Travel Times by Horse - Regency Era

Well bother, all I can really say is thank goodness my book is a work of fiction.  Apparently I have my horse and rider going from London to Gloucester in half a day instead of two days.  Must admit it is one way to extend the story line. So do I leave it or do I go into more depth of finding a hostelry for my hero and evil man to stay in at a halfway point? 

As a future reader of my Regency Novel it would be great to have some feedback. I don't know much about horses, though I do know that some horses have more stamina than others. I also appreciate roads were very different. There again are they. From photographs I have seen recently on Facebook it seems they have as many potholes now in a road as they probably had in Regency times.

If I change it to fit time wise, it will mean re-drafting quite a few different parts of the story which could cause chaos. Though I like chaos in my books, I'm not sure if this is the best route.

Still humming and haring over what to do :D

Thought this looked a bit like Demon the Black Arabian Stallion in my book

http://animal-backgrounds.com/files/Arabian%20Horse/Arabian%20horses%20blackbeauty%20Wallpaper.jpg

Page Numbers

Well what a frustrating way to begin a day.  Actually that's not quite true. I started to try and put in page numbers in a book manuscript a few days ago and gave up wanting to yell and scream. Instead i calmed down and went to do something different.

Cup of tea in hand I sat on the comfy couch with my laptop and decided to try again. Opening the document I though I can do this it can't be as hard as it was the other day.  Next I Googled how to number pages into word documents after the first page.

Oopps I think this is why I got a little bit tied up.  An hour later and it still wasn't working even though I was going through the guidelines step by step.  Sheer frustration. Lucky for me I ranted and raved a bit on Facebook to my lovely friends. Harrold came to my rescue with two web links one which confused me and the other I seemed to have more luck with.

By the time my daughter came into the lounge I was very grumpy, it still wasn't working and I knew I hadn't missed any steps.  Then right at the bottom of the second link Harrold gave me i noticed something and wondered if it would work. 

Well I did something right, straight after a nice long scream post on Facebook. You know what I still don't know what the heck I did so I suppose there will be more frustration with my next book for print.

Here's the link for you all just in case you need it at some stage

http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/10-things/10-steps-to-setting-up-page-numbering-in-word-sections/

Right I'm off to go see i can do my next book :D

First book in print

I have finally done it.  I have my first book printed, it's my fifth work and my first teens book.  Even so I'm really pleased.  I even had a glass of wine to celebrate.  All I have to do now is sell them.

Who knows anything about marketing? 

I have read numerous items to spread the word, blogs etc and have come to the conclusion I'm doing all the right stuff.  I have this blog, I am designing a website I celebrate my success on Facebook, LinkedIn, I tell friends and relatives and still it seems I need more marketing.

Where do I go from here?

Well I need followers on this blog for a start, I know people look though it i just don't actually have followers. Is my blog boring, do I say the wrong things, well I don't know unless someone says something or leaves a comment.

Customer feedback on Amazon from those who have bought and read my novels would also be good.

Maybe I should email everyone in my contact list with a generic email telling people about my novels, where they are to be found etc. Another idea is sending an email to the local paper, though I'm not sure I'm brave enough for that yet.

Whilst my web page is under construction I can't do a business card, though it will be sorted once my webpage is set.  Once again I'll need feedback so I can improve what I've done so far.

Oh I almost forgot the book that you can now buy in print is called "Zoe's Journey," it's about a teen who find out who she really is. Along the way she meets many mythical creatures of which she'd always assumed were fairy tales.

Well back to my writing, if you buy one of my books thanks, and enjoy the read.

:D

Fairies and Faeries - The difference

So who knew Fairies and Faeries were two different creatures?  I'd always believed they were just two different spellings of the same word.  This goes to show my research needs to be just that little bit deeper.

Anyway I thought I would tell you about the differences I found!

The Word Fairy comes from the Lain word "Fatum" meaning Fate. The Fairy is the one most of us know, mischievous, good, helpful little spirits/folk who are generally no more than 3 inches tall.  Yes they have wings, either two or four. I suppose this is to do with where on the scale of life they are.  

The most famous story  is about the Cottingley Fairies and the two little girls who found them at the bottom of their garden. I loved those photos looking at the delightful fairies with the girls.  The story was made into a book a few years back now.  Sadly when the last little girl died a few years back now as an elderly lady she told the story of the fairies saying that they were pictures drawn by her brother or cousin.  Even today I don't believe what she said, though sadly no one will ever find out now.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/7/71/Cottingley_Fairies_1.jpg/250px-Cottingley_Fairies_1.jpg

Another article I found a few years back was about a the finding of skeletal remains of little people. An apparent hoax for April Fools Day. The picture shows the skeleton in a hand. Though myths and legends come from somewhere it would be lovely if some truth could be found.

http://www.hoax-slayer.com/images/derbyshire-fairy1.jpg

Of course young childrens' favourite fairy is the Tooth Fairy who gives us money for our tiny baby teeth as we lose them. 

Now what about the Faerie, who or what are they, why do many people still use it for a different spelling of the lovable Fairy many of us learnt about as children?

The Faerie is a word derived from Gaelic "fear shidhe" In the article I found  it means "man of the shee" So more digging and research was required.

The myth goes to say that Faeries are evil, cruel, horrid spirits who steal children and keep them as slaves or pets. It's also said they are ugly or at least not as handsome as Fairies. Also they didn't necessarily have wings either and they could be tiny or tall.

One of the nicer looking Banshee's also known as Faeries.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6d/Banshee_by_Michelle_Monique.jpg

Now Banshee's can be really scary as in the movie Van Helsing so please don't get your spelling of Fairy and Faerie mixed up when your writing like I did.  Dig deeper into the words you want to use the last thing I'd want for me or anyone else is a critic picking up on the different words and telling us we got it wrong.

So glad that in my stories, one I can change the spelling and the other was Faerie.  Both books will be available this year so look out for "Cera's Haunted House" and "Zoe's Journey," and enjoy the read.

One of my Children's Stories

Though it about time I posted again :-)

Over the last few weeks I picked up one of my old drafts called "Cera's Haunted House." I had only done one chapter of this story so decided to read through and see what I could do about writing more.

This book is about a magical cat called Cera who is over a thousand years old. Cera has gone wandering  and pulls her present owner (as if we could own a cat....lol)n into an adventure. Her name is Areba. They end up in this old derelict, haunted mansion which is where their adventures start.

An evil gargoyle called Ophelia traps them. All she wants is to mend the mansion and bring back a time she can control with her own magic. Ophelia sets Areba (she hasn't realised the cat is there yet) a riddle to solve. Being such an evil gargoyle when she finds out the cat is around she sets them twelve riddles to solve to get free or they'll both end up in a time of her choosing.

Now this is where I go slightly crazy, ok not crazy I suppose more like different.  Many of you will know most riddles have an answer before you make the riddle to accompany it. I like to be different. Each riddle has no answer when it's made up. I start with the riddle and work through it with my writing. What can it mean? How can they solve it? I must admit is has been great fun so far.

Friends have helped at times though I've noticed many say they aren't good at riddles. My favourite riddle so far is in Chapter 4. "I espy an evil eye in the middle of the ocean, be aware and do not stare or you'll be in oblivion."

The first thing two friends came up with (Tina & Sharon) was Whirlpool which makes great sense to the first part of the riddle. What I ended up with thanks to Zillah was a one eyed ogre who like with cyclops you didn't stare at him or oblivion you got. 

Areba knew she had to get rid of the ogre to solve the riddle and save something, with out giving the plot away we have a rather smelly ogre who belch's and fart's a lot and gets pulled into oblivion via the whirlpool of his own making. It is actually quite hilarious to read from what my adults friends said, my own kids just looked at me as if I was weird though they giggled too.

I am now on riddle 5 which certainly took some thinking, nearly a week has passed since I looked at the draft though I know I am ready to finish the chapter now.

“Two and fro you must go to catch the cow for a sow.”   Of course you have to remember the words in the riddle don't always have to mean a cow which goes moo or a female pig. Change the spelling and you have something quite different.  Can you work out this one??

Enjoy.

Why do Authors use other names

There seem to be many reasons why Authors use different  pen names and I am quite astonished at some of the reasons.

From history it's a well known fact many women used a male name due to the fact nobody would publish a book by a woman. How times have changed thank goodness. Today it seems there are quite a few men writing romance books and using a woman's name as the author. Rather weird how you can have such a turn around in 150 years or so.

Other than history I assumed authors used pen names for different genre's, maybe they were good at more than one type of writing. One of my favourite authors is J D Robb who of course is Nora Roberts or is this another pen name?  Personally I was going to be Kayleigh Broughton, it's a made up name discussed by my friends, my cousin Marlene and of course myself. I'd always loved the name Kayleigh ever since I heard the song one evening on the radio in the 1980's (showing my age now). Where the Broughton came from......well that was Marlene.

Now for the why.

If you remember back a few posts I was rather embarrassed about the sex scenes in my Crosswick book, my friends made me blush rather a lot. (Thanks Tina & Susan). Well since then I've written more drafts, with about 20 unfinished of various genre. Teen books, Adult books, Romance, Mystery, Regency, Sci-fi and short stories. So since I was writing all different types why not just use my own name. 

Well I now have four e-books on amazon. At the moment I'm looking into printing costs.

My books are:-

Malachy's Unit
Rosetta's Lot
Charlie Girl's First Summer Christmas
Diary of a Psychotic Killer

The last one is a short story in first person in answer to an assignment from the brilliant book :On Writing" by Stephen King.

A very inspirational book for beginning writers and authors.  This story will be in my next blog.

My Ideal Readers

I'm very lucky to have some very good friends who will read my drafts for me. Most of them love my stories though my favourites come back to me and tell me what doesn't flow, what doesn't work and of course my grammar and description which though improving is still a bit shabby.

You have already met two of my readers, Tina and Greg.  Another is Marlene who is a cousin of my husbands.  I met this lady through doing the family reunion book in 2011 just before i started writing, we got on like a house on fire. My main reader is Sharon another lady who is not afraid of telling me off for bad writing and giving me good feed back when I'm doing well.

Sharon is training to be a proofreader and editor at the moment. It is great watching each other grow and learn as we work together.  Sharon picks up my word errors.  The ones I still get wrong are 'Being' and 'Been' though apparently I have improved. 'Word' I must admit isn't that brilliant for picking up bad grammar.  I did try out a program a few months back, it certainly taught me lots.  I hope to buy it when I can afford as it is slightly out of my reach right now.

By the way is anyone good at riddles??