Michelle Gordon's Blog, page 32

Giveaways Galore!

In celebration of the launch of The Other Side on the 13th of November, I have created a Giveaway on Rafflecopter:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

And because I have done so little marketing for The Elphite and I’m feeling happy, I have created a Giveaway on Goodreads too!

Goodreads Book Giveaway


The Elphite
by Michelle Gordon

Giveaway ends December 01, 2013.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Good Luck! And please share these giveaways with your friends!

Imperfection? It’s a doddle…

I have been inspired to write this post by two things. I am doing an eCourse with Brene Brown at the moment. It’s a 6 weeks course based on her book - The Gifts of Imperfection. I found a video of her on Youtube a few weeks ago and I was hooked immediately. I love the way she talks, how she is so open and honest and authentic, and how she put things in such a simple yet profound way. The course is in its second week now, and I am enjoying the art journaling, it’s been a while since I let myself mess around with paints and not worry about the outcome.

Something that I’ve begun to admit openly recently, is my inability to be imperfect. Sounds crazy, I know, but when it comes to trying something new, if I can’t do it right straight away – I’m usually not interested. Unless of course, I can practice in secret where no one can see/hear me, and then when I’ve perfected it, reveal it, looking all shiny and amazing. Yet, I’ve always encouraged people to try things, to experiment. When I worked in Buck’s Rock Summer Camp, my motto was ‘the wonkier the better’. I would encourage the campers to just create, and enjoy the process, and not worry about whether it was perfect. After all, the more imperfect it was, the more handmade it looked, and therefore people knew how much love and effort had gone into the making of it. When I worked in Derby College in the art department, it was a similar story. I would encourage the students to be creative, to experiment, and to not be afraid to do it wrong or to fail, because they could just keep trying. I would then tell them the story of Doddle.

Sometimes, there have been times that my first attempt at something was truly terrible, but for some reason, I was inspired to keep trying. One day, my mum had a craft magazine, that featured a mini fabric teddy bear. In the article, it said – ‘This little bear is a doddle to make in an evening.’ Well, mine took me a week, and was a painfully slow and frustrating process. My mum’s attempt went in the bin after a few hours. But I finished mine, and here was the end result:

Though I find him to be quite endearing now, he is still so incredibly imperfect. The stitching is terrible, the shape is awful, I didn’t figure out how to attach his ears, so they have ragged edges, the list of his imperfections is huge. But do you know what? Every person who has met Doddle has fallen in love with him. I went on to make many more bears, getting a little better each time. I started making them from bear felt, which was easier to use than fabric. My friend worked in a Traditional Toy Shop, and she sold many of my bears in there for me. Then, after a year of two, I started using mohair. It was a big step for me, because mohair is over £100 a metre. My first few mohair bears weren’t perfect, but I still found families to adopt them. After a while, I was creating bears like Robert:

 

He still may not be perfect, but he is a million times better than my first attempt. (sorry, Doddle!) And all it took to get from one to the other, was time, practice, patience and perseverance.

I plan to keep Doddle on my computer as a reminder that as Brene would say, Imperfection and vulnerability is the birthplace of creativity. And that I am imperfect, and I am enough. (As is Doddle )

NaNoWriMo 2013

Yes, it’s that time again. In just a few days, thousands of writers all around the world will begin their novelling quest. I am a huge NaNo fan, as I know that without it, I would never have written a single book. Though my last attempt during Camp NaNo in April didn’t go so well, I have decided to talk part in this years November NaNo, in the hopes that I can get my next book written, and then publish it by January/February next year. My goal for the last three years has been to publish two novels a year. I managed it in 2011 and 2012, but this year, I am afraid that it will just be one. I will do my best to publish three next year to make up for it!

 

Final Full-cover Reveal!

Apologies for the lack of posts, I have literally been so busy I have not stopped! I have been mainly working on the final copy of The Other Side and party planning. Post-party (which will have its own blog soon!) I am now back to my publishing projects and getting my books published. I know I keep pushing the release date back, I blame it on Mercury being in retrograde… The release date for The Other Side and for the new editions of The Earth Angel Training Academy and The Earth Angel Awakening is now set as the 13th November 2013.

The final covers are now done, thanks to Jason Mordecai of Dark Horizons Media and Liz Gordon of madapple designs. Without further ado, here they are:

Tax, UFOs, grit and pink fluffy socks

I have been lacking a little in the motivation department lately, and with my novel still unfinished, my tax return still undone (with all of the receipts scattered in various places) and a mountain of other things that I have been procrastinating on, it was time to act.

Which is where the Grit Doctor comes in. I picked up a copy of ‘Get your Sh!t Together’ while on a girls shopping trip in town the other week.

I read it within two days, and two days after that, I had completed my tax return, and then next morning, I got up at 7.30am (I am not a morning person, so to do that voluntarily was a pretty big deal) and I wrote 5000 words before lunch. (I wrote another 800 words after I tweeted!)  Which is all I needed to finish the book. I set myself a very short deadline to get the book published, and I think I may even make it! I celebrated by telling Ruth Field about my achievements on Twitter:

Though I have still had moments where I cannot get myself going, I have found myself wanting to complete things that have been unfinished for a while. My mum calls these things UFOs. Unfinished Objects. One of my UFOs was a pair of pink fluffy socks which I had started knitting in March 2010. I knitted one within a week, and was very proud of myself, as the wool was tricky to use and it was the first time I had knitted with five double-pointed needles. I began the second sock soon after, but when I got to the heel, I stopped. Fast forward more than three years later, and they remained in the cloth bag, unfinished. So I dug them out, re-deciphered the knitting pattern (I’d had difficulty understanding it the first time round) and within a couple of days, I’d finished the second sock.

I must admit, I didn’t feel as much elation upon completion as I thought I might, I think I enjoyed the making of the socks more than the finishing them, and perhaps that’s why they remained half done for so long. But the fact that I had finished them was very satisfying. I now have a half-done pair of fingerless gloves which will be my next project.

They even fit!

So I would like to say a big thank you to the Grit Doctor (aka Ruth Field) for getting me going, I use the GYST facilitator instead of to-do lists now, and I look forward to getting more done very soon!

Heal your Home Book Launch

Today I was in Monmouth with professional dowser and author, Adrian Incledon-Webber, who was launching his brand new book – Heal your Home. We have been working together for the last few months to get his book ready to publish, and we are very pleased with the end result!

The book launch was at Peace of Stone in Monmouth, and it was a very busy day! The beauty of Adrian’s book is that it’s very practical and contains everything you need to make your home a warm and inviting sanctuary.

You can check out his website, Dowsing Spirits, for more information about Adrian, and his book is available on Amazon.

I also got to meet Huw Lloyd-Jones, who designed the cover for Heal your Home. His intuitive and clean design is the perfect packaging for this easy to understand book.

Adrian outside Peace of Stone

Adrian signing copies of his book.

Adrian with Niki, owner of Peace of Stone, and the host of the book launch.

Me and Adrian, happy to finally see Heal your Home getting out into the world!

If you are an author and you need help to publish independently, please check out my website - theamethystangel.com, I would love to be able to help you.

I Libboo, do you?

Discovered a book website last week, called Libboo.com. The idea is that authors put their books on there, then readers sign up to become ‘buzzers’. They then ‘buzz’ the books to their social media sites and the more ‘buzz hits’ they get, the more chance they have of qualifying for the freebie offered by the author (or publisher) which can be a free copy of the book, recognition online or a chat on Skype with the author. Russ King, author of Working from Home (which is very funny and a must-read for anyone who has ever been to a business networking meeting) explains the concept of the site better in his article on FutureBook.

Last week, my top buzzer was Lisa Randall, for buzzing The Elphite and the reward for recognition, so a big thank you to Lisa for buzzing about my book and getting the word out there! Here’s a special award for Lisa:

 

Linen and Aria’s Faerie Book Club will be launching soon!

Cover Reveal!

The day has finally come! I am ready to reveal the two new covers for The Earth Angel Training Academy and The Earth Angel Awakening. (The cover for The Other Side will be revealed in a couple of weeks) Jason of Dark Horizons Media has been working all hours on the graphics, and has been incredibly patient with all of the tweaks I have asked for! I have also had help from Liz of Madapple Designs. I really am very much in debt to their patience with me, and very thankful for their talents!

The new covers for The Earth Angel Training Academy and The Earth Angel Awakening will appear on eBooks and print books in the next couple of weeks, when I upload the slightly revised editions. Until then, prepare to ‘ooh’ and ‘ahh’ :

 

I’m a pantser, and very proud of it too!

For those who are unfamiliar with the term, here is the Urban Dictionary definition:

Pantser : A NaNoWriMo term that means that you ‘fly by the seat of your pants’ when you are writing your novel. You have nothing but the absolute basics planned out for your novel.

The alternative to this is the plotter. The definition:

A person who plots.

A person who plots on a regular basis.

A person who has indeed plotted before.

A person who is currently plotting.

I do not plot. When I write, I do not need to know what’s going to happen next, I do not need to develop characters or arcs or twists. In fact, it is completely detrimental to my writing to know any of these things in advance.

Which is why I am still working on my new book. I started it with a very rigid plot and structure, and it has been a case of just filling in the blanks. I understand that many writers work in this way, but I personally find it irritating, boring and incredibly difficult.

Once this book is finished, I vow to never work with a plot ever again. I will forevermore fly by the seat of my pants.

Rant over.

If you are planning on writing a novel this year, sign up to Nanowrimo.org, and get yourself a copy of the awesome ‘No Plot? No Problem!’. Just don’t read it in public, you will get funny looks.

 

Brief Update

Just wanted to write a short post to explain my lack of quote pictures, oracle readings (though I did a longer one to make up for it the other day, you can check it out here!) and blog posts.

There are two major demands on my time at the moment – my work and house renovations. I have been at my desk every day, working, and then sometimes painting floors and walls until 2am. It’s all going in the right direction, and I am certainly not complaining that I have so much work at the moment! When I decided to do the publishing work full-time, I had no idea it would get this crazy this fast! One of the authors I’m working with has just published his book, Alchemy of Age, and it is now available on Amazon. And another author I am working with is about to release his book in the next couple of weeks, we’re just making the final adjustments! I will post more information on that book soon.

So please be patient with me, I am also working on my new book, and I will get it out into the world as soon as it is ready. Have been working on getting the new covers ready too, there have been a couple of technical hitches on that front which has slowed the process down.

In other news, there had been a journal entry on one of the copies of The Doorway to PAM on bookcrossing.com, you can view it here. The person who caught it and read it gave it 8 out of 10 stars. Pretty good I think!

I also joined Flickr, out of curiosity as well because someone said I should check it out. So I uploaded some of my quote photos on there, but I have absolutely no idea what I am supposed to do now! Any suggestions are welcome.

When things start to overwhelm me, I remind myself of this: