Alright, the Christmas rush is settling down, I've had a great time seeing all my friends, managed to do some sewing projects that I've been meaning to do since the beginning of the year on the days that I wanted something to do with my hands while I was socialising. (Tip for Autistics: finding a job you can do while sat down and talking to others has a soothing quality for the mind.) As such, I have finally repaired some work trousers for mother that I was meant to back in February and emptied out some more of my cupboards (I am still trying to cut down on the amount of stuff I own to make room for husband/baby).
Now I suppose it is time to do the whole 'get back to work' thing and start looking at my career again (I also have four days in my diary that are going to need filling up so that is going to take some time).
To that end I am pleased to announce that thanks to the director of 'Wanderers of War' Michael Hill and the actress Hazel Wilson, the opening scenes of 'The Return of a Nagus' are going to be available as an audio file from Saturday the 9th of January 2016. I will warn you that this is not the whole book, nor even the first whole chapter as that ran to over an hours recording, but it gives a flavour for how the story develops and introduces some of the main characters and their struggles.
I will be uploading it here, on my website, in both the normal post feeds and I'm hoping to produce a whole page dedicated to both it and future sound bites as and when the next book is published. I also hope to upload it on Youtube, although I'm not sure how that is going to go as I have never uploaded anything to Youtube before and I am pretty much computer illiterate. Wish me luck.
Thank you to all who have made this year the memorable start to my career as an author.
Monday 28 December 2015
Saturday 19 December 2015
Making Progress
O.K. as the Christmas rush hurries up, as it always does, I've finally made some progress. This has not been easy, as my lack of posts can reveal. I've just been having a very hard time of it trying to come up with any time to work on my projects and the muse totally deserted when it comes to writing blog posts. What I think a lot of casual bloggers don't understand is that for a writer or an artist blogging is one of the many ways we have to promote ourselves and our work. However, this requires time, time which we can no longer spend on our work and therefore we have less to blog about and therefore it takes more time to come up with something to blog about. It can be a source of serious creators block. I, for one, very rarely suffer from tradition 'writers' block' any more, what I suffer from is the writers' block caused by not having enough time to work on my writing or indeed my art. I'm beginning to understand why Leonardo De Vinci rarely managed to finish a project, sometimes you just have too many ideas and not enough time to work on them all.
However, I have managed to make some time to work on my artwork and 'The Sorcerer' is progressing well. I will admit that the last couple of days I have concentrated more on the rock he is standing on instead of the village he is watching over because the village, being in the distance, is minuscule and I'm going to have to use my finest brush, the one normally reserved for painting the details of someones iris, to do the people. That is not going to be easy and I felt in need of a break from the pressure.
I'm hoping to be able to do a blog post, or maybe a couple, detailing my work process in the future. All I need to do is find the time to connect my camcorder, which also takes still shots, to my computer and work my way through all the programming details. I will be the first to admit that I am not what you could call computer literate. In fact, my abilities with computers can be summed up as 'you press this button and it is meant to do this'. If the computer decides not to do 'this' I have to run for help. That is one of the reasons I do not do on-line banking (the other reason being if everybody does on-line banking who is going to give jobs to all those people who currently sit behind the tills in the banks?).
Any way, speaking on the lack of time, I need to be going. May all my loyal readers have a happy and health end to the year.
However, I have managed to make some time to work on my artwork and 'The Sorcerer' is progressing well. I will admit that the last couple of days I have concentrated more on the rock he is standing on instead of the village he is watching over because the village, being in the distance, is minuscule and I'm going to have to use my finest brush, the one normally reserved for painting the details of someones iris, to do the people. That is not going to be easy and I felt in need of a break from the pressure.
I'm hoping to be able to do a blog post, or maybe a couple, detailing my work process in the future. All I need to do is find the time to connect my camcorder, which also takes still shots, to my computer and work my way through all the programming details. I will be the first to admit that I am not what you could call computer literate. In fact, my abilities with computers can be summed up as 'you press this button and it is meant to do this'. If the computer decides not to do 'this' I have to run for help. That is one of the reasons I do not do on-line banking (the other reason being if everybody does on-line banking who is going to give jobs to all those people who currently sit behind the tills in the banks?).
Any way, speaking on the lack of time, I need to be going. May all my loyal readers have a happy and health end to the year.
Thursday 10 December 2015
Success!
So things are looking up, despite the mix up with the dates. You may remember in my last post that I said that I was going to be doing a pop up stall in Barclays on Tuesday the first of December. Well I arrived all set to do said pop up stall only to find that someone else was already setting up. A quick check in Barclay's diary revealed that I was actually booked for Tuesday the eighth of December. Not a good thing as I lost a bus fair with no return for it. Serious Autistic moment when I arrived home, thankfully I had the house to myself at the time so I could really howl about it and therefore feel better within a few minutes instead of taking hours.
Autism Tip: If you are in a private area with an Autistic person who is on the verge of going into meltdown, it is better to leave be and let them have it, or even encourage them to really go for a good wailer of a crying jag rather than trying to calm them down. Trying to calm them when their brain is not ready for that can mean that they balance for the rest of the day on the edge of feeling out of step with the world, depressive, no good at what they do etc. Letting them have their melt down good and proper there and then re-balances the brain chemicals and means that it is over within a short time. Once they have had their 'little moment' they will be more willing to look at the situations with an open mind and a calmer demeanour.
As it is having the pop up stall delayed by a week turned out to be a good thing as I managed to sell six items (including one of my books) when I did hold it this week. That is more than I have sold in the previous four months and to add to that success Leaves of Dreams in Watton has sold two of my prints on their first day! That news particularly put me over the moon as I have struggled since I had them printed to sell my larger prints, now I've sold, through a third party two of them on one day. Now that is what I call success! And hopefully it marks the beginning in an up turn in the sales of my stuff.
If you would like to visit Leaves of Dreams and have a dig through not only my artwork but also that of other local artist, musicians and writers then the address is:
As ever you can also visit my shop page for the links to all my other outlets.
Here's to a happy and healthy Christmas and New Year for all my loyal readers. If you don't celebrate anything at this time of year then may I wish you a happy and healthy end to the year.
Autism Tip: If you are in a private area with an Autistic person who is on the verge of going into meltdown, it is better to leave be and let them have it, or even encourage them to really go for a good wailer of a crying jag rather than trying to calm them down. Trying to calm them when their brain is not ready for that can mean that they balance for the rest of the day on the edge of feeling out of step with the world, depressive, no good at what they do etc. Letting them have their melt down good and proper there and then re-balances the brain chemicals and means that it is over within a short time. Once they have had their 'little moment' they will be more willing to look at the situations with an open mind and a calmer demeanour.
As it is having the pop up stall delayed by a week turned out to be a good thing as I managed to sell six items (including one of my books) when I did hold it this week. That is more than I have sold in the previous four months and to add to that success Leaves of Dreams in Watton has sold two of my prints on their first day! That news particularly put me over the moon as I have struggled since I had them printed to sell my larger prints, now I've sold, through a third party two of them on one day. Now that is what I call success! And hopefully it marks the beginning in an up turn in the sales of my stuff.
If you would like to visit Leaves of Dreams and have a dig through not only my artwork but also that of other local artist, musicians and writers then the address is:
Leaves of Dreams
47 High Street
Watton
Norfolk
IP25 6AB
As ever you can also visit my shop page for the links to all my other outlets.
Here's to a happy and healthy Christmas and New Year for all my loyal readers. If you don't celebrate anything at this time of year then may I wish you a happy and healthy end to the year.
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