Tracey Alley's Blog, page 2

Not Scrooge but not a fan either

I have to confess it - I'm not a fan of the Christmas season. No I'm not a Scrooge, I don't HATE it, I just don't really like the ways in which it's evolved.

I remember when I was a kid and it was so exciting to see A present under the tree. Now kids seem to expect several from Mum, Dad and Santa. It's become a race to see who gets the most or best gifts rather than a time for families to come together in love.

Supermarkets, shopping centres [malls] etc are the WORST - Christmas decorations seem to go up some time after Easter and stay as a constant reminder to buy, buy, buy. Somewhere along the line we lost the true spirit of Christmas and it's become just another commercial holiday.

I'm sure there are a lot of people out there who haven't fallen into the commercialization trap but I do know that there are many who have.

Even decorating a Christmas tree has lost its' appeal for me because of the growing numbers of people who now decorate their entire house, inside and outside with lights so bright that I'd hate to see their power bills. Who, exactly, are we competing with and why?

I'm not saying you have to be religious to have or enjoy Christmas, in fact I don't even look at it as a true religious holiday as Christ was far more likely to have been born in September or October. I guess what I am saying is that as I get older it seems more and more about self and less and less about others - something that I was taught as a child.

Still, in the spirit of the season, I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a safe and Happy New Year.

Cheers,
Trace

Where's all my millions?

If you've read any of my blogs then you've probably figured out by now that I can be pretty naive at times if not downright stupid about some things. I thought once you were a published author that throngs of people would just automatically line up to read your book - no, you have to market it and promote it without at the same time putting people off with the pathetic cry of 'please buy my book'.

I also thought that once you had a couple of 5 star reviews for the books that would immediately translate into thousands of sales and you would suddenly be making the millions you so desperately deserve. No, it doesn't quite work like that either.

Firstly I've discovered that some Indie authors get family and friends to write them glowing 5 star reviews so the ones you have don't count as much as you might think. Then I found out that some Indie's also swap 5 stars just because they're friends online or have made some kind of pact. Shock and horror, and how come I didn't think to do that? Seriously I wouldn't actually do that - yes I like it if my family and friends like my work but they just tell me personally - that's more real I feel than having a bunch of relatives giving glowing reviews.

So basically I guess what I'm saying is that I'm still here, still learning, still writing and yes, still waiting, patiently, for my millions - even though they will probably never come but hey, a girl can dream.

Cheers all,
Trace

the strange pitfalls of social networking

As a writer I do a lot, well ok, a fair bit, of social networking. I try to join different groups, interact with people online and generally create a presence for myself in the shadowy world of the internet. Mostly I enjoy it, I'll admit to be pretty lousy at the aggressive pitch for my books but I like meeting new people and love the time I can spend with my online communities.

Also, when you're a writer you often get invitations to join different social networks that, you hope, might firstly, get some new friends, and secondly, sell a few books. So I recently got an invitation to join a site that looked - on the surface - like a similar type of site to Goodreads but focused more on Latino countries.

Great, I thinks to myself, here's a whole new potential market and, as I said, a whole new group of hopefully fun people to chat with. Then I started getting the friend requests and that was cool. I soon had quite a group of online friends.

Then the emails started coming. Granted a couple were from people who'd read my work and enjoyed it and wanted to let me know but some of them were.... well, not quite like that. Some wanted to get to know me in ways that were, shall I say a little on the intimate side.

I wrote the first couple off - I mean I recognize I'm not a troll and that men will find me attractive and in this internet world of instant communication have the ability to let me know they find me attractive. Then it started to become a little more.... graphic, shall we say.

Finally the penny drops - I really can be incredibly slow sometimes - and I finally realise I've accidentally joined an internet dating site and Latino men are not at all backwards in coming forwards if you know what I mean. I quickly discontinued my membership and have hopefully learned a valuable lesson - not everything on the internet is exactly as it seems lol.

Cheers all,
Trace

I wanted to be a writer not a salesman!

As many of you will know from my last post all my life I've dreamed of being a writer. A real writer with real books available for people I don't know to actually read. Well I finally got there after a loooong journey but now it turns out that there's more.

I'd honestly never thought past that magic moment of seeing my words in print. I didn't realise that after that came all the marketing and promotion. And guess what? Turns out that I'm not very good at either. I always end up feeling slightly sleazy - 'here, wanna buy my book?'.

I know that I have to do it, especially in the modern world of Indie publishing but I just feel odd about it. A little like a used car salesman but without the credibility ;) Seriously though, how do you go about getting people to read your books without being a salesman, marketing and promotions expert?? I haven't figured that one out.

So, as is my habit sometimes when things are difficult, I have so far ignored it. I interact with people through sites like this, use Twitter, FB and have a website but I'm obviously not the marketer I should be or I'd have more sales [unless I just wrote a lousy book lol]. I know of a lot of other Indie author's who seem to be really good at promotion and I'm proud to call some of them my online friends but I'm not one of them.

Basically what I'm saying is that if you've written a book and now feel a little overwhelmed at the prospect of trying to market it - don't panic. If someone as bad at it as me can start to slowly get the hang of it then anyone can do it. True we're writers not salesmen but in today's world, realistically, we have to be both.

Cheers,
Trace

The Life & Trials of a Writer

Hi all,
As I've been pretty sick I haven't done a blog post for ages. Just posted this one on my website but I thought I'd share it here too...
hope no one minds the double up :)

Let me say from the very beginning, it's tough being a writer whether you're published, traditionally or Indie, still unpublished and struggling. Either way it's a tough game. I've been writing for as long as I can remember and 95% of what I've written has been pure and utter junk. For twenty years I wrote poetry, short stories, novels and even a few magazine articles. To this day I have folders full to the brim of storyline ideas, plot outlines and even novel beginnings - much of which is pure rubbish and some, maybe, with some hard work could be something good. Had I bothered to keep them all I'm sure I could've wallpapered my whole house with rejection slips.

Then I wrote a halfway decent novel. It wasn't a masterpiece but it had a good storyline and seemed to flow well. I thought that was going to be 'the one'. I shopped around for agents and publishers and, to be honest, got some positive feedback but mostly outright rejections. I even had one editor tell me that I would be a good writer once 'I found my voice'. I didn't know what the hell she meant by that, I didn't even know my voice was lost. However, I'm not a complete dummy and eventually the penny dropped as to what she meant. I wasn't writing in the right genre for me. Well that wasn't a huge surprise in some ways as I'd tried practically every genre you can think of except for Westerns.

Then one day it happened. It was almost like magic in a way - I found a storyline that I really liked. I worked really hard and was, for the first time in my writing career, actually pleased with the end result. It was exciting and scary all at the same time. Again I shopped around for an agent or a publisher and this time, while I still got rejections, I also got an incredible amount of really positive feedback. Eventually I decided that if I couldn't get a decent contract via a traditional publisher - and I'd been offered a few real stinkers - then I would go Independent. I felt that confident in the novel. So, of course, was born Erich's Plea. I truly felt it was the best thing I'd ever written. I published and it started to sell, not huge amounts but slowly building over time and it's still selling.

Then I wrote and published the follow up, Ursula's Quest. I thought this book was even better than the last. It too slowly gained sales and even a few reviews. For the most part I've had hugely positive feedback on both novels and pretty impressive reviews. Mostly 5 or 4 stars out of 5, which I thought was excellent. Then I wrote the final in the trilogy, Slade's Destiny - still coming for release while I do all the final edits - and it was even better than the first two put together. And that's when I finally realised something that had eluded me for so long. Every time you put pen to paper you get better. Like a musician or an artist if you have the talent to begin with then your writing will continue to improve the more that you write.

Many of you are probably thinking 'well duh' at this point but I can be a slow learner at times. I thought talent and drive were more than enough to be a successful writer. I thought that if you had the gift then it would all just fall magically into place. It took me a very long time to realise that talent is only a small part of the life of a writer. Hard work, discipline, having a thick skin, getting real critical feedback and working at improving are all far, far more important than sheer talent or inspiration. Lots of people are talented but not everyone has the humility to work hard and keep learning. I hope that I have that humility, I hope that I will always continue to improve and yes, I hope that one day I make mega sales and become a household name. But mostly I'm realistic about the last one - I'm one of many, not the greatest but slowly gathering a following and I love each and every single reader I have. Without you, the reader, everything I've put into my work is worthless - both talent and hard work. So it's not an easy ride but it is exciting and a constant huge learning curve and I love every single minute of it.
Cheers,
Trace

Near Death Experience

I stood helplessly in the corner of the room; there was nothing else I could do. Everywhere around me was activity. Doctor’s, nurses, machines making their infernal racket and tubes, lots and lots of tubes. The woman in the bed was dying; I could almost see the life draining from her. They were pumping her full of blood, the bags draining slowly as the life fluid entered her veins. There were other bags filled with fluids attached to the woman at her arm, feeding her perhaps or perhaps just there for effect. There was no hope for the woman, how could there be?

I moved closer, staying out of the way of the medical personnel but I wanted to see the woman. Wanted to look at her face. She was so pale, deathly pale. There was not an ounce of color to be seen in her face. Her lips were bloodless, a sickly milk color and the dark circles under her eyes were so black against her white skin they looked like someone had painted them on. She had freckles and their dark color was a stark contrast to her so pale skin. She was breathing but it seemed to me to be very shallow, as though she were a shadow of her former self. Even her breath had no vitality.

The sterility of the pristine room of the Intensive Care Unit seemed a sad place for this woman’s life to end. She who had been so full of promise. I knew her well, knew her dreams, her fantasies, her dark secrets but most of all I knew her love of life. This would not be the way she would wish to go and yet there seemed to be nothing that could be done. The doctor’s spoke back and forth frantically. Her body was going into shut down, toxins were building up and her life blood was draining away. Their confusion was evident in the tones of their voices. The woman was not bleeding anywhere, at least, not obviously, yet the blood entered her veins and disappeared as though it had never been.

Buzzers were sounding, loud and insistent. The machines kept on with their constant barrage of noise. I felt a strange pulling sensation, as though I were being drawn to this dying woman. I did not want to go to her; she was an empty vessel, what good could I possibly do and yet I could not stop the desperate pull from the woman in the narrow bed.
“I think she’s coming round doctor,” a voice said from above me and I realized that I was the woman in the bed, I was the woman who had almost died. I opened my eyes slowly, everything was exactly as I had seen it from a distance but here now inside this body it felt so much more real. It felt more real than any moment of my life had ever felt.

I knew the truth then, I had almost died. I had experienced what they called a ‘near death experience’ and yet somehow I had lived. Suddenly all the noise of machines and doctor’s and nurses was grating on my consciousness as I struggled back to life. I would not die here on this narrow bed in this sterile room. I had far too many things left to do in my life. For now though I was tired, so very, very tired. I felt myself slipping away but into a normal sleep, not the unconscious existence I had endured.


** Thought I'd put my recent bad experiences in the hospital to some good use and write a little flash fiction piece

How full is your glass?

We've all heard the expression that some people see a glass as half full and others as a glass half empty. Terry Pratchett includes a third group of people - those who can say 'that's not MY glass, MY glass was full'. The point is it's supposed to be an indicator of whether or not you're an optimistic person.

All my life I've tried to think of myself as a glass half full kind of person. I've always tried to look on the bright side, find the silver lining - well, you get the picture. I was a basically cheerful and optimistic kind of person - so I thought.

Then life dealt me a series of pretty tough blows - all in a row. After caring for Mum for fifteen years she finally passed and I felt as though I'd lost not just a mother but my best friend, confidante, flat mate, sounding board and, to a degree, my identity - who was I if I didn't look after Mum.

Six months later my real father, with whom I'd never been close or even really had any kind of relationship, killed himself. That was a shock but it also meant that now there would never be a chance to reconcile, to even talk again.

Four months after that one of my beloved Uncle's died of lung cancer and my marriage began to fall apart. My husband was becoming very emotionally, physically and mentally abusive and began a very blatant affair with another woman in our neighbourhood.

It was a gradual thing but by this time I wasn't even a 'glass half-empty' I couldn't even see the glass. Depression. It's a nasty word for a nasty condition and one that is difficult for many people to understand. It's also an illness, which means you can't just 'pull up your socks' and get on with it.

I was diagnosed many years ago with Bi-Polar disorder so I recognized the signs, knew I needed to readjust my medication and needed to get back into therapy. My physical health was starting to slip as badly as my mental health and I was feeling pretty sorry for myself.

But even though I felt like I was living in the dark, I reached out. To anyone and everyone who would listen. I sought help both medically and spiritually. Then I got hit with the biggest blow so far [all of this has happened, BTW, in the last three years] and my health collapsed to the point where they were seriously concerned that I was dying. I was even told to 'get my affairs in order'.

That was my blackest, darkest moment and that's when I started thinking about all the GOOD things I have in my life. My family, my friends, my pets, my writing, my extended family, my online community, my lovely little house when there are others who live in their cars or on the street, my precious little car that goes every time... I kept adding and adding to the list of things I had to be grateful for and suddenly I saw that my glass wasn't half full - it was actually overflowing.

I know it's hard when you are in the midst of depression to see the good things - that's why I always recommend treatment in some form or another. But for many of us we just sometimes forget how truly lucky we really are - we can't see that our cup is overflowing.

Take a minute today and write down at least three things you're grateful for - I'll bet you don't just stop at three.

Cheers,
Trace

Never, ever take your health for granted

I thought I was on the mend from my chronic anaemia problem and then took a very sudden, very dramatic turn for the worse. My red cell count, which should be between 120 and 140, dropped to 24 and my iron levels couldn't be detected at all.

I blame myself a little as the week before I collapsed I was feeling very tired and once again finding myself feeling short of breath at the smallest exertion but instead of going back to the doc's I kept working away - my thinking was 'I don't have time to be sick so I'll ignore this till I've finished the book'. Next thing I knew I wake up in hospital and I've lost two weeks.

It's way, way too easy when you're functioning to ignore the warning signs from your body that something's wrong - as I did. Because I could still walk and talk I figured I couldn't be too sick - wrong, very, very wrong.

Now I'm staying the in the luxury 2 star hospital being waited on hand and foot with the downside being because I can't get out of bed without fainting. It really isn't worth ignoring those little signs just because you're busy or it's inconvenient.

Anyway just wanted to remind everyone to take care of you first - only then can you be of any use to anyone else.

Cheers,
Trace

Good reviews, bad reviews, middle of the road - oh boy!

As a first time author, published that is, you wait with bated breath for that first review to come in with some feedback. You worry, you fret, you re-read the book yourself until the words no longer make any sense at all. Then it happens, the first one - with trepidation and half-closed eyes you brace yourself to read it and.... it's good. Sigh of relief, someone read and they loved it. 5 stars. I'm over the moon.

But it's like a junkie, now that I've had a little taste I want more. I have other books, short stories, people are buying them, why aren't they reviewing? Was it a one off, one time only shining star that you'll never see again? You worry, you fret, you bite your fingernails to the quick and then.... you get another one, this is also good. 5 stars.

But just like that junkie now I'm really hooked. I want more, more, more I say! More - you want more? But they start to come and bam.... 4 stars. That's ok, I can live with that, but then ... 3 stars, it's all right, she says breathing heavily trying to remember her yoga exercises... not everyone will love your book. But Why? I wail. Why doesn't everyone love my book and why, why, why don't more people write reviews????

I need another fix, another hit, another 5 stars... it must be out there somewhere surely? Or is, gulp, maybe I'm not that good.... another review 5 stars.... breathe again. But still I want more. I've become a glutton for reviews, even the bad ones because I'm telling myself it will make me a better writer... but what if it just makes me a bigger review junkie? Oh to rid myself of this obsessive curse. It's worse than the constant watching sales figures. Why, why, why did I ever get into this business?

Then I remember. Writing is what I love. Book, short story, poetry, blog post, flash fiction - give me a keyboard and I'm in heaven. Is it a blessing or a curse? I don't really know but I have so many words inside I have to let them out and you, poor reader, have to suffer them.... unless, of course, you don't read it?????

And the cycle starts again.

Cheers all,
Trace

Anticipation is half the fun

I've been dreadfully sick lately, some stupid unknown illness that the doc's can't seem to diagnose that has, alas, left me unable to work - except to write, of course, which I do at every opportunity.

However I have also decided, if I have to be sick and miserable I needed something to look forward to and for me it's redecorating. I've lived in my lovely little home for 19 years now, 17 of them with my mother who was very ill and I took care of her. The house, naturally, reflects a blending of both our personalities but I've finally decided it's well and truly time for a change.

The amazing part that I've discovered is how much fun I'm having planning all my proposed changes. I've got friends and family who will be helping with the actual hard work but they're also helping with the planning.

I'm loving it, choosing carpets, picking paint colours, shopping for furniture - it's almost like going on a holiday where the planning part is almost as much fun as the holiday itself.

Now that the colours have been chosen I'm planning my 'painting party' with a few wonderful friends and family members who will all come over in their overalls and get the house painted. Then I've got the carpet layers coming in and then the furniture. All my old furniture is being donated to a wonderful local charity that helps people in need so I know everything will go to good homes and I just have to sit back and watch all my wonderful new furnishings arrive.

Then it's time for curtains and blinds, cushions and accessories. I'm having an absolute ball - there really is something to be said for stress relief helping with illness as I've noticed a distinct improvement in my overall well being since I began this project. Also having the time to devote to writing is absolutely wonderful so I'm not missing work at all. In fact I may be rather disappointed when the doc's finally figure it all out and I have to go back but I shall deal with that day when it comes. In the meantime I'm thoroughly enjoying my life.

So cheers all,
Trace