Be A Good Gardener of Life

Life is like a garden,

And you the gardener,

Careful what you plant,

For you reap what you sow.

It’s been a while….so the first few lines that popped into my head.
Featured image from CBN.com

#Friday 12.0: Chained, gardengate and confused

Each week I will (try and) share a small segment of something useful I learnt. While this is for my own amusement I hope it resonates with my lovely readers.

Chained

                  My alarm went beep beep at 5.30am Sunday morning and I scrambled out of bed to get into my cycling gear. My better half had already warned me to deactivate the alarm for weekends, but once again I ignored the friendly advice. After some cereal and a cup of tea (I sense some cyclists shaking their heads), I was out of the house, determined to notch up some serious miles.

#Friday 11.0: 19 Years of bliss with a Tang and Coffee Shop

Each week I will (try and) share a small segment of something useful I learnt. While this is for my own amusement I hope it resonates with my lovely readers.

                  This week marked 19 years of marriage for my better half and I.  Rest assure I won’t get too cheesy, if at all so don’t reach for those bags yet!  We always take annual leave for anniversaries (AniV) and birthdays.  In December we had planned to drop the kids off at school on the morning of our AniV and head to London for lunch at The Ritz.  We’d never been before so were looking forward to it, however mysterious viruses were afloat to scupper plans.

#Friday 10.0: Repetition is key to combating lockdown woes

Each week I will (try and) share a small segment of something useful I learnt. While this is for my own amusement I hope it resonates with my lovely readers.

                 Every now and then, I’ll pick a podcast to listen to which may not fall into my general area of interest.  So this week, I subscribed to one called The Secret Life of Prisons.  It’s a mini series in which a group of guests talk about their prison experiences, from arrival to survival, through to release.
                In one of the episodes, an ex-convict talks about his time in the cell.

Publishing To Do list ahead of Launch Day

Sketchy self portrait

The feeling when you’ve finally polished off that final iteration of your first draft novel, and as far as you can take it.  You’ve set yourself a publish deadline and while the search for #betareaders begins, you discover the long list of things to accomplish in the run up. Drawing is not one of them by the way.

Background

I started writing my first novel in the winter of 2015 and so it’s taken a couple years to reach this point.  The book is a true account of two brothers, relation of mine, who drove from London to India with three strangers in 1967. Before this they had never even driven out of London.  It’s two journey’s in effect, the other charting their move from India to England in search of work.

Please visit the page at the top of my blog referenced “My Book: An Austin, Two Singhs and The Road” and the associated pages under that link to get a flavour of humble beginnings. 

• My priority list for January and February

Revise book name

(Optional) This is a big one for me.  When I started writing my draft novel I opted for the name An Austin, Two Singhs and The Road.  Last year I was questioning the name and now that I have finished this draft, I will almost opt for a name change.

Dedicated author/writer website

My personal blog has been active for around 10 years now, it’s been steady in terms of followings, but it’s a solid base of followers – and thank you for that.  My personal blog is an ideal starting point for drumming up early interest for my novel.  However going forward I will need to create separate presence for the book (major surgery alert).  I am hoping all my followers here will cross the bridge and join the party, but it will also mean linking with new followers.  Then there is the question of having a website that either follows the book name, or something more generic.  For me it’s going to be the latter as I do have some new book ideas.  So if I survive my first attempt at releasing a book, I will be well on my way to new horizons!

Write a blurb

I will be jotting down some key points/words based on the entirety of what I have written.  But also looking at all the books I have ‘read to date/looking to read’ and see how enticing the blurb is. Based on this, confident I can magic up the right blurb to entice our lovely readers.  No doubt it will need to be tested to get a view!

Book cover design

From the moment I put pen to paper there was a book cover design in my head! It hasn’t made it to paper yet so this exercise will be challenging and enjoyable at the same time.  Is the design going to be animated or real life? What will the colour scheme look like?  Exciting times!!

“….and then the rest of the list of things to tackle that I am so new to!”

• Professional proof reading
• Indexing
• Proofing and manufacturing
• Marketing
• Order fulfillment and printing
• Sales
• Financial outlay and budget management

I am sure there are many more items that I have missed here, so feel free to let me know what else I need to consider!