A Year in Insta-Pics

'Tis the Season... to reflect on another trip around the sun.

Social Media is essentially just a microblog, and a great way to look back on what's happened throughout the year. 

My Twitter feed is endless, and Facebook much the same - aside from Facebook randomly flashing up 'memories' from years back - but Instagram, is a great way to look back on a chronological slideshow of snapshots.
 
Here I am...

Amy's Pretty Little Insta-Feed

(Follow me and I'll follow back..)
 
I'm going to go ahead and admit that I'm not a big fan of Instagram. 

As someone who uses a PC or Laptop as my primary device (I'm a writer, I need a keyboard), it irritates me that I'm forced to faff around with a stupid phone to share things; especially when the image was taken with a 'proper camera' (yes, some of us still use those). 

I end up copying images from my camera to Dropbox or emailing it to myself and saving it to the phone and then sharing it (pain in the backside!). 

I also find Instagram generally a bit clunky to use (although I do like the filters). As a consequence, I only post a picture every few days and it's often on impulse. It means my feed genuinely is a neat visual record of what was in my brain that day.

Here's some of my favourite pics from a rather lovely year...

A year filled with coffee, beer, cake, novelty stationery, books, writing, flowers, hats, art, beaches, cats and Bristolness!

What were your favourite moments (immortalised on Instagram or otherwise) from 2017?

A Month of Writing

August is always a quiet time of year for work for me. 

Everything slows down for the holidays and it's hard to get anyone to come to anything that isn't child friendly or involves a beach or a park!

Last August I wrote 30,000 words in a month. I wrote a blog about it and called it a 'Mini-Na-No'.

I wrote most of the first draft of Gabriel's Game, Part 2: The Black Knight


 

I'll be doing the same again this August with my new project 'Finding The Scream' - but more than that, I'm designating August as my 'Month of Writing'.

Not only will I be bashing out a big chunk of the first draft of the next book, I'll also be writing more non-fiction and building up the library of content I keep promising myself I'll do.

When you're building a business it's easy to get sucked away from writing by so many other desctractions. 

In July I set myself a goal to do more networking but the price I paid for that was having less time to sit and write.

I'm often asked, 'How do you write a book?' and the best answer I can give to this question is 'one word after another' - just do it.

There are 2 things that need to happen if you want to write that book:


1) Build writing into your routine

Set aside time every day to write, even if it's just half an hour. The sooner you build up a regular writing habit, the better the words will flow over time.

The hardest part is making space in your diary and sticking to it. But once you get going, you'll soon find your rhythm.  


2) Bum in chair - write!

Whether you 'feel inspired' or not, just write; even if you have to 'free write' to clear your brain before you can access the good stuff - just write. Remember, no one has to see your embarrassing early attempts or minor self-indulgent rants.

The worst thing you ever write is better than the best thing you didn’t write! 

Undoubtedly, things will distract me and divert my attention in the next month, but for me, the most imporant thing I can do in August is:

Just write!

Launching into a new era...

When I published Gabriel's Game, Part 2: the Black Knight in April I marked the occasion with a Vlog:

http://authorpreneur.amymorse.co.uk/business-is-a-journey-not-a-destination/




Talking about Tom Sheridan and Sasha Blake's story with someone new makes me realise just how fond I am of my fictional hero and heroine, and how they feel like part me. I cry, when they cry, laugh when they laugh, and bite my lip and cross my legs when they're being intimate with each other; in Gabriel's Game, Part 2: The Black Knight there is a particularly sensual and explicit scene between them when they are taking a shower together.


It's fascinating looking back at the journey I've been on to get to the end of this writing era. In January last year, when I was writing Gabriel's Game, Part 1: The White Queen, I shared this version of the first chapter.

http://ideaism.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/a-little-literary-diversion-chapter-1.html

After beta reading, proof reading, editing, structural edits and re-writes it's a little different and punchier - take a look at the preview chapter on Amazon for the updated version.

I had a launch party for Gabriel's Game, Part 2: The Black Knight this month:

Graham Morse, my husband, business partner and book cover desi

gner taking care of the fizz!

That's it, the Sheridan and Blake Series is now finished, and next will be a new series of books, starring Kat Orlov 

(who you'll meet in Gabriel's Game)

2 hands, 2 drinks!

I've not written much of the next book, but I have a concept, the beginning of a plan and a title:

Finding The Scream

In August last year I did a mini 'NaNoWriMo' (National Novel Writing Month) and wrote a big chunk of Gabriel's Game, Part 2: The Black Knight in 30 days.

At the time, I published this blog post with top tips to write a novel in 30 days :

http://authorpreneur.amymorse.co.uk/30-days-to-first-draft/


I plan to do the same with Finding The Scream. 

Watch this space for updates.

 I'm still figuring out the detail, but the concept for Finding The Scream is:

Two children are playing in a disused mine in Austria when they stumble across a cache of forgotten Nazi loot. The children tell their father who goes to his reporter friend. The reporter, Harvey Doyle, is an American working as a foreign correspondent for a large German newspaper. He calls Kat Orlov for help to solve the mystery of the cache, and she calls her former agency partner - a man with knowledge of stolen Nazi art from his years in the British Army - Tom Sheridan (yes, Tom has a cameo in this book). He helps her to recover the finds and repatriate them with their original owners. Kat is on a journey of her own too, to seek revenge on her cousin Jon Solomon, but will Tom get in her way?

Here's a sneak peek at some of the raw writing for this book so far:

“What's with the waistcoat?”

“What's wrong with the waistcoat?”

A mischievous smile tickles Kat's lips.

“Nothing, it's just, in all the years I've known you, you've always dressed in shades of grey. About the most colourful thing I've ever seen you in is a pale coloured shirt or blue Jeans. Whatever happened to hiding in plain sight?”

“That was in another life. I’m an art dealer now.”

A snort escapes. “Art dealer. What, colourful waistcoats are your form of artistic expression are they? Trying to fit in with the London set are we?”

He narrows his eyes, nostrils flexing.

“Oh, here comes the disgruntled huff.”

His face pinks, as if he's been caught out in a lie. The amusement warms Kat's belly, it's so too easy to wind him up. She turns on a heel and strides the platform. The sound of his footsteps clunk behind her. She's enjoying this too much to continue on in silence.

“Married life has made you soft," Kat glances back over her shoulder, letting her long ponytail flick out close to his face like a whip, “And a little pudgy too.”

She hears his muffled growl and smiles to herself; there it was, right on cue.

The Thing About Stories...

I was in M&S this week buying a birthday card for my brother. 

As I went to pay for my purchase, I saw the length of the queue. There was that quick internal dialogue about whether or not to bother, but in the end queuing was preferable to wandering around town to find a card as good as the one I'd picked up.

However, one of the great things about a queue is the other people in it.

For a brief moment, you join a community all with the same goal and you can eavesdrop on some great conversations.

I think being part of these snapshots of stories is what us Brits enjoy so much about queuing.

In this particular queue, a couple of young professional guys were chatting about the origin of common phrases used in the English language.

It reminded me of a content butterfly I've seen fluttering around the inter-webs on phrases we owe to Shakespeare.

Here are some of my favorites:

One day,  I'd love for some of the phrases I've created in my stories to be part of popular culture...

In much the same way that popular stories and movies have a way of nestling into our collective consciousness - phases like:

May the force be with you

To boldly go where no-one has gone before

Here's a few from my books:

The Bronze Box

 

Solomon's Secrets

Gabriel's Game

 

The queue in  M&S moved quickly, with friendly and efficient staff at the till, and I had that strange sensation of being both relieved to escape the queue, but also disappointed to have to leave and miss the rest of the story being shared behind me.

The thing about stories... they are everywhere, all around us - they are part of the rich tapestry of life. We are constantly, often subconsciously, creating, sharing and enjoying stories - I love being part of that.