Education

I may be a geek, but I never pass up the opportunity of free education. There are people in the world who sadly receive none, and people that are quite literally putting their lives at risk to learn, so why not be appreciative of every opportunity we have the privilege of receiving.

This week (yesterday in fact) I started a Creative Writing and Research course. While I got the opportunity to write creativity and share ideas, we also explored Psycho Geography, and different types of writing I wouldn't usually consider, such as poetry.

Learning can never be a bad thing.

Exploring Goodreads and Seeking Reviews

I joined Goodreads a while ago but I never really explored what you can do on there. I didn't realise there are all sorts of different groups you can join on there, all with their own forums. It's been great to explore and make new connections.

This week I've been focusing on reviews, and a few lovely people have agreed to read and review Synergy, as well as be a Beta reader for part 2. It's pretty scary, putting yourself out there, but you have to, right? You'll never get anywhere if you don't try.

I'm on holiday from work for 2 weeks after today so I'm looking forward to grafting on part 3. I took to pen and paper a few nights ago to plan it out - something I've never done! I even got the highlighters out for key words and made a mind map. Hopefully the chapters will start to flow soon and I'll have a semi-solid plan.

I do find that I write better when I don't plan it out 100% but I still need some sort of structure, so I know exactly where I'm going with it.

I've just finished work so I think I'll have a lazy Sunday with what's left of it, then get to it tomorrow.

 - Georgia

The Sunshine is a Writer's Worst Nightmare

It's not very often in Britain that you get a genuinely hot summer's day. On the odd occasion there is one, you can bet it's only down south, while us northerner's get stuck with clouds and drizzle. However, yesterday was one of the best day's for weather I've seen in a long time. I spent the entire afternoon laid out in my garden on the sun lounger, doing nothing but sunbathing and listening to music.

Still, whenever I relax, I always have this niggle in the back of my mind that I could be using the time to write. When you've got a novel in the works, as well as a blog to maintain (2 blogs if you count this one), every spare minute is time that could be used more usefully.

I debated bringing my laptop down into the garden but let's face it, the sun prohibits you from seeing the screen anyway, and I don't fancy my laptop breaking due to overheating. I just had to accept that no writing was getting done yesterday.

Today, it turned out to be another lovely day. However, after laying in the sun for a couple of hours, it appears the clouds have overtaken. The forecast says it's going to thunder and lightning later, so it looks like some writing may be on the horizon after all.

Hope you're all enjoying the sun where you are!

 - Georgia

Legal Advice

Last night I took to searching for legal advice because of Synergy Part 2. It's hard to write about criminal aspects that end with court when you don't have a clue how it would go down in real life. Don't get me wrong, I'm not completely clueless. I've worked with my fair share of offenders, but I live in the UK. Knowing a lawyer in the US, I've heard before how different US law is, and it's even more confusing because their laws vary from state to state.

I didn't really need to know the ins and outs of everything, more just confirmation that what I was writing wasn't unrealistic, that the timing to everything was right, and I think I've got that. Thank God for the internet and it's many forums!

Smashwords Premium Catalogue

Accepted! Finally!

Smashwords has been an absolute nightmare for me this week. I read everything you could read on formatting for Smashwords, convinced it couldn't be that hard, that I could do it myself. I definitely couldn't. Finally, I succumbed to paying someone on people per hour, and after days of back and forth messages, I'm in the premium catalogue.

I can't even tell you how relieved I am, because it was really starting to annoy me. Generally, you'd view Amazon as a bigger company than Smashwords, yet their formatting is so much simpler. I don't understand.

Part 2 of Synergy is getting closer to the end, and I'm eager to finish it so I can go back through and edit. I recently wrote my most favourite chapter to date, and I'm loving how Dee and Jason's journey is going. I already know there's going to be at least a third book, because their story is still not told, that's for sure.

I finished shift 4 of 8 at work today, so I'm relaxing with a well deserved glass of wine now. Unfortunately, it means I'm not going to get much writing done next week either, but what can you do.

Welcome!

Hi, and welcome to my first ever blog post on my author site. This really isn't anything new to me, since I've blogged regularly for over a year, however, I've never done it specifically about myself. For a while now I've shared my author news on my blog's social media, but I figured it was about time to establish a blog for my books alone.

If you've never heard of me, that's expected, since writing as an author is very new to me. My first e-book 'Synergy' was self-published on Kindle on May 26th 2015, and in just under 3 weeks I've managed to earn myself a good amount of pocket money (that's all I'm seeing this venture as so far.) Previous to posting it on Kindle, I've had over 8,000 people read it at Wattpad, and considering it's 'mature' rating restricts it from showing up in searches, I'm very happy with that number. I've had some lovely comments from some lovely people and am really enjoying getting my story out there.

I'm going to leave the first post at that. I don't want to scare you away! Thanks for reading; I hope you'll follow this blog for details of my writing journey.