without PHONES

How much do we rely on our phones now?

I live on my own now and I admit I spend quite a bit of time on my phone, Wordle every morning, Facebook, and I carry it around everywhere in case someone rings me or if I suddenly have to ring someone. Not long ago I was just getting off my chair in my office, but somehow, I don’t quite know, but I suspect the cords under my desk might have had something to do with this.

I tripped over something and landed flat, spread out on the floor, face down, from the top of my head to my feet. I cried like I never have, and had no idea how to get up. Fortunately I had my phone within reach, on the floor, without a scratch. So I rang my son, still crying, and he came around pretty soon and helped me up.

He wanted to take me to the hospital but I said I didn’t want to sit in their uncomfortable chairs for 3 hours, staring at nothing. I sat in my chair in the loungeroom and I survived.

A few days ago my phone died. It was on the charger overnight as usual and it was 100% but then nothing, just a black screen. I couldn’t even ring my sons, or anyone. I was pretty miserable and I did manage a bit of communication with Facebook messenger, on my computer. The cords are well away from my feet now. I had to go to Melbourne the next day and I did manage a few chats on the way home, with strangers. Being alone and unable to talk to anyone (or that’s what it seemed like) is horrible.

The day after, my son came around and I showed him my phone. He took the cover off and suddenly it worked! Magic! He suggested I buy a new one anyway because it’s pretty old. I think I like that idea as long as I can get one that’s not too different. Another two sons (I have 5, all men now) are looking for me. I would definitely not just grab one because …

Daughter of Darkness

I intended this to be on my last post and for some reason it disappeared. I find the changes with WordPress difficult.

Daughter of Darkness is available as paperback and ebook on Amazon and is also available as an ebook on Kobo, Smashwords and others. It might make you cry, as it did my editor. And me, but it’s worth it.

Created with GIMP

I haven’t posted anything here for years, partly because WordPress has made changes and I’m not good at figuring out how to do anything new. Also I haven’t been doing much as far as writing goes and I’m no longer an editor or a cover designer. I lost my husband in 2020 and I’m trying to take on his chores as well as mine! My back yard is huge and the rain we had all winter and spring has made the weeds huge and extremely difficult. It’s been a weird time for all of us I know, and still is.

This is the last book I finished and I’m trying to finish another book that will be the last one in my Red Dust rural romance series. Sometime this year.

Writing what you know

 

There’s some who say you should write only what you know about and others who say you can write anything you like. You can of course, write anything you like and if you want to write about a serial killer you don’t need to be one. You don’t even need to be a detective but you need to do plenty of research. The same applies for all writing–it might be fiction but if it’s obvious you have no idea what the laws are, what detectives do, it just won’t be convincing fiction. Readers like to imagine it could happen. And detectives are also people, so they have personalities and you can make your characters more lifelike if you, either intentionally or otherwise, use some aspects of people you know.

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  Supernatural fiction

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  Historical fiction

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  Part fiction and part fact.

See My Book page for more information on my books.

 

Even if you’re writing fantasy there needs to be some level of reality–something readers can relate to. Your characters might be green and have two heads but what are their personalities like? Whatever your protagonist is it’s important they have a character of some kind and their behaviour makes sense.

It’s also important to use language you’re comfortable with–I’m not talking about making up a new language for your characters–I’m talking about writing with everyday words. Write the whole first draft using words you’d use every day. Use it’s instead of it is in dialogue–contractions make dialogue sound more natural. Don’t put in words you think make you look like a better writer–they don’t. What they do is distract from the story and you don’t want that. You might want to use more stiff language for some characters of course.

Once you’ve finished your first draft and you realise you use a word such as awesome a lot, then you can change some but be absolutely certain you know what the substitute word means. Keep it simple.

I didn’t know, when I first starting writing, that I had my own style. I wrote with another author for a while–a well established author who just needed some help temporarily–and I probably tried to write like her. When I’d written a couple of my own I realised that even though I write a range of genres I do have a style, basically it’s KISS–Keep it Simple, Stupid.

 

 

What are you doing while you stay home?

I’ve made close to 500 premade covers and sold a few, but I realised it was difficult for authors to find the right cover when there was such a mix, so I’ve finally sorted them into genres. It’s not easy though–there’s such a lot of crossovers. For example a landscape can be just about anything, but I’ve put them in Romance. Some images of people I’ve put in at least two categories, usually Romance and Mystery, or History. I have Sci Fi and Fantasy together because some can be used for either. I’m happy with the end result anyway; I think it looks pretty good and certainly easier to find the right genre. https://cmsgardnerblog.wordpress.com/premade-covers/

I also have trouble fitting my own books into genres when I publish them with Amazon, apart from my rural romance series, which is clearly romance. Some are historical but not only that and some are ghost stories, but not only that.

Now that Melbourne is locked down and the covid figures haven’t improved there I’m expecting all of Victoria will follow, but hoping that’s not the case. We’ve been advised to wear masks now but it’s not mandatory like it is in Melbourne. I haven’t worn one yet but I have one on order and it should be here today or tomorrow.

I’ve been doing some editing and very little writing. I started a new book, the 4th of my rural romance series, and I’m also writing an autobiography. It seems a bit weird and arrogant even to write about myself but it’s for my family, not the rest of the world, and it’s because I wish my parents and grandparents had done theirs. My 4x great-grandfather kept a scrapbook which is mostly newspaper scraps but includes some personal bits as well. He was Lord Mayor of Sydney and certainly had an interesting life. Mine’s not quite as interesting as his but it is more personal. It’s becoming a kind of a journal as well because I feel I need to talk about the BLM movement and Covid 19. That’s history that won’t be forgotten.

This is my Rural Romance Series, available at Amazon for kindle and as paperback and also, as an ebook at Kobo, Apple, and others At Books2Read. The first book, Stony Creek, is free and each book can be read as a standalone.

FREE rural romance

Rural romance

Rural romance

 

Isolation

All our lives have been affected in one way or another by Covid 19 and we don’t know how long the after effects will last. No one in my family has been ill and we’re all pretty well isolated. I haven’t seen any of them for–I don’t know how long. Do you lose track of time?

I missed the birthdays of the youngest in my family, two and four year old grandsons, and the eldest in my family, my mother, who turned 100 a couple of weeks ago. We had a big party planned, which was cancelled of course, but I still intended to see her. She’s 400 ks away from us and we weren’t allowed to go. Even if we had we could have only seen her wearing masks and gowns, and not touch her at all. We might have a late birthday party when everything’s open again. She had a great day though–everyone at the nursing home spoilt her rotten and she loved it! I’m glad that the home has such tight rules because they have no cases of the virus there.

My husband and I are pretty used to being on our own at home now that most of our sons have left town and are a few hours away, but we miss them all of course. Our youngest grandson just turned two and I wonder if he’ll still recognise us when we get to see him again.

I’ve been quite busy editing and designing book covers but not writing. I intend to get back to that but I’m not sure I can at the moment. The world is just weird. It’s not that bad for me, just kind of boring, but it could be a lot worse. Our deaths in Australia were up to 93 yesterday and at least 13 are from one nursing home in NSW. Our Victorian premier is a bit firmer on keeping isolation going than the others are and I’m happy about that. Some of the schools in other states will be opening soon but I think it’s too soon. Kids are such bug carriers. When my youngest started school, having not been to kindergarten because we lived out of town, he caught every disease you could imagine, and was home more than he was at school.

Hopefully this time next year things will be back to normal, or some kind of new normal at least, where we can travel to see our family and friends, and give them lots of hugs! If you’re looking for something to read I have plenty of books available, including one free. Stony Creek is the first in a rural romance series but each book can be read as a standalone–no cliffhangers.

Available on Amazon as ebooks and paperbacks, including the Australian site, where you can search for each book.

FREE rural romance

Part fiction and part fact.

Historical fiction

Supernatural fiction

 

Self-Publishing on a Budget.

I’m an Indie author and an editor and I’ve been writing this blog for years now, with the intention of sharing my experiences and helping other authors who choose the self-publishing path. It can be very expensive and some are willing to spend whatever it takes to get their book out there, as polished a version as possible. Some are unable to afford help, and unfortunately some books are published that are full of errors, which makes a lot of readers reluctant to buy any self-published books.

I’m not going to suggest you don’t need to spend money on an editor, but if you absolutely can’t there are a few options that will help. Text to Speech on Word is very good at finding typos and there are other programs like Grammarly. Do some research and try all the free options. Stay away from vanity publishers!

When you’ve done as much as you can get someone else to read it. Not your best friends unless you’re confident they’ll tell you the brutal truth. Find some beta readers who will tell you what they actually think. If several point out the same problems see if you can fix them, but if only one does and you don’t agree then leave it. It’s always worth having another look though. You can find Beta reader groups on Facebook.

If you rely on Amazon’s cover creator you can get your covers for free, but you might want to change them later. I started off using Createspace covers but have changed them all since then. Another free option is to learn how to use GIMP, which is free software along the lines of Photoshop. I use it every day now but I did find it very hard to get started and only managed because I have very intelligent sons!

You can get stock photos free and Pixabay is the best, in my opinion, because they have 300 dpi images, which is essential for book covers. If you want people on your cover though you need to make sure you have model releases, and you might have to use a more commercial stock photo for that. Some will sell just the one image if you find something perfect for your book. I’ve done that a couple of times.

What I’m doing now is making heaps of premade covers for other self-publishing authors, so I can save you all that trouble. All ebook covers are $25 AUD and paperback covers are $60 AUD. Premade Covers $25 AUD FOR EBOOKS AND $60 AUD FOR PAPERBACKS.

Beta Readers–yes or no?

I’ve just finished my latest novel, House of Dreams, which has taken me around two years, for various reasons. I had an operation this time last year but I was also in a bit of a writer’s block phase for quite a while. I had an ephinany, watching something on TV, when I realised I had to kill one of my tradies!

What that all meant was that I knew my final draft would need a lot of work. I’d forgotten names and had to keep checking back–Did I actually write that or did I just think about it?–Did I forget I killed that guy and mention him again?—Did I mention this before?–Lots of things that I knew I could easily miss myself.

My two elder sisters read all my books, usually in paperback form, so of course after they’re published, and invariably find at least a typo or two. Neither of them are really computer savvy; one does have a laptop but really bad internet. I sent her a USB with my story on it when she agreed to read it for me, and she was my first Beta reader! I also found two more in a Facebook group and all three were helpful in different ways, so I would say yes, find beta readers if you can. No matter how many times you read through your book you will miss things. And of course get an editor, but you’ll make things much easier for them and perhaps cheaper for you, if you get everything as clean and tidy as you can first.

Again because it had been two years since I published my last book, The Letter, I was unaware of the changes that had been made to the software I’d used before to build a cover. If I had no sons to help out I would not have been able to make a paperback cover at all. I refuse to buy Photoshop, since I don’t make covers often enough to spend that much and also it looks way too complicated. I do use GIMP, which is free, but have been using Pixlr as well. To cut this story a little shorter–Pixlr has ‘upgraded’ to a service that doesn’t do what I need but fortunately I was able to do everything on GIMP, which is fantastic!

This was also the first time I published a paperback without Createspace–going straight on to Amazon. I actually found it pretty good, possibly easier than CS was. I was a bit concerned though when I noticed the page count on their site for my ebook was 70 pages less than my paperback! I’d already sold some by then and I emailed Amazon first, then went through it all again myself. I’m still not exactly sure but I think they changed the spacing between lines. They’ve fixed it now so I’m happy with it all, at last. Whew!

All my books are available on Amazon, most as paperbacks as well as ebooks.

https://author-christine-gardner.site123.me/

Supernatural fiction

Historical fiction

FREE rural romance

Rural romance

Rural romance

Supernatural fiction

 

Building your own Website.

I’m not going to pretend I’m an expert but, after several attempts with different providers, I’ve finally built my own website! Two actually, since I’m a freelance editor as well as a writer.

Do I need them? I have no idea but there were no costs involved, apart from a couple of days work and quite a bit of stress. It just bugged me a little when various sites wanted my website detail so now I have one. Two.

I found this company so much better to deal with than others I tried. I doubt I was speaking (text) with the handsome young man pictured, but I’m pretty sure it was a human and he was very prompt and very helpful. They have images of three young men with big smiles and their names are there as well but, seriously, I doubt very much that’s who I was dealing with.

I went with my editing site first and that was pretty simple, but when I started the author site it became more complicated because I wanted to show my books and also add some links. I had to compromise a little but all in all I’m pretty happy with them both.

The company I’m with is SITE 123 and these are my links. They also have options you can pay for, but I always try free when that’s an option!

Editing Indies

Christine Gardner, Author

Historical fiction

Supernatural fiction

FREE rural romance

Rural romance

Rural romance

Part fiction and part fact.

My books are available on Amazon as PODs as well as ebooks and on Apple, Kobo and others as ebooks. Stony Creek, the first book in my Red Dust series, is free and can be read as a standalone.

Writing Reviews

How much attention do you give to reviews when you’re buying a book? Do you review books when you read them? Indie authors appreciate reviews and we all know that we’ll get negative ones as well as positive. Not everyone likes the same books or the same movies or even the same colours; we’re not robots, not yet.

Just please, when you write your review, whether it’s two words (Great book!) or a small essay, please don’t give away the surprises! You may think they’re easily predicted or amazing but there’s no need to tell other readers you saw it coming or even that you didn’t. Just say you loved the book or that it’s just not your thing. As authors we can’t edit reviews, or remove them when they give away the ending to our story, and I don’t understand why any reader would want to spoil it for another reader. That’s my rant for the day–keep reading and thanks for the reviews!

My books are available on Amazon as ebooks and print and ebooks also at most digital shopfronts via Draft2Digital.

YA sci-fi

Supernatural fiction

Rural romance

Historical fiction

Part fiction and part fact.

YA ghost story

FREE rural romance

Rural romance

Children/YA fantasy