I was thinking last time that I posted that I hadn’t done very much but I realised the other day that in my research for my specialist subject on Mastermind I have filled two notebooks with notes on Sitting Bull in the last four to five weeks! I haven’t written any fiction but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been writing. As usual I’m being too hard on myself again.

And when the Mastermind ordeal is over I can use my notes for the book on Sitting Bull I have been planning to write for the last five years or more!

Other than that, I haven’t done very much because all reading and writing is Sitting Bull related at the moment so this check-in is very brief.

As you may have noticed, I have not checked in for ages! I haven’t blogged for ages and this isn’t really a check-in either. In the time I’ve been away, my beloved cat Widget has died (boo hoo), I have been selected to go on Mastermind, I have been to Ireland and visited my parents and my sister has finally set a date for her wedding. Also, I sent Emily Swann off to an agent where it was promptly rejected! The rejection of Emily Swann and the death of my Widget upset me greatly and so I retreated from the writing world for a bit.

I do have periods where I stop writing, usually when I’m upset but I always wander back into the fold eventually. I’m not working on any particular project at the moment. My specialist subject for Mastermind is Sitting Bull and so I’m reading and taking notes on his life like mad and as I’ve always wanted to write a book about him, the plan is that when Mastermind is over I can use all the research I’m doing now for that.

Goals; what goals? My goal at the moment is to get through Mastermind without making a fool of myself and that’s all for now. But enough about me; how have you guys been getting on?

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.

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.

The good news is that I have finished my numerology book! Well I still have the proof reading and final spell check/edit to do but apart from that it’s finished. I am very pleased that I’ve done a book in just over a month. Have to decide what to do next but I’ll do that either tomorrow or the day after.

I have been reading one of the books in my ‘to be read’ pile so that’s a start.

Will be putting my numerology book out into the world when it’s all polished and shiny!

Spent less time on Facebook today; mainly because we were out most of the day.

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.

I thought I’d tell you a ghost story today. My sister told me this so it must be right! In 1626 Francis Bacon, who was a English writer and early scientist amongst other things, did an early experiment in the refridgeration of food. He decided to stuff a chicken (obviously a dead one) with snow to see if he could find a way to prolong the shelf life of meat. The end result of this was that he caught pneumonia and died.

But it isn’t his ghost that haunts Highgate Village; he’s supposed to haunt somewhere else, I forget where now. It is actually the ghost of the half frozen chicken that is supposed to haunt Highgate Village. Now I can’t imagine that the ghost of a half-frozen chicken would be that scary but you never know!

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.

I was glad I wore my hat because I just pulled the brim down over my eyes so I couldn’t see that bit.  It was too much even for me!  Leonardo Di Caprio is a right bastard in it!  And if anything, Samuel L. Jackson is worse!  I though Jamie Fox’s performance in the title role was almost too understated but that’s just my opinion.

A good film but not for the faint hearted.