What's the question?

Thanks to Julie Phillips who invited me to take part in this question and answer blog. I believe this originally came from Jane Wenham-Jones and then Lynne Hackles so I feel very privileged to be part of the blog question chain.  I like this sort of thing as it gets people to know a little bit more about me.  It's a nice way of finding out little bits of information that may not normally be published in a blog post. 


Q. Where were you born and where do you live at the moment?


I was born in Madeley, Shropshire. I loved it as a child. We had an old ruined court house, miles of woods and fields to play in and wonderful community spirit on the crescent where I lived.  I now live near to Ludlow on the edge of a small village, it's quite remote, we don't even have a phone box but that's how I love it.

Q. Have you always lived and worked in Britain or are you based elsewhere at present?

I have always lived and worked in Shropshire, I am a true Shropshire lass.



Q. Which is your favourite part of Britain?

Around the Lizzard in Cornwall is my favourite but I am drawn to all the Celtic areas of Britain.



Q. Have you ‘highlighted’ or ‘showcased’ any particular part of Britain in your books? For example, a town or city; a county, a monument or some well-known place or event?

My book 'Red Kite' is set around the South Shropshire hills, mainly the Titterstone Clee which is almost in my back garden! I loved doing the research for it as every time I walked up there, I could walk the footsteps of my main character, this made him very real to me.  



Q. There is an illusion – or myth if you wish – about British people that I would like you to discuss. Many see the ‘Brits’ as ‘stiff upper lip’. Is that correct?



Maybe during the war this was the case but I don’t believe it is today. Some people get on with it no matter what but others - well!!



Q. Tell us about one of your recent books

I have just self published my book ‘Red Kite’ It’s a teenage book about a boy who trying to cope with the death of his brother and is bullied at school. His only joy is that of birdwatching but he is prevented from even enjoying that.
I want to show that there is still a lot of young people who are really into nature and conservation.   



Q. What are you currently working on?



I am writing a series of younger children’s books in the 5-7 age group and also a non-fiction book for the same age about dinosaurs.  When I have those done I am hoping to write some more magazine articles.



Q. How do you spend your leisure time?



I have two horses and four chickens so they take up quite a bit of time. I love spending time out in the garden too. I am fascinated in the Pagan way of life and am studying Wicca at the moment. I love golf and am having lessons.  It was something my Dad was very good at.  I just got the urge to learn one day.  I have also just taken up playing the Ukulele but I am not very good.  When I am not doing any of those things I love writing!



Q. Do you write for a local audience or a global audience?



I hope to reach a global audience with my books but my magazine articles are usually focused on a local audience.

Q. Can you provide links to your work?

I have two other blogs and my page on Amazon

http://insidethechickencoop.blogspot.com/

http://thepaganapprentice.blogspot.com/


http://www.amazon.com/Diane-Perry/e/B00A9SUFPI/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0

Lots of Red Kites

I took my first delivery of several copies of 'Red Kite' today.  It may be a small box but it's the start of my stocking up of copies in the hope that one day I will sell them all. It's expensive to order  large numbers so I will probably just order a few each month and build my supplies that way.

Until now, I was only ordering one at a time. That's the scary thing with self publishing, I had to make sure it was right before sending it out into the world.  It was only me making the decisions and I had no one else to blame if it wasn't right.  The first few attempts were terrible as there was so much to think about.  Each time I received my solitary copy, it came back looking odd with the spine too thin, then the next time it looked like a telephone directory as I kept on changing the layout which altered the thickness of the book.  Then I forgot to put the ISBN number on so that was another copy wasted really.

Finally, I got my act together and was satisfied with the result so took the plunge of ordering a few more copies which arrived today. 

Now the hard work starts of marketing it which to me is even harder than writing it but I have a few plans, some may be crazy but I am going to give it my best shot.    

It's not always about the money

I've had a really good start to my writing year with quite a few letters published in various magazines.  My most recent is Spirit and Destiny magazine which I will receive £25 for my trouble.  It took me fifteen minutes to write and email and so was thrilled to see it published in the lastest edition.

It's not always about the money though.  Of course it's nice to get cash but it's exciting and interesting to receive gifts for publication too.  I had a letter published in Horse magazine recently and was thrilled to receive a voucher for horse feed which will come in very handy for my two ponies!

I'ts good to widen your options and write for as many magazines but if they give prizes instead of cash, the gift you receive may not always be relevant and although you can give it away, it's great to get some sort of payment that is relevent as this one was with me. 

I also had a letter or mini-story published in TAB Fate and  Fortune magazine and received some fun decision dice as a prize for that which again is something I am interested in.  

I would highly reccomend sending letters in to magazines, especially if it's something you are interested in.

Have a go, you never know what you may receive. 

One sentence a day

I mentioned in one of my previous posts that I have set myself a new challenge for 2013.   As well as writing more articles and a non-fiction book, I wanted to do something a bit different.

I was given this beautiful little diary for Christmas with just enough space to write one sentence on each day of the week.  With that in mind I thought if I could do this every day for a whole year, I will actually end up with a short story of around 2000 words by next December 31st if on average my sentences are around 8 - 10 words.  I love challenges like this because I have no idea where it will take me.  My moods and thoughts will be different every day so it will be interesting to see what I have at the end of it.

I found this when I was doing the Nanowrimo challenge which is the other end of the scale in that you have to write 50,000 words in 30 days.  My story took a complete change in the final stages and I had no idea why, it just happened.

I quite like the idea of slowly does it and this certainly won't hinder my other writing projects or give me writers cramp.

So here I go.  I have no idea what to write but when I open it up onto the first day of a new year, I am determined to put an entry in and keep going for the whole year.

Inspirational Blog Awards

I would like to thank Julie Phillips for this inspiring award.  What a lovely way to start the new year.

So now to follow the tradition I will give you seven facts as to why I started to write.


1. My mother is also a writer and she had a huge old typewriter when I was a child.  I wanted to learn to type so I started out by making up little stories and typing them out.

2. In my school holidays I worked through some exercises that Mom had for a journalism course.  I loved the challenge of each assignment and learning new techniques.

3. When I was 14, I was lucky to buy my beautiful horse Chad who is still with me today.  He inspired me to write about horses.  I passed my stable management course and loved jotting down factual things and stories about horses.  My first publication was in Horse and Pony magazine.  I had a letter published and this encouraged me to write more.

4. I also had a fascination about ghosts.  I loved writing ghost stories and completed a small handwritten book full of my own work.

5.In the early 1980's my Mom was getting regular articles published.  She was part of the very early Wrekin Writers and I got very interested in what she was doing.

6. In 1999 I joined Wrekin Writers.  I entered a poem in the members only competition and I got a commended .  This really inspired me and I have been a member ever since. Being part of the group has been so wonderful and I got encouragement from fellow members and bloggers.  I started writing articles and short stories and was published in several magazines and then I was introduced to the world of blogging which has been a great experience in writing something on a regular basis.

7. In March 2007 my book 'One Hundred Ways For A Chicken To Train Its Human' was published by Hodder and Stoughton.  I have to thank Simon Whaley - author of One Hundred Ways For A Dog To Train Its Human' plus many other books.  He suggested that I try writing the chicken one which is what I did and I am thrilled to say it is still selling today.  This gave me confidence to try other things and now I have self published my first novel on Kindle.  

So there you have it.  I have loved writing from an early age and been inspired in many ways by many people and many animals.

 I shall now pass this award on to three more fellow bloggers who are all very different but very inspiring and entertaining.   Mermaids drown, Much Malarky Manor and klahanie.

Celebrating a year of small successes

I have spent most of 2012 working on my first novel 'Red Kite' and getting it ready to publish as an ebook on Kindle but during the year I have also tried to explore other markets and branch out into different things.

I was thrilled to finally get my article published in Dogs Monthly, discovered the exciting world of letter writing and fillers for magazines which I had never previously enjoyed any success for. I also had a small article published in my own parish magazine which although I was not paid for, I felt that people appreciated what I had written and that is sometimes reward enough.

I had a letter from Hodder and Stoughton in late November and was asked if I wanted  my book 'One Hundred Ways For A Chicken To Train Its Human' to be re-released as an ebook.  That was a lovely surprise and one that I didn't even plan for. So far that little book about chickens has sold 36,293 copies which is amazing to me.  I love the fact that many people love chickens ( or of course it may be that the chickens are buying it!)

My successes are small compared to some writers but I feel very pleased that I have done something related to writing every month including the crazy Nanowrimo which I entered for the first time this November and managed to get the first draft of a possible sequel to Red Kite.

I hope that in 2013 I can at least double my successes.  I plan to market the paper back version of Red Kite, work on a non-fiction children's book and write more articles.

I also have a very odd self imposed challenge which I will blog about on New Years Day 2013.

Thanks to all of you that have read and commented on this blog during 2012.  It gives me such motivation and confidence to carry on and believing that I can call myself a writer.

Happy New Year to you all and hope you have a great 2013. 
x

Third time lucky - not quite!

Never let it be said that taking the self publishing route is an easy one.  After years of trying to get  my book 'Red Kite' published with a proper book publisher and getting so many rejections, I decided to go down this route instead with Lulu Self Publishing

The trouble is, unless you are confident with all the technical side of self publishing, it can be very daunting, as it has been for me.  I am not too hot on the I.T side of things and despite help from many wonderful writing friends, I am still alone when I come to actually doing it.  I have to click on all the right things to get my book looking like it's worth reading.

I found  that  producing it as an ebook was not so difficult for some reason but when I started to get the hard copy published, I was met with so many problems and that was only because I didn't read  ALL the instructions given. I have learned this after receiving my third copy which is nearly there - but still not good enough.

The first copy was a crazy attempt as I just pressed every button due to the shear excitement of publishing something on the same day as I released my ebook. I loved having an actual copy of it but it was dreadful and as you can see by the photo on the left it had double titles, looked very odd, the font was tiny and it had no page numbers.

The second copy was slightly better as I managed to sort out the front and back cover. It was at this point that I found out that if you don't choose the correct size for your book it will still keep coming out with a reduced font so you get tiny words throughout your book resulting in a very thin spine. If I had bothered to read  all this information from the start, maybe I would have my paperback right now to sell but I didn't.

Today I received the third copy and it's much better.  The page numbers are there, the font is ok but I still need to so some tweeking with the margins.

So, maybe number four copy which is on it's way to me right now to view before releasing it maybe the one that finally gets out there for sale.

We are all different, some people are just able to read instructions first before plunging in. I admit I got caught up with the excitement of publishing my book after such a long time. I would definatley reccomend to anyone who is embarking on a future project similar to mine, if you are not that hot on I.T, read as much as you can, ask whoever you can, be patient and make sure that everything is right before you press the publish button and eventually you will get that book out there.