party time

Well this was the photo that I chose to use for the launch of Eleanor Smythe. The girl scrubs up Okay. The hardest thing for me to do is to promote myself and my book, it is so much harder than thinking of the story in the first place. So I've decided that I will have to call in the people who know how to do that stuff. Today was another first when I started my twitter page and couldn't work out how to put a tweet on. Now it should make me feel sad that I'm two steps behind the times, but it makes me laugh. When I speak to friends about the struggle I have with all this technical stuff, I'm sure they think it's a bluff, but it is for real and I'm fine once I learn which buttons to press The other problem I have is thinking of what to say about myself, then. Although I'm beginning to feel increasingly comfortable about revealing parts of my life. The photo above was at the beginning of an evening out, when we attended a charity dinner/ dance in aid of the local volunteer fire fighters. Once my dear friends had encouraged me with a glass of wine or two I became quite relaxed and ready to party. Give me a dance floor and music and I'm away into a world of craziness. I know how to enjoy myself that's for sure. I can dance all alone with out anyone around me and I'm not at all self conscious. I dance as if I'm alone with no one looking at me, and I don't tend to worry about what others think. For me dancing frees the soul, a bit tribal really.

Lessons learnt.

This week has been manic, first excitement when Suzy Turner and I spent the day going through every full stop on the manuscript in preparation the publish on Kindle. Then anticipation when I pressed the send button and had to wait for the book to go live, which it did later that day. Over come with excitement I made the mistake of trying to tell everyone, which I guess was quite a natural thing to do. Then this morning I decided to down load a sample from amazon, and am I glad I did because I saw mistakes that had been corrected looking up at me. Shock and panic struck, all I could think of was the fact that others were going to see an unprepared copy, how sloppy and how unprofessional. Then I thought about the fact that people may have downloaded it, I felt so bad and didn't have a clue what I should do about it. Suzy being my mentor was the first person I contacted but of all days I couldn't get in touch with her, suddenly I had the unrealistic thoughts that hundreds of people could be looking at the book while I was panicking; not true of course. At the time of my panic I had an email from JB Johnson who a book reviewer and promotor, who better to pour my heart out to. I was soon reassured that these things can happen and that it could all be sorted out with a bit of tweaking.  

Once my personal Wonder Women was on board things began to unravel. We unpublished the book and set about finding the error, which seemed to have occurred during the process of copying from open office to the word doc. What we had failed to do was preview after we'd made the changes and switched from one to the other. For me a massive learning curve to check everything, then check and check again. We can't trust just because it looks okay to the eye. These computers have hidden Gremlins and probably some of the Trolls from Suzy Turners YA fantasy books.

Good news it has now been republished and I'm just waiting confirmation. I will check it out again before I get excited and put it on face book.

Happy Days xx

A fresh start

The last post the I wrote was under very sad circumstances and looking back I found it hard to believe how much time had passed. So loads to catch up on, but trying to play catch up can be such a difficult thing to do. It would be fair to say that life seemed to stand still for a year after DJ died, I wasn't reading anything and definitely couldn't concentrate on writing or being creative in anyway. In many ways I just wanted everything to stop but of course it doesn't, life just keeps moving forward whether we are taking part or not.

A change came for me early hours one morning, I couldn't sleep and decided to open my kindle at a book a friend had recommended, Waking the Merrow by Helen Rigney, I just loved the character Evie and could not stop laughing at the way she was portrayed; worth reading. I just couldn't put the book down and was hooked again on reading. In August 2014 just over a year on from DJ I decided to write again. Instead of going back to my previous manuscript Perceptions, I decided to write something very different and new.

A fresh start needed a fresh story one that had been bouncing around in my head for some time. It's primarily a story about two families with additional characters that bring the story to life giving it twists and turns.

When tragedy strikes, the lives of two families are torn apart. Although the families live on opposite sides of the town the members of both families experience the pain of grief, betrayal and deception.

Everything becomes clear and is revealed when a specialist team of police officers are deployed from London to the town of Millbrook, investigating an international criminal, Yakov Volkov, who they suspect to be carrying out illegal activities in the area. 

I wish I could say that I worked diligently everyday for hours but I didn't. I picked it up and put it down depending on my mood or the time I had. I found myself writing just for my own pleasure and to maintain a positive attitude, however as the story began to unfold I actually believed it had some mileage and decided to take it bit more seriously. Once I had finished and beta readers had gone through the manuscript I decided to have an editor on the case. The feed back was positive and encouraging even with the corrections that seemed to glare up at me from the page. I tried not to be fazed by the red marker and became increasingly determined to complete the task to publication.  We now have the finishing post in sight. The book is with a final reader, it will be out there and I will officially be an indie author, how great is that. 

COMING VERY SOON :

On the 27th July our Son was found dead in his flat in London. It appeared that he had fallen sustaining an injury to the back of his head. As yet we are unsure what caused the fall and may never know the answer. He was 36 and lived alone, it was five days before he was found, the image of him laying alone all this time haunts me.

At the time of his death my husband was in Portugal and I was on a cruise visiting Norway and the North cape. I was notified by my Husband and would not be exaggerating when I say it was the greatest shock I have ever had and the very worst week of my life, just waiting to get off of the ship. I was unable to catch a flight home and I was reassured by my husband that there was nothing to do until the body was released, So I sat it out with my sister and mother and a lot of very stiff drinks. Once off the ship I stepped into the reality, planning the funeral with my husband and all the madness that went with it. A month has past since the funeral and I look back as if it all happened to someone else, it still feels so surreal.    

Now I just feel empty inside, I am tearful somedays but mostly I feel that life has lost all meaning or purpose. I can't seem to concentrate on reading or writing and I cant make plans with regards to my books. I need to do so much work on them and I need an editor to through things with me but my concentration and desire to continue just isn't there.

I'm told it's early days so may be one day I will write again, until then all the stories I had in my head with have to be shelved and the whole author thing, just an unfulfilled dream.

A massive thank you to everyone that has been so supportive and encouraging x      

Perceptions "The Book"

P.S to my last blog, it’s worth mentioning that another author is published under the name of Christine Smith, a good reason for not using my own name.!!!

Perceptions is part 1 of 2 (I can’t find the Roman numerals,)

It tells the story of a women journey through her mid-life crisis. The one person Sally thought she could depend on was her husband Brian, but this proves not to be the case.

Sally and Brian have been married for thirty-one years and together raised their three children. For the past twenty years the family had been reasonably happy with their lives in Portugal and for fifteen of those years. Sally and Brian were very successful restaurateurs. Once the children became adults all three of them moved back to England to develop their own careers. Missing her children Sally became more reflective and the pains of her own childhood began to torment her. She had never had a close relationship with her Mother or her twin sisters’, more than fifteen years had gone by with out any contact with either of them making it difficult to confront her mother or to ask for support. Searching for the roots to her own unhappiness, she wonders if it’s connected to the fact that she doesn’t know who her father is. To find out this information she first has to over come her own emotional obstacles and build bridges with her mother.

Perceptions focuses on the first part of the story, which is more about the break down of her marriage; she had always perceived Brain to be a supportive man but when their younger son Ryan reveals that he’s gay it just more than Brian can cope with. Brian feels betrayed by Sally and hurt by his son. Things reach breaking point when Sally finds Brian in the arms of Judith. She returns to England to be with her children. Now that she’s no longer working she has time to get to know others and to listen to their stories, which gives a glimpse into other peoples lives and their suffering giving Sally the confidence and courage to go forward.  

Enlightenment , This is the second part of the journey, which gives greater emphasis on her parents and how her relationship with them develops; not forgetting what happens to Brain along the way and the rest of the family.

Both parts have stories of others woven into the main story line, which I hope adds interest and maybe a tear or two.

The Plan

Perceptions with be on Amazon is September; I will give you all the sites and details closer to the date.

Enlightenment is still being worked on.  Then it needs to be edited and checked. The front cover is with the artist as I write these works (hopefully) so a way to go yet, all being well it will be out by November. 

Happy reading xxx

Birth of an Author

Hi everyone

More than three years ago I wrote a manuscript that was a personal challenge...just to prove to myself that I could. Some close friends read it with mixed comments as you would imagine and a dear friend of mine, Emma kindly did an edit on it; and that was it. I sent a copy to President Ikeda of SGI (Soka Gakki International) lay Buddhist organisation as a thank you for all the encouragement he gives me, then placed it on a shelf, until April of this year.

I was introduced to Suzy Turner an author that now has six published books. She commented that I probably had enough material in my manuscript for two books and that she would kindly take me through the paces to become published; The flame was ignited, I have added an extra 25,000 words to make two books possible and have a fantastic editor in Ange Bell.

My name bit of an issue, it just didn't have enough ring to it, too attract readers (apparently) and what do I know, I'm new at this stuff.  So we decided to use my middle name Eleanor and soften my surname to Smythe ( or posh it up a bit). So now I have a double life, Author Eleanor Smythe or not so posh Christine Smith, I wish Eleanor would get her finger out and do all the house hold chores.

The first of the two books is now complete, all but some editing checks. The aim is to put the books out simultaneously so that interested readers don't have to wait too long for the second; i hate it when your left wondering. Book three is building momentum and just waiting for me to work a little harder.

I hope you enjoy this journey as much as I do I will post the front covers and keep you posted with regards to publishing dates. Bye for now xxx

Welcome!

Welcome to my brand new author blog, with me Eleanor Smythe!