Waterstones Here I Come!

Things have been moving forward apace in my writing world. Waterstones have now requested and received two orders of What If? and I've received invoice requests from them also. Great news they are going to pay me! This means you CAN now order your books with ease at any branch of Waterstones, or on-line. And if you ever see me, I'll sign them too. If by chance anyone from Waterstones happens to see this blog, I am available for signings at most stores.

Writing wise, Quest for Courage is coming along nicely. I'm halfway through the final read through and have added several thousand more words to the story. It takes me roughly an hour to complete two pages to where I'm satisfied. I use Read Aloud, which is in Word in the Review tab at the top. Its brilliant and I thoroughly reccommend it to budding authors. The times it has picked up silly oversights, where I have read the sentence and believed it to be perfect, and haven't noticed the extra/missing word, or the incorrect punctuation is amazing.  It's also great if you write an important letter, or in my case a Trip Adviser review and you want to get it spot-on. Write it in word first then put it in your email etc. Nothing says sloppy writer more than basic errors.

I'm trialling a different illustrator for this story too. I started out giving Ellie some chapter headings to do and she did such a good job, I'm giving her a stab at the cover design - her first. Initial drawings are looking promising. This time rather than use a photo then overlaying the characters, Ellie is building the scene from scratch. Its slightly nerve-racking, but her work on it so far has been good, so I'm hoping it'll be awesome.

I've numerous events and fairs booked for the remainder of the year and the Canterbury Arts Conference have just asked if I'd like to run a session on creative writing during their event. I am already attending their opening event and the author chat evening. I've also applied to the Kent Creative Xmas event at the Turner - we'll see how that goes next.

On a different front, I'm extremely pleased to say that Inspiration Writers Group, of which I'm chair, has had one of their anthologies, Green, shortlisted at the National Associations of Writers Groups Awards. I'd very much like to go to represent the group, but 460 miles is a long way to drive on my own over a weekend. Plus, there's the price of the NAWG WordFest 2021 and Gala meal. If anyone reading this fancy's accompanying me to attend the event, please make contact to discuss it further. Or maybe you have relatives living in Staffordshire and fancy a weekend home. That's fine too. Its at Yarnfield Park, near Stone.


Lastly, I 'm hoping get another short story out on my YouTube channel tomorrow, so watch this space, or rather YouTube. Carol M. Salter.

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