Zoe Lea's Blog, page 7

Tree Stories – do you have one?

Hello! I seem to have been absent from here a while, but now I’m back!
I had a stomach bug, then a really bad cold and had to finish off the edits for The Secretary so y’know, it’s been a busy old few weeks. Which meant, because I’m a bit crap and not at all organised, I had no posts already written to put up here and no photographs taken that I could share from my sick bed.

Made me realise that I need to get a bit more organised if I want to call myself a blogger. Be a bit more like one of t...

How to tell a fantastic ghost story

The first ghost story I remember hearing was at a Halloween party.

I was about seven or eight years old, and a wimpy little kid. I was scrawny and suffering with undiagnosed asthma at the time and the party was held in the church hall. My mother took me up to the church, but couldn’t find a parking space, so she dropped me off, leaving me to go in alone.

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I was dressed up as a witch, wearing a long pointy hat and a dress made of thin material that made me shiver as I entered the church yard....

An Autumn To Do List

I just got a notification from my aunt, it’s thirty years ago today that her mother died. My nana.

I remember the day vividly, I was young and at the time I was at an evening rehearsal of a school production.

My mother’s close friend collected me and as I sat in her strange car, I had a terrible sense of foreboding when she wouldn’t answer my questions as to why she had come to collect me and not one of my parents.

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Then I got home to my mother, whom I’d never seen in so much pain.

What fol...

English countryside in autumn and why I love it

The English Countryside, in Autumn, is one of my favourite places.
When we moved to the Lake District three years ago, I pretty much loved it at any time of the year. Each season brought beauty and although I love it throughout the year here, there is something really special about the autumn months.

The summer can be very unpredictable and winter can be full of gray days and storms, but the autumn months are something else.

This is the time I often invite family and friends over, and here’s...

Creative Intentions for October

Creative intentions is a monthly thing now. Did I tell you that? It started last month, with September. The start of a new academic year made me want to set some goals and, looking back on what I achieved in the month, it worked.

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Here were my creative intentions for September:

Write at least one thousand words on my novel every day
I did this to some extent. And, I set up a writing army as a way of getting some accountability into my writing days. It’s got it’s own hashtag on Instagram and...

Hashtags for the Bookish (free download)

Hashtags, are without doubt, one of the best ways to be found on social media.
They are a great way to connect with new people. To let people know what you do and if used correctly, can be a really powerful tool in getting fresh engagement, new followers and new connections.

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Without them, your post is floating about, hoping to be noticed. With them, your post discoverable. Using hashtags correctly can make all the difference between being found and being lost.

There’s been a few doubts about...

Writing Army

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I’ve started a writing army.

True story.

Okay, so maybe the word ‘army’ is a slight exaggeration because maybe I don’t actually know how many soldiers are in this writing army, but I like to think it’s a lot. All with keyboards, pens and pads, scribbling away.

How did this start and what is it? I hear you ask, well, let me tell you.

I’ve quite a bit I want to write. I’ve got a book to edit and another book to write. I want to do more blog posts and outline several other ideas I’ve got and I...

September update (I signed a book deal!)

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A lot has happened in the past few weeks. So much that I’ve neglected this blog, my Instagram posts  and remember those Creative Intentions for September? Well, they’re still very much intentions.

But now I feel I’m through it, and can write about and tell you everything that’s been going on.

First up, we changed offices for the day job. To be honest, I didn’t even thing this was going to be a thing, because it’s only an office change, right? I couldn’t have been more wrong.

We were only mov...

Reading snacks – the cupcake

Reading snacks are something I’ve come to see a necessity. I find reading a lot more enjoyable if I’ve got food to hand.  It goes without saying that I must have a cup of tea alongside, or at the very least a hot chocolate, but a reading snack is a must.

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I often find that if I’m reading something emotional, I simply have to have something to shovel down my throat whilst reading. As if I need to eat my feelings, but, not all snacks are created equal. You can’t eat anything runny (yogurt all o...

Creative Intentions for September, what are yours?

Creative intentions. I know, the cynic in me gave it a bit of an eye roll when I typed that phrase out too, but ‘goals’ sounds a bit too serious and ‘resolutions’ are something I’ve never been able to stick to, so intentions it is.

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September always has a New Year vibe about it don’t you think? All summer I’ve been saying, ‘when summer is over, I’m going to…’ or ‘when the kids are back at school, I’ll work on…’

And now it’s here.
I’m looking forward to crisp mornings, trees filled with yellow...