Sallyann Phillips's Blog, page 3

Update on book two.

Hi guys,I know it's been a while :), but I've got a lot done. Angel's blood has finished being edited, and has now been upload to Amazon. Book two has finished being edited, has a name, and is ready to go. Now I just need to work on a cover for you, and then it'll be published.
It's been a busy few weeks, and I'm sure there will be a busy few more. But fear not, it's on it's way.
Well take care of yourselves, and I'll catch up with you soon.
Best wishes,
Sally.

Angels Blood edit update

Hi guys! I have to say I've been pretty stoked this weekend. Not only did I get a weekend away, just hubby and me, but I also got Angels Blood back from being edited. I have to say @Bluebirdbrige did a fabulous job, it really does flow, and thank her once again for the time and effort she made. And yes, you guessed it, we managed another miscommunication again, which I take full responsibility for. She has high moral standards, and is honour bound to write and honest review. I didn't want her to feel she had to write a review that would have endangered any of the qualities she has, but forgot that she wouldn't have if she wasn't happy to do so, her standards wouldn't allow it. I should have known she knew what she was doing :). What a pair we make :).
I have to say thank you to @SimmillKJ as well, for pointing out a few gremlins I missed. Sometimes you don't get the facts quite right, or you manage to contradict yourself, and sometimes you miss out a word.
Thanks to these two lovely ladies, Angels Blood (the revised edition) is now up on Amazon, with fixed gramma (thanks Brige), and fixed gremlins (thanks KJ). I do hope you'll pick up a copy, and come and meet Tavi and the Camden Falls pack :).

Oh! Before I forget, book two is on it's way :), it's going through some final changes, and I've even got a title now lol.

Take care, and I'll see you soon.
Sally.

One of those weeks.

Hi guys! I hope your all doing okay, and are enjoying the new year so far. Personally I'd hoped things would have slowed down some by now, but I've had no luck on that front yet.
Have you ever had one of those weeks that seem to go on forever, and seems to steadily get worse as the weeks goes on? I'll bet you have, and that's how the past week has been for me.
It started out relatively okay, and then things started to happen. First my daughters rented a new place and are moving out. Then I had a few days visit of my granddaughter, who's 18 months old. Angels Blood is getting a new edit, by me, in what little free time I have. And to top it off, my lovable pooch Cain took ill.
All of it took place from Mondy to Friday, and the weekend was spent babysitting and nursing. Not exactly what I thought I'd be doing I can tell you.
There is a plus side though, book two has been edited and is back. Now it's time to tweak that a little, make a cover, and finally have it launched. So I guess I'll be busy now, well into Febuary. Let's just hope that everything else settles down, it would be nice to get back to work.
I have to say, 'well done you', if you've managed to slow down after Chrismas. And, 'I can sympathize', if like me, you're still run off your feet :).
Well I'll see you soon guys,
Take care,
Sally.

Little changes.

I hope everyone has been having a good start to 2015, and I hope it just keeps getting better. I've been spending a lot of time updating my website account, and I have to say I'd forgotten a lot, so had to spend a fair bit of time re-learning how to use it. Add in the fact that some of the site had just changed some features, and you can guess how much of a fun time I had.
Still, I eventually got it done, and now it's much more to my liking, and I hope yours.
I'm affraid to say I'm not a very technical person, and have to ask all kinds of help when I get myself all tied up in the jargon I don't understand. But one thing I have learned, is that there is help all around you, if only you'd ask for it.
I've been lucky in the fact that I have two children who have been brought up around PC's, a husband that is a little in the know, and a brother0in-law who is a lot more in the know. I give thanks to them, on a daily basis :), but I have to admit to having some really good support from some twitter friends, whether it's offers to help, or even encouragement when you feel at the end of you tether with the whole thing. So, to that end, I would like to thank Toby Heyworth, for the faith he showed, and the pushes he gave me when I needed them. Thanks Toby, you've been a star.
Well I do hope you find time to visit the Angels Blood's updated website, and please feel free to let me know what you think.
See you all soon, and take care in these winter months.
Sally.

2015 is here.

Well Christmas has been and gone, and the New Year is upon us, so all the rushing around is over, but if your anything like me your still munching the chocolates you bought :).
I'd like to wish you all a Happy New Year, and I hope it brings you all your wishes and dreams. As for resolutions, I'll be honest, I haven't made any. I probably should, but I know I won't stick to them, so why waste the time. But in all fairness to those that do, good on you, you have my respect.
I can't say I won't be happy to get back to normal though, if I can remember what normal is. It's been nice to have the break, and to have the hubby home for a while, but I find I like my routine too much to give it up for long. I have still been busy though, Angels Blood is getting outside editing, book two is being edited as well, and I've been updating the Angels Blood website, which seems to be taking while. No doubt I'll get there in the end, and maybe I'll be satisfied with it then. At least I hope so :).
So I'm going to sign off wishing you all a fantastic 2015. Keep your chin up, and face it head on, and may you all find peace, health, and happiness.
Bye for now,
Sally.

Unexpected help.

Hi guys! It's been a while, and for that I'm sorry, but with the build up to Christmas getting up to full swing, those hour less days have only gotten shorter.
I've had another review, a three out of five star one, by a friend who is as honest as the day is long. She said Angels Blood was well thought out, and was original, but the gramma and punctuation let it down. Now I have to be honest, I had book two proof read by my friend AR (@booksandspoos), who I've already mentioned before, and she picked up missed commas, the odd sentence with a missing word, or a word too many, and a few silly mistakes that are really very silly. I have to admit Angels Blood didn't get proof read, and I did wonder if I'd made the same kind of mistakes in that, which clearly I have. So I guess I was kind of expecting someone to point them out :).
Now this friend who did bring them to my attention, was a little worried I may have taken offense. But how could I when I already had an idea they were there? You're right, I couldn't. But besides that, it is nice to know that someone is friend enough to point out the things you don't see in your own work. I have thanked her for her review, and let her know that she and I are still friends regardless, and was totally amazed at the offer she made to edit my work for me. Knowing that she was the one that spotted the mistakes in the first place, gives me a certain kind of comfort to know that she will also be the one to correct them.
You can find good friends in some strange places, and to me there is not much stranger than Twitter, but it is there that I have found a few. Now I have named a few before, and I'm not going to relay them to you again. (Thank goodness I hear you say ;)). But I do have to mention Brigitte (@bluebirdbrige), and hope she knows what a wonderful friend she is, and how much I appreciate her.
So, at the end of this, what did I learn?
1. That there really are some great people out there in the big wide world.
2. That I really should make sure to have any future books proof read, and edited.

Well thanks for reading guys, and I hope to be able to give you some good news on book two soon.
Catch up with you soon.
Sally.

Less than a week till Christmas.

Hi guys! Well it's that time of year again, where people go completely insane and buy anything and everything, from presents, to sweets and drinks, to mountains of food for the big day. We prepare so much, and spend even more, and inevitably crash in January.
Well I do hope that you all have yourselves ready, though I can't say the same for myself. As usual hubby and I are last minute, so from Friday on (when he finishes work) we'll be rushing around like the preverbial headless chickens. Oh what joy!
I promise myself every year that I will do better next year, that I'll be sure to start early. Yet I always seem to find myself a week before Chrismas, racing around like the other lunatic's like me, and trying to get it all done an nothing but a few days.
So wish me luck, I will probably need it, as well as some great big doses of patience :).
See you soon, I hope.
Sally.

The dreaded edit.

Here we are back again to what is, at least I think, one of the hardest, time consuming jobs that comes with writting a book. I must admit its one of the jobs I really dislike, I have trouble consentrating on the work as opposed to reading the story. I have heard other authors say the same thing, and have had many helpful hints. Like, concentrate on two or three pages at a time to give your brain a time out, or edit your book backwards, and even to actually pick out chapters at randome, but I find that no matter how I go about it, it is not a job I am ever going to love.
Now I have had a few offers of help from other authors, some of who have offered to read my manuscript for me and point out any errors they may pick up with fresh eyes, and others that have offered help in any way they can. I have to say that though I do stick to it and do a final edit myself, I have decided to take one or two up on the offer.
When you do this there is an element of trust that you are giving another person, and you have to be careful to pick someone you know beyond a shadow of a doubt, will give you constructive critisism, and point out where any mistakes are, including a part of your story that maybe wouldn't make sense to a reader like it does to you. You have to remember that you know the story inside out, and your readers don't, it is no good knowing you understand what you mean if they don't.
The two I have chosen are completely different people, and will no doubt see completely different mistakes, but that is the whole point. Anything they agree on is a must fix, whatever they don't you have two options to go with, or you change it to give some sort of compromise.
I have chosen tow friends on twitter, AR, who is affectionately known as my BFFT, and goes by @booksandspoons, and the other is Ian, who has been a friend since I set out and let me read his second manuscript to date, a sequel to Salby Damned, (A really good read if you can get your hands on it :) just a hint for you), and he goes by @ianstories.
So fingers crossed guys, and lets see where this leads too.
Bye for now, and I'll keep you posted.
Sally.

New and helpful friends.

I have to be honest, when I was told to use twitter as a promotional tool for Angels Blood I was a little panicked. Not only hadn't I used twitter before, I wasn't altogether sure what it was I was supposed to write in it. But I persevered and kept plugging away at it. Eventually I met some really wonderful people, @BooksandSpoons, @ianstories, and @mistersalesman, to name but a few. I was very suprised at the support I received, and their willingness to help was outstanding.
My twitter acount just kept picking up, getting better and better as time went on, and now I have over two and a half thousand followers. Needless to say I wish to thank them, and to let them know how much I appreciate all their help and the time they took talking me through the so many things I didn't understand.
It just goes to show you can find new friends in the most unusual places, even if you don't acctually know what they look like sometimes.
So many many thanks to those of you who had so much patience with a newbie like myself, I wish you all the best.
Until next time :)

Not alone.

One of the problems Tavi has to deal with in the book is the feeling of being alone, of being different to those around her. As you read you will see how she deals, or doesn't deal, with the issues she faces. Does she do it the right way? Or maybe the wrong way? Who can tell? We are all different, and deal with our issues in different ways. There is no right way, and no wrong way, only a way that suits us as individuals.
When I was writing about Tavi I found myself feeling sympathy for her. I was urging her to reach out and grab what she was being offered. Not that she took any notice of me, she took her time and decided for herself. Which in the long run, I guess it's all any of us can do. But she did have people in her corner. Maybe not the people she expexted, but people that had her best interests at heart. So I have to wonder if we are ever as alone as we sometimes feel.
Something to think about and chew over I guess. I hope you do the same.
Until next time :)