Life's rich tapestry...

I have sometimes confused people by saying "Life is not just too short, it is too narrow as well" -meaning I want to do lots of things Now, not simply live a long time. But I never knew how many of life's experiences would come my way as result of self-publishing.
Publishing your own book, though fraught with difficulties and puzzles, is actually the easy part. (Well actually writing it is the easy part, but that's another story!) Getting the book out there to people who would enjoy it seems to me to be like the torment of Sisyphus!!
I did a course on epublishing a while ago with Catherine Ryan Howard, who suggested making a book trailer. She showed some examples that she felt would work, and they were all little stories in their own right, not descriptions of the book. So I wrote a script. It is about a man who can't find a cheque, and his guardian angel's attempts to help him. I'm lucky to be in two drama groups, and from one I assembled a team - two actors, a great cameraman, and a film editor. We had two rehearsals, then last Sunday was filming day. I watched with huge pleasure as two friends acted their hearts out (and missed a lot of sunshine, it was the best day of the year, maybe the decade!) and the others wielded camera and clipboard with great skill. We had 74 separate takes by 4pm, when we all went home to enjoy the sun and cool and calming drinks!!
It will be a week or more before this is all cut together to make a less than 5 minute 'play' which I hope will entertain people enough that they will share it with their friends.
It felt a huge honour to have these four great friends (five actually, as the editor's wife came along to take notes; not to mention another partner who provided great sandwiches!) spend this time on my work. When else, in the normal world, would I get the chance to be a film author or film director? And set-designer to boot! It is great to be able to have such experiences.

Top photo: Cameraman and editor/director. Middle photo: an angel trying to move a table mat. Bottom photo: Human and angel waiting for cameraman to say 'rolling', and director to say 'and Action'!
You will be the first to know when "Listen to your Angel" goes live!

So what effect does a free promotion have?

Over my three-day promotion, which ended at midnight California time, a total of 1248 books were downloaded. All but 13 from amazon.com, .co.uk, and .de . During the promo, Despite the Angels rose and fell, its highest ranking of free books was #455, which was at 2.15pm Irish time on Sunday. It hit a high point of first place in 'Romance-paranormal-ghosts' for a few hours, and then settled to #3. This was a little mystifying, as there are no ghosts at all in the book!
I decided eventually that someone in Amazon must have seen the phrase 'spirit guides' and latched on to 'spirit'. But of course spirit guides are definitely not ghosts!
The book also got up to 8th position in 'romance-paranormal-angels'.
All that is of no importance really, it is what happens now that is of significance. And sadly, that is not likely to amount to much. The book is at 315,003rd overall in amazon. This is probably about half way up, but it is still totally invisible. It would be similar to your book being stocked by a big bookshop, but left in the storeroom!
People who specifically look for either ghost or angel books may stumble across it, at #204 out of 1399 for ghost, and #128 out of 633 for angels; but looking at the others in those lists (only the covers, admittedly) made me feel they were not attracting the readers who would want and enjoy my kind of angels!
So I have more research to do, to work out where to market it next. if any of you have read "Despite the Angels" and are familiar with Amazon's genre selections, maybe you would be kind and give me your opinion?

Week 2, Day 7: G is for...

1) Guides. No, I was never a Girl Guide, my experience in the brownies, (see B) put paid to that. This refers to ‘Spirit Guides’, which is a better name for what are commonly referred to as Guardian Angels. It is thought that we each have at least one, and this spirit will do its best to hint to you what is the best to do. This is the information that may be explained as intuition or happenstance. Trynor and Jotin, in my novel, show how frustrating it could be to be a guide to a human who is totally unaware of their presence. This explains the title of the book; the humans act despite the guides’ (angels) best efforts.

2) George. This is my husband, who put a line through my appointment book on the Mondays, saying ‘you are going to Finish That Book’. So I did. I can’t thank him enough for believing in me and making me do it. His surname starts with G too, so I can be Mrs G when I want -mostly in France, where ‘Stringer’ is a dreadful name to explain or spell out loud....

3) Gelsemium. This is almost specific for that real flu which creeps up on you and leaves you apathetic on the sofa, with pains everywhere and a low grade fever. 

B is for....

1) B is for belief. This always comes up when I tell people about my book. "But what if I don't believe in reincarnation (or guardian angels) ?" they ask. The answer is - it doesn't matter a jot. The book is fiction, and can be read as a story, just like any other work of fiction. No one who read Animal Farm felt they had to believe pigs could talk, nor do Terry Pratchett's readers believe there is an actual disc shaped world out there !  Do I 'believe' in past lives myself? I'm not sure that belief is the right word, but for the moment I think the idea of reincarnation explains a great deal of the bad stuff about our world, as well as some of the good things. We'll all find out eventually anyway, so what anyone believes about it is a very temporary situation...
2) B is also for Brownies. I was made join the Brownies when I was about 7, and hated it. Particularly my 'enrolment' which was spectacularly badly handled, and terrified me half to death, because I didn't know what was happening. About 14 years ago, I went to Drama summer school, and did a story-telling course with the wonderful Sue Colgrave as teacher. I told the story of my Brownies experience, which went down really well, and afterwards a classmate came up to me and asked "how long have you been a writer?". That gave me the courage to start.
3)Belladonna - a great remedy for infections with a very high temperature. Specific for scarlet fever.

Day 1. A is for.....

1)I think A is possibly the easiest and most obvious of all the letters. (Oh Dear!). Because it is, of course, ANGELS. This is in the title of my book because most people who think about these things at all, think they might have a 'guardian angel'. Actually, they may have a 'spirit guide' to look after them here in Earth School, angels are far higher beings and don't usually do mundane things like trying to persuade humans to listen to good advice, and rewarding them with an occasional parking space! Read all about my 'angels' trials and tribulations in Despite the Angels.
2)I am Madeline A Stringer because I was advised against using my whole name. My middle name is Ann, after a greatgreatgreat etc grandmother who was apparently a bit of a character. She was Ann Walters, lived around 1820, in the other half of Shakespeare's house (the half you don't get shown) in Stratford on Avon. We have all been given some part of her name, and been christened in the broderie-anglaise robe she hand made. I was known as Ann for my first 17 years, so am fond of that 'A'.
3)Aconite: a great homoeopathic remedy for shock and fright.

An Easter present!

So, suddenly, I'm published! I never thought it would be so simple at the end, but there it is, my book is on my Kindle, and it looks great! It went live at about midnight, so is the first time I've been given a non-chocolate Easter present. Now I can do the A to Z challenge without interruptions, unless of course I manage to get the book into print too....

A to Z idea

My thanks to my friend Annmarie at ficticiousamo.wordpress.com for an idea, and also to Shell Flower for her comment below. I am going to do the challenge three times, all at once! At least I'm going to try.
Every day I'll say something about my book or its topic, or about writing. I'll also say something about me - that's Annmarie's idea, she already did A-Z on herself all at once. And I'll give you the name of a useful homoeopathic remedy each day.See you on Monday!

On the back cover -

This is what it will say on the back cover of "Despite the Angels": Have you ever felt you know someone already, even though you only just met? Maybe you knew them in another life.... Lucy and David, who live in modern Dublin, first knew each other in Ancient Crete. They had a baby girl, but disaster struck, and their guardian angels have been trying to reunite the little family for 4,000 years. Despite the angels’ attempts to be understood, humans often do not hear, and unwittingly can waste whole lifetimes.... Now in Dublin things are still not going according to plan - Lucy is too young, and David is marrying someone else. Angels are optimists, so they are re-organising, but HUMANS MUST LISTEN TO THEIR ANGELS

Maybe they do guide me....

I have just finished going through and improving 'Despite the Angels', and although I wrote some new stuff, and deleted other bits, nothing the 'angels' said had to be changed. When I wrote the book I always found that once I started quoting the angels (spirit guides really) it flowed really easily. You might fear that it could be like a sermon as result, but spirit guides are very light-hearted and can be funny. Have a look at Dr Michael Newton's books,(Journey of Souls. Destiny of Souls) and you will get many examples. The afterlife isn't a scary place to go at all, but full of fun and laughter - as you'd expect, when people call it heaven!!

A Spirit Guide takes to Social Media

One of my characters has a new Twitter account, and is beginning to feel his (well, spirit guides have no gender really, but 'he' is happy enough to be male for the moment) way. He has told me it is a real treat to communicate so clearly with in-body humans. Usually he is hugely frustrated because his people (See 'Lucy' in "Despite the Angels" when it comes out) never listen, or pick him up wrong.
If you would like to follow the musings of a guide, you can find him @TrynorTheGuide. He doesn't mind being called a guardian angel, either, although it is not strictly accurate. Angels are much higher beings, and rarely communicate with incarnated humans.

A Romance!

My editor tells me I have written a romance! And there I was thinking it would have to go into one of the 'paranormal' genres, and maybe never be seen again. But she says that as the 'spirit guides' (the Angels of the title) don't actually appear to the humans in the story, only to the reader, it isn't paranormal at all, just a romance with an interesting twist.
So a bit of re-writing is needed now, to tune it up, and maybe make it even more romantic...
Will I get "Despite the Angels" out by Christmas?
Trying my best....

We have all been "baddies"

As I said below, we have not all been princes in our past lives. But we have all been the villain,even though most of us do not visit villainous lives during regression. Our conscious minds block it, as we are all much more comfortable with the idea that we are the victim, and everyone is always mean to us!

I had a client who did see herself in the bad role, and I wrote about it in Chapter 24 of "Memories of the Afterlife" edited by Dr Michael Newton.You can read the full story there, but I'll give a taste of it here.

Marguerite, my client, came for past-life and life-between-lives sessions to find out why she was 'stuck' in one area of her life. The first past lives she experienced were quite far back in history, and resonated with her present life. The third, done just before her 'LBL' session, was in a more modern setting, and she was married to an abusive husband who eventually killed her. We then carried on into the life-between-lives, and she gained much information, which she felt afterwards would help her to clear the block. (She also wanted to write a book!)

A few months later, she returned for another past-life regression, as she became anxious every time she started to write, and felt the situation was not resolved. She saw herself first speaking out against the religious establishment in Ancient Rome, and being poisoned as result. This (apart from the poisoning!) seems rather like her modern situation, so it was not much help. I suggested she look further, and she found a life as a witch-doctor who carried out a child-sacrifice, in the belief that this would fill her with healing powers which could benefit her tribe. Later in that life she repented, and cut her own throat. Within the hypnosis session, she was able to discuss this with her spirit guide, and gained much clarity. She is no longer upset by people who hold strong opposing views to her own, as she understands very clearly that they may do so because of genuinely held beliefs. The 'evil' amongst us may often believe they are acting for the best. It is very likely that we have all found ourselves acting on false or damaging information during at least one of our past lives....

The Next Hurdle

"Despite the Angels" took a small step towards publication today - it has gone off by email to 'The Literary Consultancy' (.co.uk) for editing. I am also asking the editor who reads it to suggest its genre. A kind contributor on this blog suggests 'occult' but I'm not sure about that, as I feel occult makes people think of vampires and séances. 'Despite the Angels', despite the angels in it, is very ordinary. I hope that will be one of its strong points.
Also, I would not like it to be seen and read only by people already interested in reincarnation. It is a story suitable for everyone, just as fiction. Terry Pratchett's readers do not have to believe there is a flat world on the back of a turtle out there somewhere, so my readers do not have to believe in past lives...
What genres do you look in to find the books you like?

A third book

Have at last got back to writing my third book, after much work on editing 'Despite the Angels'. My third is different, it has no angels or past lives, but is set in the future, in a world where sea level is up 60metres due to global warming. There are other things different too, but people are the same everywhere and everywhen, so when these ones get into trouble with the law, I want to see them come out on top. I have to wait to see exactly how this pans out... Working title is 'The Food Circle', but will be looking for improvements on that as it gets nearer to conclusion.

All writing is re-writing

So I am getting on with the pre-editor editing. It's a while since I wrote Despite the Angels, so it's almost like reading it fresh! I've been sad all along that I was never going to be able to just read this story, it's just the sort of thing I'd like....
The easiest part to write was the spirit guides' conversations. All completely made up stuff, but just laid itself down on the page as though it was being dictated. Perhaps it was ! (spooky??)
My third book has no angels or spirit world in it, and although I'm enjoying my characters, I do miss my angel friends. So expect a third angel-y book in the future.

Thursday 23rd February 2012. Lift off !!

Hi, I'm Madeline, with two novels written and tired of listening to my friends saying 'but JK Rowling got loads of refusals before she was published'. So did thousands of others who never got the break. And JKR was a lot younger than me when she started....
So I'm joining the ranks of 'indie authors' and going to publish one myself. Online, to start with.
I have signed up for a course in how to do this, and one thing they said at the introductory talk is that a blog would be a good idea, to get the news out there, so here I am.
What I thought would be a vertical learning curve (setting up a blog) turned out to be a doddle, and here I am in the 21st century....
I won't have much to say until the course starts on 5th March, but I think I'll be quite busy then.

The novel is called "Despite the Angels", and follows Lucy and David, and their guardian angels through four incarnations, as they try to get things right. It's a fun read with thoughtful moments.