Monday 30 January 2012

Playing Tag on Amazon

I used to think playing tag was a child’s game. I was wrong. In the world of self-publishing, playing tag is far more important than that...today I'm guest blogging about the importance of tagging your books on Amazon over at Joel Friedlander's great blog THE BOOK DESIGNER! Pop over and join the conversation - it'll be great to have you!

Thursday 19 January 2012

Reading and Writing...a lot!

Hello Blog!
Did you think I’d forgotten about you? No, I could never forget about you, but sometimes there are other priorities.

Take reading, for example. The luxurious days when I could read 10 books a week are long gone, buried beneath the demands of a real life in which I have a paltry 24 hours a day to squeeze in the multitude of tasks required of me.


Writing is another priority. I am, after all, supposed to be A Writer. And—heaven forbid!—I don’t want to be a one-book wonder.

Stephen King, that master story-teller, that inspiration to all writers, says in his iconic book “On Writing,” that If you want to be a writer you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.

He adds that, as a slow(!) reader he reads about 70 to 80 books a year. These days, that’s a lot of books for me to read. Last year, by participating in the Goodreads 2011 Reading Challenge, I just managed to read 50 books. 

This year my goal is to read another 50 books, including those I need to research for my new novel. That number is still way short of Mr King’s recommendation, but then he has a wife to do for him all the daily household tasks that consume so much of my life.

And I still have to leave time for writing. In 2012, I want to write for 365 days without missing a day. Even if I write a simple haiku (my favourite form of verse), my goal is to write every day. Surely, on those exhausting days when the world and its aunt make demands on me, I can at least manage 17 words?

Growing out of this goal, I’m hoping to have my second novel finished by the end of 2012. Or, at the very least, I’ll have a collection of 365 short stories and poems that could convert into an anthology.

And so, dear blog, (and your cousins Twitter and Facebook), while I’ll pop in for the occasional visit, you may not hear from me as often as you have in the past. I’ll always be back, but only when I’ve finished reading and writing...a lot!

Signed,
Your friend,
Judy.