Blogging in a daze

It’s been almost two weeks since I last posted – my regular Mondays have gone off the rails. Last time it was a Thursday, today Wednesday. However, I have reasons…

I’m going to start with some sad, personal news. My lovely Dad passed away last week. The man who taught me how to make stick men dance across the screen on a Vic 20, who made sure subsequent computers had word processing features (back when they weren’t standard), and who subscribed to Writer’s News for years on my behalf. He wasn’t a big reader, unless it was a maths book (?!), but he always supported me.

I mention it here because it’s going to affect everything I do for the next few weeks and months, perhaps years… In fact, it already has – while I was sitting with him, holding his hand, one day, the last few sentences of my novel-in-progress popped into my head. So, thank you, Daddy!

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Just when I needed to share that news, and tell relevant people, and promote books and offers and everything else I do that isn’t actual writing, my laptop died for a second time in three weeks. And it was terminal. I now have a new hard drive. And I’ve learned two very simple things:

1. I don’t back up nearly enough. The last complete one was just after it broke down the first time – I haven’t yet checked whether I backed up individual documents, which I sometimes to if I’ve done a lot of edits. But not all the time. Today I shall mostly be researching automatic backups!
2. When I do backup, I don’t necessarily pay attention to where it’s going. I use a financial package daily, and backup often. Except… it was backing itself up into the same folder on the same hard drive 😒

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That Sadie Thing

On the 31st December, I will be removing That Sadie Thing from general sale.

It will still be available as a download by signing up to my newsletter and I have several copies which I can sign and send anywhere in the UK for just £5. Message me for more details.

You can do both of these things by following this link

Still Raising Money

Shekinah is a charity in Plymouth which supports homeless people. I will be donating 50% of the royalties I make from the sale of Grace & Serenity throughout December.

You can read more about it in my last post.

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50 Give or Take

Do you have five minutes to read a story a day? No?

What about one minute.

Vine Leaves Press send out a daily newsletter featuring a single story of just 50 words, give or take.

Sign up here to start receiving your daily story.

And finally… Win $50 worth of Vine Leaves Books

Speaking of newsletters, do you fancy signing up to another one? Roz Morris, the latest addition to the Vine Leaves team is giving away $50 worth of books. Just follow this link to find out more.

Phew. I think that’s enough information for one post. I’ll hopefully be back to my regular blogging schedule on Monday!