finished it!!!

Just popped on here really quickly to say I Finished!!! Sadie's House-The  Secrets is now a complete manuscript!! Off to a few friends for proof reading but the next stage is in progress. Excited! 🍾🍾😀😀😍😂🍫🍫

The age of technology

Very excited to be travelling the French Alps this weekend. It's taken me an age and a half this morning to sort out all the administration for this.....hotel check in on line, car hire, print the tickets and vouchers, decide I need a suitcase so retrace the booking and add this to our flights, organise the car park, check that we have directions and so on. What happened to the good old days when you just toddled off to the travel agents, told them what you wanted then waited for everything to just come in the post? Why is everything so immediate on the one hand, and yet takes me twice as long on the other hand?

I am not the generation that grew up with computers. When I was at school there was THE COMPUTER in D block at school. It took up a whole room and looked like something from your favourite sci fi movie. We had to ring the university then put the phone on to a cradle to connect but it was nothing like the Internet we know today. It was something mysterious and vaguely awe inspiring, we didn't really know what it was for or what it did. It was a simpler time. I was late to university and even then, the COMPUTER was an enigma to me, something quite terrifying that I was convinced would break should I hit the wrong button. I have not mastered the (limited) skills I have today, many years later, without a great deal of anxiety and perseverance! And this continues! 

Today has been hampered by the fact that my own lap top has conked out and when I took it for repair to the shop from whence it came I was greeted with "we don't repair these, you'll have to ohone the company". Deep sigh. Tried to use the daughter's brand new lap top but can't fathom it so have had to rely on my trusty I pad, of which I have become very fond. 

Which brings me nicely round to the book. Having edited it 4 times, I completed a spell check and found about another dozen mistakes, cleared those up and am now half way through formatting ready to send to one or two very generous friends who have offered to read through. And I say half way through formatting as I have stalled yet again due to technical issues! I started writing this sequel in 2012 (I now this because I found the very first draft on my portable hard drive!) so it's been a long time coming. I'm hoping to have it with aforementioned friends before the end of the week. I LOVE this book and I can only hope, as can any writer, aspiring or otherwise, that it is well received. I hope to have news in my next post!

Meanwhile, I'm off not skiing (but I hear good things about the Spa and shopping!)  Meanwhile, stick with it, is my message for today. Perseverance can move mountains ( but not the one I will be at this weekend I hope!!!) 😀✈️⛷

You know you're a writer when........

These certainly resonate with me

Start as you mean to go on

So today I am very much inspired my very close friend's new blog, a witty repartee about her life around the equestrian world. I will post a link once I work out how to do such a thing on my IPad. It prompted me with the reminder of the promise that I had made to blog a bit more regularly than I have, hence the title of this post.

I am feeling slightly proud of myself this evening as I have completed the latest edit of the current book. Now I just have to have one more read through, then transfer it back to the lap top to complete formatting, then contact the publisher, and then off we go again. This series of events is likely to be slightly hampered by the fact that my laptop is currently out of action, having conked out last week after the hinge broke and subsequently broke the screen. But this will be sorted out in time so that I can complete everything. I seem to have been going at this for AGES but I have to say that I am so excited about this book that I actually got goose bumps as I reached the final chapter today. Is that normal? Perhaps I am biased......

And in my spare time, I am organising the charity event I referred to last time. With a full time teaching job and a large family, spare time is rare, but plans are going really well so I hope to be able to report back with news and photos later.

So, back to my plans...progress so far
Blog reorganised - not yet. Still trying to work out how to do this on ipad
Gym - up to 45 minutes and leg and stamina v much improved
Finish book - got a step further with completion of current edit
Blog more - here we go
Work out iPad- trying my best
Not make a fool of myself- difficult as it seems to come so naturally! (Hitting fellow diners over the head with my new boots bag, trying to climb into a cupboard I had mistaken for the door in the toilets, tripping over myself to name but a few on aforementioned visit to shopping centre.)

Will keep you posted on improvements!

Meanwhile, came across this. So whilst I am going to start now as I mean to go on, here are some wise words.