… or apologies. It would seem to be many weeks since I tapped out a post for my blog (so much for my great plan to write something for it once a fortnight!), although I have been busy on my website.
Apart from changing the look (and I’m not totally sold on it yet, although I do love the photo), you’ve possibly noticed that I have added a sign up form, so that I can start sending out newsletters (I’m thinking monthly) and keep my readers up to date with what is happening.
The reason it took me so long to sort out the sign up form... which is the easy part... was trying to work out how to add a thank you gift in the form of a short story. My technical abilities are a bit on the … um… limited side, but with lots of reading... ta da ... I worked it out (I’m a great believer in the fact that if you can read, you can teach yourself to do anything... okay, maybe not mailchimp, that defeated me, and probably not brain surgery... hmm, maybe that was too much of a generalisation, but you get what I mean).
Anyway, so now, if you do sign up, my first newsletter to you will contain a link to Connall of the Corragh, which is an electronic version of a story that was published back in 2004 in Refuge, an anthology of children’s stories edited by Stephen Matthews at Gininderra Press.
Another reason I have been so remiss in my blogging duties is that I have been working overtime trying to republish another of my short stories with Kindle Direct.
This was a learning curve of amazing proportions, which saw me also trying to learn Scrivener (for Linux), rewrite the original to be a bit longer, change the title, add some illustrations, attempt to use Scrivener to turn it into a mobi file, give up and use something called Calibre, find out that I had indeed been successful with Scrivener but that Calibre worked more easily for me, design a book cover, investigate ISBNs, navigate the US tax interview, redesign a better book cover, complete all the author and book stuff for Kindle, and eventually hit the publish button – complete with a link in my story back to my website!
By now, I had a full on case of the ‘flu, complete with a light headed, foggy brain, and I completely forgot to tell anyone that I had published it. I did eventually make a casual mention of it on facebook, and I may have twittered something, but then again, twitter moves so fast that I may have only thought I was twittering!
Syvarne’s Daughter I: The River Dragon Awakes is now live on Kindle, and can be purchased via Amazon here. Note that I have given it a title, a number, and a subtitle. This is because I decided I liked the setting and the characters so much that I’m planning on writing some more short stories. When I have a few, I might put them together into a compilation, but the plan is that they should each be able to stand alone.
Whatever, I can now claim to be an indie author, or possibly even hybrid.
Break out the champagne.
I’m also working on some other short stories for children and young adults that I’ll be putting up bit by bit, all of them either reboots of earlier published works or stories that have won awards in competitions. I'll probably use Scrivener to get them ready, because I just loved the ease with which I could review scenes and jump around the document.
In the meantime, my traditionally published series for younger children is still in the works and (I believe) the plan is that the first two will make an appearance in February next year.
I’ll probably write another blog post before then (yes, I will get back to my ramblings on How to Write a Novel), and hopefully even a newsletter or two.
Oh, and thank you, I do seem to be over the ‘flu, so I can’t use that as an excuse any more!
Syvarne's Daughter I: The River Dragon Awakes is a short medieval fantasy adventure for older children, where Anwen and her friend, Trystan, use magic to save their town from the Storm Makers, and come face to face with the River Dragon. It is the first tale in a planned series of short stories, where we meet the children as they discover that their world is not quite as they thought, and that they have awakening strengths and powers that Anwen never dreamed of.