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Month: July 2011

Well, that wasn’t quite what I had in mind

I know I said I wanted to simplify my life, but this wasn’t quite what I had in mind….. First up though – good news. My dissertation was handed in on Thursday.  I’m so excited that I managed it, and am delighted that I got through it in one piece, more or less.  In the end I never handed in the story I wrote at the beginning of the year, that I’ve prepped to hand it in and instead ran with the first half of a new Elliot and Morri novella.  It’s done, dusted, handed in.  And all I need…

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Kai’s ‘day in the life’

I’ve thought about this a lot in the last three or four weeks – and every time I go to write it, I realise it’s difficult to pin down my ‘average’ day.  But Chris Brogan outlined his day, so I thought I’d give it a try 😉 There are a couple of commonalities, but it’s been difficult to tie everything into each other lately.  But I thought I’d give it a try. My ‘job’. I am a full-time writer.  So I copywrite, and if I’m not copywriting, I do other content for my blogs, or write fiction.  I’ve been off…

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things you probably don’t know about me – 25 at a time

One of the things I’ve realised is that many people don’t actually *know* me, some of that’s deliberate, but that if I don’t start really connecting with people, all of the advice I give people about working with their community is going to be pretty hollow. So, here’s how this one’s going to work. For this first set of 25, I’m going to tag five people and then for the next set, I’m going to use people that have commented on the post.  Once a week on a Sunday, I’ll post em and we can see if we can’t all…

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Some Twitter hashtags I set up :)

I thought I’d share some twitter hashtags I’m ‘behind’. #tIAG – the Twitter indie Author Group – The Indie Author Group is a group on Facebook, that I’m part of. #iahop  – for the Indie Author Blog hop! And finally, Superwriter’s Sunday – #swsun – a bit like Follow Friday, but to show the best authors that you know. How you should use these hashtags Twitter hashtags are brilliant for promoting your stuff – but only if you use them right.  Use them to tag posts you think someone should see, to ‘file’ something with other, similar stuff, or, possibly…

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I needs me a better job

Actually, I don’t – I needs me a bit more organisation, to make my job better. At the moment, I get up at 7:30am, deal with the kidlets, and if I know I’m going out, I shower, get dressed (into clothes I’ve laid out the night before if I’m super organised) and sometimes walk his lordship to school.  I do my stuff in town or over in Cheltenham, and head back (though, right now I’m not keen on leaving the house.  Don’t know why but I’m forcing myself to go further out of my comfort zone so that should be…

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My 10 years as a professional writer is coming up

I started writing professionally in 2001.  Part time, but still, I wrote for several sites and blogged (though it was a html template and the damned thing needed the new links added to *every bloody* page, cause I didn’t know about php back then).  I’ve always been a writer, but there was the conscious decision, in 2001, to do it full time.  It was around the time I started having problems in my second pregnancy, and they were predicting some pretty dire things for PrincessPink (which thankfully mostly didn’t come true) and I had to make some sort of decision…

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OMG – this just in – extortion!

I’m so furious about this that I’m blogging direct from my phone. I got an email at ‘theviewfrommykindle’ and at this blog saying that if I didn’t retract the review of (book) that they would post a retaliatory one star review on *everything* I ever publish. Extortion is wrong – but the way I look at it – if this author does this, I can send the email onto the review sites to let them know. My advice? If an author tries to extort you, keep the emails and inform the ‘official’ organisation if they carry through.

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The story behind ‘Pillow talk’

I get asked this a lot, because Pillow Talk is one of those pieces that stays with people for a very long time after they read it.  It’s a short story, and I wrote it because one of my tutors, at the time of meeting me, said I was holding back.  He was right. What happened was I was in a psychology class in year 2 on torture.  And then, straight after that class, I was at a prose class.  And the two just kinda collided in my head. I am, deep down, quite an emotional person.  I’ve tried for…

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Holidays this year

27th July, I’ll be in Edinburgh till the 29th.  On the 28th, I’ll be in town all day, and I’m happy to meet up with people – just let me know when you’re free (as it’s Thursday night, I think Starbucks on Princes Street is open late – so we can meet there?). I’ve got some family visits to make during the day – but I’ll be around, I think from about 3pm or so till late.  Would love to see everyone if posible 🙂 (For those of you not aware because you’re either new to the feed or missed…

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Going to war redux

Well done to those that got the ‘Dr Who’ reference 😉 The last week has seen some chances in how I view the community – I’m beginning to see that one of the major problems is that there are some people in the community that castigate people with one breath and then, scarily, endorse them in another.  It seems, basically, that there are some in the community more interested in choosing to play their own interests off against lying.  And I’m not sure how to address that other than, possibly, ignore them for all but the most important stuff. War is going…

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