Category Archives: Books

ROW80 Check-In 13/02/2013

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Number Two

Hooray! The brilliant news is that I have self-published another book on Amazon, bringing my grand total of works available to three! My lovely shining new book on numerology is for sale at the extremely reasonable price of 99 cents or 77 pence. It’s only a short book which is why I’m selling it at such a good price. This is a fabulous wonderful momentous book and I should know because I wrote it! (LOL).

Have taken a short break from writing so since finishing “Numerology for Daily Life” I haven’t written anything for a few days. Am finally getting back into the reading again which is good. Have renewed my library books and been for a dentist appointment. Not a lot else going on in my life.

Oh the scaffolding has been put up and the builders are coming back next week to start repairing our roof.

Am I am still spending too much time on Facebook but that seems to be the way it is right now.

ROW80 Check-In 10/02/2013

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Well back to the grindstone! Have started typing up the Christopher Lee interview for the book that lovely hubby and I are doing together. Have started (yesterday) on my Basics of Astrology book. So the writing part of my goals is going pretty well. I’m aiming for consistency of effort rather than huge word counts and hours at the keyboard. As long as I’m working towards my goals every day then it doesn’t matter too much how many (or how few) hours/words I do.

Have put my new numerology book on Amazon’s KDP. So the putting my work out there goal is doing well. Had a few problems with the cover which involved a great deal of swearing and intervention from lovely hubby but I think (!) its all fixed now. The book isn’t live yet and I won’t really be able to tell how it’s worked until it is.

The reading is progressing very slowly because I keep buying more books or borrowing more from the library which means although I’m reaing all the time my ‘to be read’ pile isn’t getting any smaller.

Still spending too much time on Facebook so no change there.

ROW80 Check-In 03/02/2013

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Ultimate Blog Challenge
Had a good week! All my original goals are to be found here. http://mrsbongle.com/2013/01/06/row80-check-in-06012013/

Firstly I have almost finsihed my numerology book. I wrote twelve thousand words of it in January which I’m pretty pleased with. Then I finished (successfully) the Ultimate Blogger Challenge. I posted a new blog post every single day in January so I’m pleased I managed to do that. I will be blogging less because a) blogging every day is a bit of a bind b) I was running out of things to say and c) I have other writing projects that are more important to me.

The reading is still a bit slower than I’d like but its coming along so I should probably stop fussing over it.

As far as putting my work out into the world goes, well I haven’t specifically put any more work out but I’m always moaning about how crap I am at marketing and how much I hate it. Well lovely hubby googled my name and between us we found four and a half pages of stuff about me! I was gobsmacked! There’s my blog, my Facebook page, some reviews I’ve done on Good Reads, blog posts I’ve done for other people; there’s just loads of it! I’m always saying that I can’t build an author platform and I can’t manage to make myself a brand and I seem to have done it without even knowing I’d done it!

But I’m still spending too much time on Facebook.

ROW80 Check-In 30/01/2013

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???????Been a slow week this week. Have made a bit of progress on my goals but not much. For the link to my original goals, see here http://mrsbongle.com/2013/01/06/row80-check-in-06012013/

Done a few more pages on my numerology book. Haven’t been reading most of my library books and have realised that I don’t like at least two of them so will probably be taking them back unread. I use the library as a testing ground for books and authors I don’t normally read and sometimes I find great new things and sometimes I don’t.

Haven’t put any new work out and am still spending too much time on Facebook.

Got some very sad news from my mother today. She e-mailed me to say that her cat Littley had to be put down. The poor thing had cancer, she had two huge tumours, one in her throat and one in her tummy. She will be much missed.

ROW80 Check-In 27/01/2013

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For a link to my original goals; see here http://mrsbongle.com/2013/01/06/row80-check-in-06012013/

Have done less writing than last week; apathy has been closing in again.  I blame it on the grey cloudy skies and pouring rain!

Reading has slowed down a bit as well, probably for the same reason.

Haven’t put any work out into the world.

And have been spending my life on Facebook again!

I have progressed a bit more on my numerology book but I know now that I won’t be finished by the end of January so the new date for finishing is February the 14th.

Other than that it’s been a slow week.  Hope everyone else is doing better.

ROW80 Check-In 23/01/2013

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Have slowed down slightly on my goals.  For the original list, see here http://mrsbongle.com/2013/01/06/row80-check-in-06012013/

Wrote every day on my numerology book except yesterday.  I’m not going to beat myself up for missing one day.

Still failing on the reading the books I have in the house goal because I went to the library yesterday and took out another four books!

Haven’t put any more of my work out into the big wide world either.

And am still spending excessive amounts of times on Facebook.

Despite this lack of progress I don’t feel bad and am actually feeling quite optimistic.  Did manage to locate some of the stuff for the book that lovely hubby and I are planning to do together.  Located his interview with Christopher Lee; it’s longer than I thought but that’s okay.  Still have a few more things to dig out and then I can start editing (mainly correcting his slightly erratic spelling) and we’ll be good to go!

Christopher Lee

Decided to use this picture as he looks very handsome here and I wanted to avoid the cliche Dracula stuff!

Another day in the Bongle house.

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We actually managed to get out of the house today for the first time since last Friday!  Did a load of food shopping and spent £89 (that’s about $120 for the benefit of the Americans) but at least we’re stocked up with milk and bread and eggs and all sorts of other things.  Did it just in time as well because we got home and it immediately started snowing again!

Managed to pop into the Central Library in town and got four more books out!  So much for my idea about reading the books I already have lying round the house first.  Still at least the library books aren’t costing me money.  Now the library have my e-mail address, they send me e-mails when my books are due back so I don’t forget about them and that means I’m not paying a fortune in overdue fines anymore either!

The bad news is that our roof is leaking.  Mr Bongle, otherwise known as lovely hubby, rang the insurance people and they’re sending out a surveyor to look at the damage and decide if our policy covers it.  We’re both praying that it does because otherwise it’s going to cost us a lot of money.  With all the rain we’ve been having and now the snow as well it’s hardly surprising that the roof is suffering though.

And that’s my exciting life!  What about yours?

Rose by Martin Cruz Smith

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This is a great book.  I finished it a few days ago and I really enjoyed reading it.  The characters are very well-developed and the plot is really well done.  There is mystery and romance and a fair bit of sex but the sex scenes are well written and not silly.

But the best thing about this book (in my opinion) is the way the author writes about the setting.  I never thought that I would think of Wigan as evocative and exciting but here it is all of that and more.  The place becomes almost the dominant character of the book.

This book was recommended to me in a instruction book about creative writing (I forget which one now) as one of the best examples of really good use of setting and it does not disappoint.  I thoroughly recommend this book!

ROW80 Check-In 20/01/2013

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A professional writer

Making moderate progress which is good.  Here is the link to my post about my goals – http://mrsbongle.com/2013/01/06/row80-check-in-06012013/

The writing is coming along nice and steady – not too fast but not too slow either.  I have finished over half of chapter four of my numerology book; this chapter is quite long because I have to do all the correspondences.  But I have written words for this book every day this year so far; obviously I have done more on some days than others but that’s always going to be the case.  And I have blogged every day of this year so far as well.

I have finished one of the books I’ve been meaning to read; it was called Rose by Martin Cruz Smith and it was really excellent!  I will do a review of it some time.

No more progress on putting my work out there although I did discover a new competition that I might enter if I can write a poem I consider good enough.  You have to write a poem on the theme of ‘Homeland’ or ‘Motherland’,  the poems must be between twenty and sixty lines.  Link is here. http://www.fantasticbookspublishing.com/2013/01/17/international-poetry-competition-2013-open-for-entries/

Still spending too much time on Facebook but I do enjoy it!

ROW80 Check-In 16/01/2013

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Well it’s been quite a good week but not the best ever.  Have still been making progress on my goals.  (For a list of my original goals see this post – http://mrsbongle.com/2013/01/06/row80-check-in-06012013/   )

I have written another chapter of my numerology book and am still on course for finishing at the end of January.  I will be very thrilled if I do that because I don’t actually have to finish until the end of March but I have no problem with being ahead of my goals!

Another epic fail on the reading because I bought two more new books today!  In my defence I did still have some book tokens I got for Christmas to use up and it would have been a crime to waste them!  I have read one library book, am about halfway through three more and haven’t even started on the fourth.

Haven’t really taken any more steps to getting my work out into the light of day.  But on that note, I had an e-mail this morning from the Authonomy team about a new challenge they’re running.  It’s about trying to write a novel, or more accurately, a novella, in just thirty hours!  Sounds a bit extreme!  Here is the link if you fancy trying it.  http://blog.authonomy.com/2013/01/could-you-write-novel-in-just-30-hours.html

And finally I’ve been spending just as much time of Facebook as I normally do, if not maybe a little bit more so that’s a fail as well!  Oh dear.  Never mind, there’s always next week.  How’s everyone else getting on?