Gill Fernandez's Blog, page 5

How Time Passes

I can hardly believe it is over a month since I last visited my blog - let alone posted something. My excuse is the pressure of work! There are, after all, only so many hours in the day and so much to do. Monthly newsletters for my Readers' Club members. (Have you joined yet?) Keeping up to date on my social media, writing, editing, reading... ya-di-ya and so it goes on and suddenly it's the Easter weekend starting tomorrow and not a hot X bun in sight (must go shopping - where's my to-do list?) And here I am catching up on my long overdue blog post and I must confess it is really a displacement activity. I'm waiting for Love Is to come back from the editor and I have been taking my mind off that by working on Love Me, the next title which is due out in September. I've promised the Readers' Club a sneak preview of chapter one and I think it will be ready. In fact, I am about two or maybe three chapters from the end... BUT (this is where the displacement activity comes in) I am avoiding finishing Love Me.

It's in good shape, I'm pleased with the characters and despite all the things that have gone wrong for our lovers we are set up for a happy ever after (or at least happy for a while) ending, but I simply can't face the writing. Not sure why. When this happens it usually means there is something wrong in the lead up to the section where I'm stuck. Maybe some character motivation is adrift. I don't know, and I just can't face looking for a moment. I need to be focused! And I'm not.

The reason for this distraction may be Love Is. It is due back to me soon, then it'll be a final pass, working through changes and corrections before it is formatted, back and front matter added and at last sent up to Amazon for release on the 21st of May. That's just thirty-five days away. Am I nervous? You bet I am. Love Is has taken over four years, several rewrites, multiple edits just to get here... and I really can't relax until it comes back from editing and I see what remaining work I have to do. If you want to pre-order you can here: http://viewbook.at/LoveIs

Now I'm off to get those Hot X Buns. Happy Easter everyone.

Something New

Sometime next week 'Love Me', a second chance romance will be available on Amazon for pre-order, but for the moment here is the cover:

Temporary Price Drop

Millie & George is now on offer. Only for a few weeks, while I decide whether to keep it exclusive to Amazon and therefore available in Kindle Unlimited, or take the leap into the larger world and make it available through Kobo, Apple, etc.

Nip over to Amazon using this universal link to your own Amazon and take a look:

http://viewbook.at/MillieandGeorge

Can I Tempt You?

Here's a snippet of a bitter-sweet love story. It's the opening to Lost Love .

The workshop was not somewhere Sally O’Brien liked to go. She’d heard bad things about the place and worse things about Mr Halcyon, the man who owned it. But her dad needed her to run an errand there and she could never say no to her father.

Sally pushed open the wooden door with its creaking hinges, peeling pale blue paint and corroded lock. The smell of sump oil and something vaguely metallic but unrecognisable seeped into her nostrils. She hesitated. Peered into the darkness, bottomless after the bright sunshine outside. Dare she step inside?

‘Excuse me?’ she called out. ‘Is anyone there?’

A metallic sound of something being dropped rang out.

Heart racing, Sally stepped inside, and the shadows swallowed her as the door swung shut. All the half-told tales of people never seen again after a visit to the Halcyon workshop seemed scarily possible.

‘Hello?’ she called again.

The rolling sound of dolly wheels moving over concrete broke the silence, and then he appeared. A tall, lean silhouette moving easily towards her.

Did you enjoy the opening? Would you like to read on? You can, simply by joining the Readers' Club.

Hello 2022

Here's wishing everyone a healthy and happy 2022. And if you are partying right now.... ENJOY xxx

Eight Days to Christmas

The holiday season is looming, the decorations are up, the presents bought and I am planning a reading binge to make a dent in my backlog (both in the Kindle App and in hard copy and paperback purchases that I've acquired through the year and mostly left unread while I piled into getting Millie & George out along with its complementary short ebook, Lost Love. Even so, I have managed to read forty-one books, and not all of them have been lightweight. Any fellow fans of Diana Gabaldon will know that you get a big word count in her books and with four or maybe five of them in my 2021 read list that's a substantial amount of reading. But my Goodreads target was forty-five books, so I need to bury my nose in a few pages between now and the new year. Do I hear you asking if I am going to stop writing over the holiday? Absolutely not. I daren't. I am still somewhat in the mire with Love Is. Despite multiple rewrites and edits, and the book now entering its fourth year of creation I remain troubled by various elements. But I have got to get it sorted and finalised as it now has a fixed publication date of 21st May 2022. So once the holiday begins I shall be alternating writing, editing, and rewriting Love Is while reading (short books) to reach my Goodreads target.

I probably won't blog again until the new year, so happy holiday everyone. Stay safe and well.

FREE EBOOK

Sign up to the Readers' Club and get a link to an exclusive free ebook. Lost Love is a bitter-sweet romance about an important character in Millie & George and also Love Is.

Must Stop Tinkering.

My problem is I'm never satisfied.

I've just finished a new short work, destined to be an exclusive giveaway for my readers' group members. On Monday, I put the final line on the page. Wednesday, before sharing it with a friend, I thought I should read it through quickly, just in case a typo had snuck in. It does happen even in the most carefully edited work.By Friday I had version 3 complete and itchy fingers were urging me to go through it again - one more time. I didn't. It went off to the friend and I have not looked at the work since because, if I do then version 4 will very soon emerge.The problem is there is always a better way. Whether it is a character description or reaction, a scene or location description, or a plot sequence. Every element of a story can be improved. There is no such thing as finished, the secret is knowing when to stop.

Some Good News

For other writers who might be struggling with writers' block today, I just wanted to say I've escaped the mudflats of soggy writing today. Although yesterday was a write off (pun intended). Today normal service from my brain is resumed.

Are you wondering how?

No, I did not have a brain transplant or find some wonderful new mind-enhancing herb.

I simply relocated. When I returned to work today, I did not go back to the same chronological point in the story where I became drawn down by sub-standard prose. I simply moved on to another drama point and off I went like the high-speed motorbike the hero in the story rides.

One Last Word

This day really isn't going well. I corrected the earlier post. I came clean about my mistake here in another post, and went on to mention the title error in the first of the posts today would still be there on Goodreads because they only synchronise once, but then I went over to Goodreads and guess what? They'd picked up my correction. Well either they've changed the system or I was wrong. We'll never know and frankly I am now beyond caring. I'm off to the kitchen to do some displacement activities which will probably involve some comfort eating.