Paula R.C. Readman's Blog, page 26

Cat Bites are nasty.

Cat bites are very nasty. At this moment in time I’m sitting in hospital with my arm up after being operated on.

Brutus, who has never bitten me before stunk his teeth into my right wrist. I washed the wound up n hot water and put some antiseptic cream on it. My husband and I had our dinner. While I was washing up Russell Google cat bites. The advice was get them check out straightaway.

Cat bites are not good thing. Following Goggle advice I was shocked by how serious cat bites are taken. I was expecting a jab of tetanus but instead they bathed the green wound and was ordered to return in the morning. I was X-ray and prepared for an operation.

They cut the wound open and cleaned it out. Now I must stay in overnight. I’ve been warned that I might lose the use of my thumb so keep your fingers crossed

It has come as a huge shock. One positive thing is my husband and son will be cooking Christmas dinner

Whose History is it Anyway?

I’ve always loved history, especially ancient history. When I was in my early teens, I saw many of the Roman finds that were uncovered in archaeological digs in and around Chelmsford, Essex. At school, I did a project on ancient Egypt because I became fascinated after my grandmother shared stories about how her school teacher would read from the daily newspaper about Howard Carter’s discovery of Tutankhamun tomb in November 1922.

my grandmother’s classroom and teachers in the village of Headley, Hampshire. ( grandmother is next to the boy in the sailor suit)

Yesterday, I read an article online, that said university students were complaining about the talks they were given. This got me thinking about history, and what we are taught, or not taught in schools.

Here’s a quick lesson: Once the planet had settled down and the continents had finally stopped moving then life began to develop in the seas and oceans. From single-celled creatures that came out of the water all life on this planet began to develop; from the mosses, lichens and ferns all the way up to humans.

Every recognisable country on this planet has a history, but the people who live in these countries now might not be the original settlers. The earliest people of any given country are lost in the mists of time. Most of the races including our own aren’t truly documented as the earliest known writing we have dates back to 1250 Before Common Era, and this is an early form of Chinese writing. Archaeology can only give us an insight to our past, and even then it still very sketchy.

Timelines for when the first Homo sapiens or first known modern human appeared on this planet is a bit vague, but at a guess we are told it’s somewhere between 300,000 and 200,000 years ago. Then we hang around for about 100,000 to 70,000 years ago before setting off on our evolutional journey out of Africa. At that time, there wasn’t any borders or countries as we know them today. Humans, like animals and birds, were constantly migrating to search out resources to sustain their lives. As time went on, the once nomadic people began to settle into small communities. These were normally in areas where fresh water was easily attainable, wild fruits, and nuts were abundance, along with wild animals. Shelter was easily found or could be built quickly, with what was laying around, to protect them from the elements, or dangerous animals. Soon people learnt how to domesticate animals, create tools, and pots for storing food through the lean months. How to dig wells to find underground waters supplies. Of course, they found fire and learnt how to harness its power. As communities grew so the drain on natural resources drove people to seek out what they needed from further afield. This either led to trading surplus supplies with other communities or going to war with them.

So what has my brief history lesson been all about you might be asking?

Archaeology can’t tell us everything about the past. In fact, we are just looking through a telescope and seeing a tiny window and not the bigger picture. Ruined settlements, pieces of bone, scratched marks on stones, or even cave paintings may give us a hint of what these people were like, but they don’t give us all the facts. There’s so much we don’t know about the languages and cultures that evolved in the beginning and then disappeared altogether. If we were to step into a time machine the languages spoken today in any part of the world wouldn’t be understood by the people living in those areas three hundred thousand years ago. There’s much we don’t know like how their minds worked. What they believed in, or even how they interacted with each other, or those around them. It’s all guess work. We don’t really know what colour their skin, hair or eye colours were, we just assume they must have looked like the people who live now in the country where their remains have been found.

The problem with history is the same as the problem we have with information on the internet. We always need to check our sources, but if the information doesn’t exist, we can’t just make it up to serve our own perspective. History doesn’t belong to any one race and it can only show us the bigger picture, once we have a clearer understanding of it. In our modern world, even the people we see as primitive in comparison to ourselves might not give us a true likeness to the people who lived over 300,000 years ago. We have no idea what valuable information our early ancestors possessed in the way of medicine, or the understanding of plants, etc which has been lost to us.

The funny thing is we are waking up to the fact that for all our modern living, our life style isn’t sustainable. Are we not moving back to a plant base diet? Are we not like our ancient precursors migrating as we seek out a better life, or more resources. The only difference now to the past, is we have no where to go. The planet can’t sustain the number of humans indefinitely as we aren’t allowing our natural resources to recover from the damage we had done, or the pollution we have created in our throw-away societies.

It looks to me that maybe our ancient precursors were far more intelligent than us. The only things they left behind to tell us of their existence leaves no lasting damage on this planet. Maybe we should give them more credit as they have far more to teach us about sustainable living than we have done in this modern era.

Thank you for reading my post.

Who’s History is it Anyway?

I’ve always loved history, especially ancient history. When I was in my early teens, I saw many of the Roman finds that were uncovered in archaeological digs in and around Chelmsford, Essex. At school, I did a project on ancient Egypt because I became fascinated after my grandmother shared stories about how her school teacher would read from the daily newspaper about Howard Carter’s discovery of Tutankhamun tomb in November 1922.

my grandmother’s classroom and teachers in the village of Headley, Hampshire. ( grandmother is next to the boy in the sailor suit)

Yesterday, I read an article online, that said university students were complaining about the talks they were given. This got me thinking about history, and what we are taught, or not taught in schools.

Here’s a quick lesson: Once the planet had settled down and the continents had finally stopped moving then life began to develop in the seas and oceans. From single-celled creatures that came out of the water all life on this planet began to develop; from the mosses, lichens and ferns all the way up to humans.

Every recognisable country on this planet has a history, but the people who live in these countries now might not be the original settlers. The earliest people of any given country are lost in the mists of time. Most of the races including our own aren’t truly documented as the earliest known writing we have dates back to 1250 Before Common Era, and this is an early form of Chinese writing. Archaeology can only give us an insight to our past, and even then it still very sketchy.

Timelines for when the first Homo sapiens or first known modern human appeared on this planet is a bit vague, but at a guess we are told it’s somewhere between 300,000 and 200,000 years ago. Then we hang around for about 100,000 to 70,000 years ago before setting off on our evolutional journey out of Africa. At that time, there wasn’t any borders or countries as we know them today. Humans, like animals and birds, were constantly migrating to search out resources to sustain their lives. As time went on, the once nomadic people began to settle into small communities. These were normally in areas where fresh water was easily attainable, wild fruits, and nuts were abundance, along with wild animals. Shelter was easily found or could be built quickly, with what was laying around, to protect them from the elements, or dangerous animals. Soon people learnt how to domesticate animals, create tools, and pots for storing food through the lean months. How to dig wells to find underground waters supplies. Of course, they found fire and learnt how to harness its power. As communities grew so the drain on natural resources drove people to seek out what they needed from further afield. This either led to trading surplus supplies with other communities or going to war with them.

So what has my brief history lesson been all about you might be asking?

Archaeology can’t tell us everything about the past. In fact, we are just looking through a telescope and seeing a tiny window and not the bigger picture. Ruined settlements, pieces of bone, scratched marks on stones, or even cave paintings may give us a hint of what these people were like, but they don’t give us all the facts. There’s so much we don’t know about the languages and cultures that evolved in the beginning and then disappeared altogether. If we were to step into a time machine the languages spoken today in any part of the world wouldn’t be understood by the people living in those areas three hundred thousand years ago. There’s much we don’t know like how their minds worked. What they believed in, or even how they interacted with each other, or those around them. It’s all guess work. We don’t really know what colour their skin, hair or eye colours were, we just assume they must have looked like the people who live now in the country where their remains have been found.

The problem with history is the same as the problem we have with information on the internet. We always need to check our sources, but if the information doesn’t exist, we can’t just make it up to serve our own perspective. History doesn’t belong to any one race and it can only show us the bigger picture, once we have a clearer understanding of it. In our modern world, even the people we see as primitive in comparison to ourselves might not give us a true likeness to the people who lived over 300,000 years ago. We have no idea what valuable information our early ancestors possessed in the way of medicine, or the understanding of plants, etc which has been lost to us.

The funny thing is we are waking up to the fact that for all our modern living, our life style isn’t sustainable. Are we not moving back to a plant base diet? Are we not like our ancient precursors migrating as we seek out a better life, or more resources. The only difference now to the past, is we have no where to go. The planet can’t sustain the number of humans indefinitely as we aren’t allowing our natural resources to recover from the damage we had done, or the pollution we have created in our throw-away societies.

It looks to me that maybe our ancient precursors were far more intelligent than us. The only things they left behind to tell us of their existence leaves no lasting damage on this planet. Maybe we should give them more credit as they have far more to teach us about sustainable living than we have done in this modern era.

Thank you for reading my post.

Please forgive me, but…

I’m not one for moaning or complaining about what life has dealt me. And, I do understand, in all our lives there comes a time when we feel the need to complain about something that’s affecting our lives in a negative way. But… for most of us, there are things within our power we can do to change our situation from the negative to a positive, if we are willing to try, or maybe reach-out for a slight leg up, or even listening to others for guidance.

There was a time in my own life where I kept quiet and had the stiff-upper-lip attitude, we British were once famous for. We were told not to put our private life on show. To never hang your dirty washing out for others to see. What went on behind close door was to be resolved by those who were involved, and no one else. With this in mind, when my first marriage was breaking down, I went for counselling. Not that it did any good, because my then-husband wouldn’t join me. It needed us both to solve the issues, we were having.

I told the counsellor that I felt my problems weren’t that important in the scheme of things. That there were others who’s issues were far bigger. The counsellor’s reply was, ‘If it is making you unhappy, than it’s important to you.’

There’s a saying, if you’re banging your head against a brick wall, and it’s hurting no one, but you, then the best option is to stop, and find another way of resolving your problem.

Well, I did just that. I stopped beating myself up about my dying marriage, and walked away. It was a tough decision, but if other women found the strength to walk, then why not me, too. Of course, I had no money of my own, and no job. So I started looking in the local newspapers. From then on, step by step I did what I had to do. No whinging or moaning about it. I just got on with it.

I’m not going to give you a blow by blow account here apart from saying I waited until my son started school before stepping away from my marriage. I found myself a full-time job which would have been difficult if I had more children. It was a struggled on low wage as I had to pay off a loan on a car, pay for child-minding, plus household bills. Then a problem arose about me taking on the mortgage by myself, but I fought for the right to continue. At the end of each month I panicked, as long as I had a penny left in the bank, I knew I could make it through the next month. Of course, there wasn’t any luxuries or treats for my son and I, but we were lucky in many ways.

I’ve always been aware that whinging and moaning doesn’t get you any where. It’s just wasted energy, and, in fact, you can quickly turn people off. Of course, there are times when you must complain, or if you’re upset by something that has been unfair. Then it becomes a question of putting your complaints into words in a orderly fashion, speaking concisely to the right people to sort the situation out. This might take time, but you want to keep others on your side, so it’s wise not to whine in a petulant way.

Whinging character that resolves his problem.

There are many characters in books, movies and on the television who we laugh at or make fun of because they are whinging in a pitiful voice. These characters are seen as rather annoying and not helpful to others. They tend to whine about the same old thing like a stuck record, without any resolve. No matter how much others try to help them, nothing anyone can say or do will ever satisfy them. It’s as though they take pleasure in being unhappy in their situation. But, if the whinging character becomes open to change and is willing to listen, they can adapt just like the tin man, the scarecrow and the cowardly lion in the Wizard of Oz.

At this time of year as we all stop to count our blessings and think about those less fortunate than ourselves, we should take stock and notice that our glasses are in fact half full. In Ukraine people are struggling without power while Russia still wages a war against them. In Britain we are still dealing with rising prices, homelessness, etc. and other things way beyond the control of one person.

I’m not an expert and don’t have all the answers, but there are certain situations where we can help ourselves, and whinging isn’t a quick fix.

What’s need is a game plan: Come up with as many ideas as you can of ways you could help yourself and write them down. It doesn’t matter how crazy the ideas maybe as you work back through the list, you can cross off things like robbing the bank as being impractical. I was on my own, but you might be lucky to have someone you can work with to solve your issues.

If you need someone to talk then get in contact with the like of Citizens Advice Bureau, or Samaritans. These people will have contact details to help you take the next step in resolving your issues. You could try Googling your problem, and find a self-help group where you can chat with others who have been in the same situation as yourself.

Of course, when I made my decision to walk away, there was no internet, and I felt very much alone. For me, there was the library and I read quite a few self-help books on the subject I needed like finding a solicitor, etc. It must be remembered, in this day and age local resource are stretched to their limits as more and more people are demanding help, so the more we are able to help ourselves through these difficult times, the quicker we can resolve our own problems.

I can sit here today, and tell you, I made it through my darkest hours by pulling myself back from the brink, because my son needed me. Of course, I’m not the same person I was thirty-two years ago, I’m now stronger, wiser and much happier. Like everyone, I still worry for my future, and my son’s, too.

Stay strong and keep believing.

What Challenges are you setting yourself for the New Year?

Having a challenge, no matter how small gives you something to aim for throughout the coming year as well as helping your mental health, too. A healthy mindset helps you deal with life’s problems far easier. It doesn’t really matter if you complete the challenges you have set yourself, it’s all about focusing your mind on something. It can be anything that gives your life some sort of direction, and a reward. Something that makes you feel you have achieved a goal. Write a short story, or a novella. Enter a writing competition, grow flowers or vegetables from seeds, photograph a particular bird or landscape. Maybe, you want to get fitter, to run a marathon, or just see the latest movie with some friends. Whatever you decide to do, just set yourself an attainable goal.

Paula at age 15 at the first lock, Chelmsford.

Since I was a child, I’ve always set myself a goal. It started from when I was about fourteen years old after my parents got divorced. I used to sit beside the river that ran alongside the mill where I grew up. The river was someone I could share my problems with, knowing it would carry them away to the sea. I use to tell the river where I wanted to be in ten years time. I dreamt about being an artist and travelling around Britain in a camper van, drawing and painting as I went. Of course, I failed my school exams, and then at sixteen, I failed to get into college to do art.

Moulsham Mill in 1963 before the river was filled in and redirected.

Life is a river. There are always obstacles bouncing up to block your way as we all head towards the end of our life span. But, life is all about how we deal with those obstacles. In the past, Chelmer River was once used to power the mill via the waterwheel. Then time moved on, and the mill became powered by electricity. A new channel was dug and the river was moved away from the mill when a weir was built to control the river, to stop it from flooding the centre of Chelmsford. The city of Chelmsford (as it is now called) sits at the centre of the meeting of two rivers, the river Can and the River Chelmer.

View towards the A12. From the top of the mill, after the river was moved

Like the river, my life changed course, and I moved away. With the mill closing down, and the cottage where we lived falling into disrepair, we were moved into social housing. I never gave up on my dream of be coming an artist and took art courses in the evening, but found they didn’t allow for self-expression. So once again, I turned to books, from the library and charity shops. You can always find away to follow your dreams, if you set yourself a challenge. Even if your money is limited, this shouldn’t be an obstacle.

Each year I set myself the Goodreads challenge of reading as many books as I can. The challenge isn’t about beating anyone else, but yourself. You set the number of books you hope to read in the year and then curl up with your first book. Once you have read it, you sign into your Goodreads account, find the book title and mark it as read, you can give it a brief review, or a star rating if you want. Remember in my last posting I explained the Goodreads’ star rating. It’s about how much you, as a reader, enjoyed the books.

What I like about the challenge is it doesn’t matter where your books come from. They could all be ones sitting on your bookshelf now, or the pile you have at your bedside that you’ve never got round to reading yet. They can be charity shop or car boot finds, not newly bought for the challenge. Just create an account in Goodreads, sign up to the challenge, and type in the title of the book and author’s name. Mark the book as currently reading then once you’ve finished reading, you mark the book as read and move onto your next one.

The idea behind Goodreads is to encourage reading. Of course, this benefits the publishing industry, too. At the end of the year, readers are asked to vote on a selection of books in The Reader’s Choice competition run by Goodreads. The competition has all the different genres including non fiction which the Goodreads Readers vote on. You don’t have to do this, if you don’t want, too. I just enjoy the reading challenge for the enjoyment of reading a wide variety of books throughout the year. Reading is good for your well-being, too. Curling up with a book in bed, or gathering your children together in one room where you take it in turns to read from a book, must help save on heating as well as improving you and your family’s well-being. So find a genre you love, or step outside your comfort zone. Whether your books come from the library, charity shop, or the author, get reading.

My Writing Challenge for 2023:

Finish my first Granny Wenlock novel within the next six months. Enter some writing competitions. Submit to some anthologies.

My Painting Challenge for 2023:

Finish a selection of paintings for a craft fair in December 2023. Here I will be able to sell my books, too. I will be ordering my books from the publishers throughout the year.

My Garden Challenge for 2023:

Grow a good selection of vegetables. I’ve saved seeds from an array of pumpkins, have onion sets and potatoes to go in at the beginning of the new growing year.

What’s your challenge for the coming year?

Remember, it’s a personal one to you. Be positive and keep it attainable. If you make it too hard, you’ll be disappointed with yourself and your mental health will suffer. If you have a huge challenge, do it in smaller steps. Remember, it’s your challenge, you can take as long as you want.

Nothing happens overnight. Be kind to yourself.

I’ll be back to chat with you again soon.

What a wonderful surprise!

Just found this on link on Twitter. A lovely blogger has done a review on my short story Chimes at Midnight.

Here’s the link to Kath’s blog https://ladyksmusings.wordpress.com/2022/12/11/the-chimes-at-midnight-by-paula-readman-short-story-review/

My book is available at:

http://www.thebridgetowncafebooksshop.co.uk/2021/04/days-pass-like-shadow-by-paula-r-c.html
https://www.hive.co.uk/Product/Paula-RC-Readman/Days-Pass-Like-a-Shadow/25059079
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/days-pass-like-a-shadow-paula-r-c-readman/1137146764?ean=9781907335808
https://www.booktopia.com.au/days-pass-like-a-shadow-paula-r-c-readman/book/9781907335808.html

Goodreads Vs Amazon

As a reader I’ve used Goodreads (a site for readers) for many years. I like having a place where I can keep a list of the books I’ve read and what I thought of them. I also enjoy their reading challenge, where you can set yourself a personal challenge for the number of books you’ll read in the year. I’ve been using both Amazon and Goodreads before I became a writer, so my system for reviewing books has always been in place.

Yesterday, while checking on Goodreads, I wondered just how many people I knew use Goodreads as a reader, and posted their reviews there. As an author, I do have an author’s page on Goodreads like the one on Amazon. Unlike Amazon, the Goodreads site allows author’s to review their own books, which I find very strange. Well, you’re not going to give yourself a bad review, are you? What I have done in the past is to share a review which isn’t available on Amazon or Goodreads there.

Goodreads site is far more active at helping author’s get their books seen by readers without any cost to the author. If a reader reviews your book, this is then sent via an email to all readers on Goodreads. You can also see who has your book in their To-Read list. I’m afraid this can be depressing because, I can see there are sixty-six readers who have Stone Angels sitting in theirs. Goodreads allows you to share your blog post on their site, too. So every time you update your blog it is shared there.

Some people love it, some people hate it but marmite is still a bestseller.

The one piece of advise I would give all authors who read and review other people’s books, don’t just review all your friends and fellow authors in one go it’s best to mix them up with more establish authors you’re not friends with. Amazon now own the Goodreads site, so if they pick up a pattern in your reviewing, they might just block you from posting reviews on Amazon.

I’m wary about reviewing friends’ books, not because of Amazon tough stance on paid reviews but because of a nasty instant with a fellow writer. They told me they had given me an honest review of my book. We had chatted about it, and I had asked a few times, It was your honest opinion. We had shared writing advice over short stories, where they had given me their honest opinion which I took and rewrote parts of my work. So I was aware that they could give out honest advice in a positive way. What I wasn’t prepared for was the backlash, I received when I gave them a honest review on their book.

Let me explain that all reviews given are purely a personal opinion. One reader’s review of a book might not be another reader’s view. It’s all down to personal taste. Like Marmite, some people will love it, and some people will hate it, but that doesn’t stop Marmite from being a bestseller, which it is, and its been around for a long time. Personally, I love marmite, but I might not love it in a peanut and jelly sandwich. It’s all to do with taste. My favourite books might not be loved by all readers.

When reviewing my former friend’s book, I wanted to be honest for two reasons. Firstly, if I didn’t give an honest review, and others tore it apart, they would have been upset with me. Secondly, for a simply selfish reason, a dishonest review would’ve invalidated all my other reviews. Don’t get me wrong, I did take into account their feelings, and it tore me apart trying to decide what to do. Anyway, I went with honest being the best policy. After they expressed their disappointment strongly because I only gave them a four star review, I then changed it to what they wanted and they had expected to receive from me. So I no longer give out reviews to close friends. If I do read their books, I don’t let them know before hand, and once I’ve finished it, I tend to post a review and let them just find it, but only if their books are four or above for me.

Ratings are strange creatures. Goodreads is a reader’s site so their rating are listed as likes and dislikes:

star means: Did not like the book. This could mean anything, if the reader doesn’t add a worded review we can only guess. Maybe they had tried a new genre, and found it wasn’t to their taste.stars means: It was okay. This could mean anything. As the author of the book, you are desperate to know more. The words It was okay, rings in your ears as not being good enough. Once again, if the reader was to leave a written review, we could find out more. stars means: Liked it. Once again as an author, we want to know more, what did the reader like about the book, but Goodreads is geared towards readers and not the authors. stars means: Really liked it. Wow! you really liked it! Tell me more, tell me more! Okay, you get the picture. Us authors are never satisfied, we want to know every little detail of what they liked about it. stars means: It was amazing! Okay, okay, author, please back off now. Give the reader some space. They really, really liked your book.

What’s so difficult about just accepting I liked your book, rather than I really liked your book. One extra word, or star. Does it make a huge difference to you as an author. I’m sure, as a reader, I’ve read plenty of books where I’ve thought on closing the covers for the final time, yes, that was okay. Maybe, on reading the reviews for the book, I would have found that others loved it.

As reader’s reviews are the only way other than talking to our readers we get to know what others think about our books. I know when my first book was published, it was the thing I feared the most. A bad review. Now I understand much better, that reviews are just one reader’s opinion, they don’t bother me so much. What all author’s need is a mixed bag of reviews. If there’s only five stars reviews, readers might think only family and friends have read your book.

This might seem like a strange confession to make, but I tend to read the two and three stars reviews when a book takes my interest. I find them to be the most honest. If reviewer has been brave enough to voice their opinion, I feel it’s worth reading. Of course, it does all depend on what they have to say. If they are just being plain nasty, I just dismiss their comments. There are such things as trolls.

Amazon ratings is a bit different from Goodreads. Remember, Goodreads is a site for readers, you can’t buy anything other than books, via an Amazon link, on Goodreads. Amazon ratings aren’t just for books but everything they sell on their site. A rating with no comment explains nothing, so just let it go. The reader might have just tapped the screen on their kindle when they finished reading it. It does say Rate this book, and then there’s five little stars.

Lets keep that in mind when you read reviews on Amazon.

1 star Amazon rating: the product wasn’t what I was expecting. The packet had been thrown over my neighbour’s fence. I never ordered this size. This wasn’t the book, I wanted. It was rubbish. I didn’t like the cover.

2 star Amazon rating: My order never arrived on time. I ordered the hardcover, and got a paperback. The audiobook didn’t open on my kindle. It wasn’t what I ordered and I returned the packet, which meant another trip to the post office. A child could have written this book better.

3 star Amazon rating: my order arrived a bit late but it was damaged. It was okay. The characters were likeable. Plot was slow in places. I’m not sure I was reading the same book as everyone else. It wasn’t a five star read to me.

4 star Amazon rating: Yes, it was okay, I found a few typos. It needs more editing. I really loved this book. I love the author, but this isn’t one of their better books. I found the main character annoying, but the story was great.

5 star Amazon rating: Great service. Arrived on time. Just what I ordered. I enjoyed the book. Can’t wait to read another book by this author.

Basically, when you think about book reviews within the full range of Amazon’s other products their ratings don’t mean much. Yes, as a published author I look forward to reading the reviews I receive, their validate me as an author. Just knowing someone I don’t know has bought my book, read it, and enjoyed it so much they left a review.

The only problem now is Amazon’s rating system is broken. Too many people are using the rating system as a means of making money by writing reviews to order. This invalidate the honest reviews left by people who read the books, and wanted to leave a review.

My system for reviewing books is quite simple.

Three stars: average I enjoyed the book, it kept me turning the pages. I might have had to re-read a few pages, because I didn’t quite understand what was going on. Four stars: Brilliant book . What wasn’t there to like about it? The characters were engaging, it kept me turning the pages, the flow of the story worked, loved the characters. There might have been a couple of moments, I didn’t enjoy in the plot. but overall it was a winner.Five stars: Outstanding. I wish I had written the book! The story line was amazing, I was lost in the book, the characters, setting, the writing was fantastic, I was swept along so easily I was lost from the real world.

Anyway, these are just my thoughts and opinions on Goodreads and Amazon.

Do you enjoy leaving reviews?Which do you prefer Goodreads or Amazon? Do you have your own rating system when reviewing a book.

I hope you found the article helpful.

Paula R. C.

Writing Blog: the first draft.

When I first set out on my writing journey, I also began a blog. At the time, there were thousands of other more experience writers and authors blogging about the Art of Writing, so I decided to stay focused on my personal journey because I lacked confidence in my ability to blog about ‘how to’ write.

Today, after nearly twenty years, since I set myself the challenge to see if I could get something into print, I’ve decided to write about the lessons I have learnt over the years I’ve been writing. My world has completely changed since I started. My confidence has grown both in myself personally, and as a writer, too. I may not have a bestseller yet, but, to date, I have five books, over a hundred short stories, and seven non-fiction articles published, as well as winning short story competitions, too.

As I have said on many occasions, when I set out on this journey, I had no idea how English grammar worked, how to use punctuation, my spelling was awful, and I didn’t know how to create a well-constructed story. Not having the money or time available to take classes because I was working to support a young son and pay off a mortgage and loans, the only option open to me was teaching myself by reading ‘How To do’ books on all subjects linked to writing, and the publishing world.

So now, I feel, is the right time to share some of the things I’ve learnt along the way. The first important lesson I learnt was that the writing is the easy part. What comes next is the hardest, and can become the most boring part, too, but if you master it, it will be the most rewarding element of writing. I love it. To me, whether you are writing poetry, nonfiction, blog posts, flash fiction, short story or a novel, if you can’t, or won’t edit, stop writing, and find yourself a new hobby, or career.

Editing is one of the most important skills you’ll need to master. It’s where you’ll develop your story line. By the time you’ve written your first draft you will know whether your story idea has legs. Whether you’re writing poetry, nonfiction, a blog post, flash fiction, short story or a novel, it must be remembered that your first draft is just a few random ideas that have popped into your head. Yes, write the whole thing out in full, but don’t think for one minute it’s the final version and is ready to send off to a publisher. Your random ideas will need to be sorted into some compelling order for the story/ article to become an intriguing read.

Even with this blog post, I will have gone through it carefully several times, trying to find the best order in which to sort out my thought process as I try to make sure I’ve got my point over to you concisely. Writing isn’t about being in a rush to get to the finishing line as quickly as possible. Of course, if you are a journalist or working to a tight deadline then you don’t have the luxury of unlimited time for research, developing ideas, and editing. Once you have your first draft then the real work begins. If you try to cut corners while in the editing stage your work will be rejected.

There are three main stages to editing. This doesn’t mean, you only need to read through your work three times. That only happens when your work is with the publisher, or a professional editor. Remember you need to get your writing project to a high standard so it stands out from the crowd when submitting to agents and publishers. The less work you leave for an editor to do, the more chance you have for your work to be snapped up.

There are a few things you need to think about when editing. Firstly, your initial idea might’ve been the most brilliant idea you’ve ever had, but is it clear to others in your retelling. Will others understand what you’ve written down?

Remember the phrase Lost in Translation.

What I’m trying to explain to you is sometimes what we can see clearly, isn’t so clear to our readers. The scenes in our heads are not what our readers can see. Our dialogue might sound natural to us as we hear our characters speaking to each other in our minds, but our readers only see their spoken words unless we can bring our characters truly alive in our readers’ heads. This goes for all aspect of writing from our characters, dialogue, setting, pace and structure, narrative voice i.e. from whose view point the story is being told, etc. We need to work on each element carefully asking ourselves a series of questions. Keep your readers in mind as you edit.

Will your readers see:

Your Characters: Are they authentic and engaging. Do they feel real as they interact with each other. Remember, If your readers find your characters annoying, predictable stereotypes, you’ll lose them.Story line: Is your story line gripping enough? Are you just rewriting an all to familiar story? Have you come up with something original? Think outside the box and give the readers something new and exciting. Look up your genre on Amazon, and read the blurbs of a few books listed there to see how many have had the same idea as you. Pace and Structure: If your story telling is weak, and your pace is slow because you’re getting bogged down with unnecessary details then your readers will lose interest. Remember, it’s a fine balance between every element of your story telling. Language: Is your writing fluent and free flowing. Have you hooked your reader so they don’t want to put the book down? What about your images, metaphors and similes are they fresh and arresting so the readers become so immersed in the world of your characters they don’t see the words. Dull and functional writing, with confusing sentences where a reader has to return to it twice to fully understand what you are saying will jar them out of the story. Narrative Voice: It’s important to make sure you have selected the best character to tell your story. Make sure there’s a distinctive tone to both your overall story and to your characters. Give each character an original voice, too. This helps to breathe life into your book. Dialogue: It’s important to think about dialogue. If your dialogue is wooden, or unrealistic i.e. unnatural in tone or to who might be speaking , you will lose your reader’s interest. When a person speaks, sometimes it’s not what they say, but how they say it. Something implied can lead to misunderstanding. Think about body language, too. Setting: Create a vivid setting for your characters to move around in. Think hard about what brings places and settings alive to you. What creates moods and evoke atmosphere, but don’t fall back on old clichés. It was a dark stormy night has been over done. Themes and ideas: Be original! Its what all publishers and agents are looking for. You might be writing a romance, or horror, or just a cosy crime. There are billions of published books on Amazon and only seven basic plots i.e. Overcoming the monster, rags to riches, the quest, voyage & return, comedy, tragedy and rebirth. Since ancient times billions of stories have been told and retold down the centuries using one of these seven plot lines. So when you begin editing your tale think about how you can make your story unique or at least give a new twist to an old plot line.

Once you have worked out the main plot of your story, and you are satisfied with its construction then the next round of editing starts. Remember, there’s no limit to the number of read through you need to do, when working out your plot. Getting it right is the most important thing.

The first stage of deep editing on your manuscript starts with a sentence by sentence read through. Rewrite any area where you need to express your ideas more clearly by trimming away weak or unnecessary words. Don’t worry about your word count. Remember, you are making your story stronger.

By making your sentences stronger, you can speed up the flow of the words or the pace of the action, build tension when it is needed. Over come shifting point of view, and sort out head hopping, and information dumping. Check to see how many times you have told your readers the same thing. Jane doesn’t eat eggs. Molly told her sister that Jane doesn’t eat eggs. I don’t eat eggs, Jane said.

The question you need to ask yourself is it relevant to the storyline. Does the reader need to know that Jane doesn’t eat eggs. If it has no relevance to your plot, not part of a big twist at the end, then cut it. You need to be brave and start snipping and then rewriting to keep the plot line consistent. You can save large chunks into a new folder just in case you need to check back, but remember your readers won’t miss the bits you’ve taken out.

It might take you a few months before you reach the final read through before you let anyone else read your manuscript. Yes, I know, you’re excited, you want to send it off to a publisher, but hold back. There’s still a lot to think about. Going over the manuscript for the hundredth time can get a little boring. The characters you fell in love with are getting a little dull, and you want to move onto something new. This is the time you need to step away from your manuscript and take a break.

You’ve checked the grammar, punctuation, spelling. You’ve made sure your characters still have the same eye colour, hair colour and names you gave them at the beginning of your book. You have lost all the unnecessary words, tightened all the wordy sentences, made sure your genre fits into the publisher’s guidelines. It isn’t too long or too short a novel.

After taking a break you can read the book as a whole, try to imagine yourself as a reader and ask yourself honestly, does anything jump out at you that needs another look at, maybe a rewrite.

If you don’t trust yourself, then find someone who will be honest and give them a pack of red pens. Tell them to go for it, and don’t spare your feelings. Get them to underline anything they don’t understand. Remember, you won’t be standing looking over your reader’s shoulder explaining what’s going on, so let your proof-reader show you where you can make improvements. Your book might be far from finished, with more editing to come but it will be worth it, I promise you.

I hope you find this helpful.

Paula R. C.

So excited!

Just checked my Amazon Page and found my novel the Phoenix Hour has just leapt up the charts. Okay so it’s only got to number 25 but it’s nice to know someone has bought it. Hopefully, they will leave a review.

Please tap to enlarge photo. If you would like to check out the book for yourself you can find it on Amazon or Barnes and Noble. Here’s the link to Amazon. https://mybook.to/PhoenixHour

Chat again soon

Paula R C

Martha is on the Move.

Finally, I’ve found my writing mojo. After the death of her family from the winter sickness seventeen-year-old Martha Wenlock has moved into her grandmother’s cottage. Now this has thrown up all sorts of questions. I know I’m not writing a historical novel, and it is a work of fiction, but I still want to get my facts right.

Already this morning I’ve checked out when people first started using pencils as a means of writing and drawing. The pencil we use today was once silverpoint or lead point until in 1565 (some sources say it was as early as 1500) when a large deposit of graphite was discovered in the hamlet of Seathwaite in Borrowdale parish, Cumbria, England. This deposit of graphite was extremely pure and solid, and it could easily be sawn into sticks. It remains the only large-scale deposit of graphite ever found in this solid form. Graphite sticks were initially wrapped in string or sheepskin (leather) for stability because it was soft, making it difficult to hold and it blackened the user’s hands. What we recognise as a pencil encased in wood was designed by an Italian couple named Simonio and Lyndiana Bernacotti in 1560. England would enjoy a monopoly on the production of pencils until a method of reconstituting the graphite powder was found in 1662 in Germany. From 1612 to 1770, breadcrumbs were used in the writing world as an eraser.

What early pencils looked like: Graphite sticks wrapped in string or sheepskin. Picture found on Pinterest

My next search was to find out whether Martha would boil water to make a hot drink in a pot or an early form of what we would recognise as a kettle. Such simple everyday things have me at a standstill, because it bothers me, if I don’t get it right.

So, to start with the word kettle originates from Old Norse ketill “cauldron”. We’ve all heard of the word cauldron and its link to witches. This simple pot was used to cook everything in. With just a chain or a metal rod you can hang it over an open fire.

15th Century cooking

Martha’s father was a wool merchant, so he had money to ensure his mother lived in a warm and dry cottage. He put glass in all the windows and added a kitchen to the cottage. Of course, the word kitchen wasn’t known in 1616. Chimneys were added to the end of buildings because it was easy to pull it down to put out a chimney fire thus saving the rest of the building.

I’m trying to use words, not too many of them, to make the language of Martha’s time come alive to the reader. This will then allow the reader to understand Martha’s misunderstanding in Dave and Joan’s time.

Chat again soon.