Amanda Fleet's Blog, page 25

Supportive friends, I thank you!

It's not been a great week. I came down with a cold to end all colds, I started hating what I'm writing (yes, again...), my productivity sank like a stone and I seriously considered abandoning the book (again. I first abandoned this one in 2013).

I have to say, the writing community is a fabulous one! When I said that I was struggling with the book and ready to chuck it all in, I got so much support with people offering to have a natter and talk through the issues, others encouraging me and saying "Don't give up!"

Knowing they all had my back, I filled up a trusty fountain pen (well, I do have rather a lot!) and tried to brainstorm why I was stuck with the book and what I hated (most) about it.
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Morning pages and Meditation

This is one of my favourite poems. It reminds me that I need to take time and slow down and that once I do, I'll see the world differently.

Some days, my head is whirling - too many things to fret about; too many ideas for books... When it's like that, I need to slow down. Actually, I need to stop, but I'm not good at stopping. Never have been. After a lot of trial and error (and a need to find something before I burned out completely) I've found that a combination of "Morning Pages" and a brief meditation does me the power of good.

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You Don't Always Need A Plan...

Ah yes. The New Year. The time when I've traditionally thought about what I might accomplish in the year, drawn up wildly optimistic plans and then, over the year seen my life head in a completely different direction from where I thought I would go.

Take 2017 for example. Although I hoped I would get a publishing deal, I wasn't banking on it, and my writing plans focussed on finishing books, and getting them edited and self-published. Having been signed by Joffe Books last year, I ended up doing none of the self-publishing stuff I had anticipated doing. I also didn't envisage doing so many author events (in fact, I didn't envisage any!). When I look back on last year's plans, they seem faintly ridiculous in places.
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Season's Greetings!

A very quick post to hope that all my readers have a wonderful holiday (if they're managing to get one) and all best wishes for 2018. I will be back blogging again in the New Year.

Off to rescue the Christmas tree from the two hooligans... and then have a bit of cake!

Developing Characters

I hasten to say, our flip chart notes were better than this!A couple of weeks ago, my good friend Sandra Ireland and I, along with Chris Longmuir, ran a slightly impromptu character development session, at one of the author events we were doing. Slightly impromptu, as we were covering for another writer who had been stranded in North Uist by the weather and had only had a couple of hours' notice that we were doing a second event!

The session went really well - we got the audience to develop a character from scratch with us, starting with general things (male or female? Colour of hair? Married/divorced/separated/single etc?) but as we got more details up on the flip chart, the beginnings of a plot started to crystallise too, emphasising how much a plot can be character-driven. A plot may take many different turns if a different character was involved... imagine Outlander, but instead of the character Jamie being a tall, strong, stubborn Highlander, he was an eighteenth century fop. Or how different any of your favourite novels would be, if you swapped the main characters for ones from a different book.

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My Positivity Journal

For Christmas last year, my lovely husband bought me a gorgeous book where I could keep good memories. Then, when I'm feeling low, I can look through the book, remember all these wonderful times and feel uplifted.

The book he bought me was the same as this one (I blogged about it last year, here):

It's absolutely glorious, with marbling on the sides of the pages, a beautiful leather cover and high quality paper.
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Busy week!

Some weeks I have almost nothing in the diary... others (like last week) are packed!

As well as all the normal things I have in my week (family commitments; Life PLC etc), I had three events last week - a Murder and Mayhem event in Braehead, Glasgow; a Book Week event at Forfar; and the CWA Christmas lunch in Edinburgh.

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Updates on the cats...

I think we have adopted two hooligans...

We got them about two and a half weeks ago and they were traumatised after being rescued from a domestic violence situation. The first weekend, they were pretty shell-shocked still and mostly hid under things, though the one with Tippex on his ear (Nero) was brave enough to come and sit on the sofa and get fuss and cuddles, even on the first night. His brother (no Tippex on his ear; called Max) wasn't quite so brave but did accept fuss and treats. [The Tippex was put on Nero by the rescue shelter, to tell them apart!]

For the first few days, we mostly saw black streaks as they zoomed in/out of rooms. Both of them appear to like lying on tables and worktops (!) though they leap off and skedaddle if you go into the room where they're doing that. Max also quite likes the old cat bed in the lounge and Nero likes a sofa. Both of them have steadfastly refused to sleep in the new cat bed we bought specially for them.
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"The Call"

My first novel, originally called "The Wrong Kind of Clouds", has been re-published by Joffe books. It's now called " The Call " and is available from today!

The Call
What if your ex-boyfriend called you, desperately asking for life-or-death help?

Summer Morris gets a phone call from her ex-lover Patrick begging for help. But he’s cut off before he can give her all the details.

He’s in deep trouble. She would have been happy to never hear from him again, but can she really refuse to help a man whose life is in danger?

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Two new additions to the house...

You may recall that we lost our beloved cat, Sly, back in Spring. At the time, I said 'Never again - I can't go through this again.' In many ways, I'm still mourning his loss, but hubby and I decided that we could offer a home to a couple of rescue cats.

We phoned the local cat shelter last week, partly to enquire about whether they had any suitable cats (we really wanted younger cats and a pair) and partly, if they hadn't, to give them our details. I'd seen a couple of three-year-olds on their website and hubby and I had discussed taking them if they still had them. Anyway, when I called the shelter, they said they had just had a pair of 15-month-old male cats brought in, but they were completely traumatised at the moment, having been rescued from a domestic violence situation.

We have no children, a reasonable sized house and garden, and lots of patience and time, so we were an ideal match for taking them. We went to see them last Thursday and on Saturday, they arrived home.

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