Writer's Retreat Part 1 - What I ate

This time last week I was in Dunford Hollow, W Sussex at the Writer's Retreat. This is the first post I will be writing. Today I will be revealing what I ate there, apart from lots of cakes (dairy free).

Dunford House, where I stayed.

On Friday night, for dinner I had beef bourgnion (not sure of spelling) with mashed potato and fresh veg. I don't normally like mashed potato in case there are lumps in it, but this was light and fluffy and dipped in the beef sauce tasted yummy. Someone described it as comfort food, and I agreed. It certainly was. What made it better was that the beef was locally sourced.

Saturday: I had toast for breakfast. For lunch I had home made veg soup, and this again was tasty. It tasted slightly of onions and I was OK with it. I had this with a gluten-free roll. I did what I usually do, and wasn't the only one to do so, I pulled the roll into bits and put them in the soup and then ate the soggy bits of roll. Yummy. For dinner, I had oven chicken breast with new potatoes and fresh veg, probably from nearby farms. Here is what it looked like.

The spuds were small so I had plenty of those, as you can see. Again, it was delicious. This was followed by fruit salad, which I wasn't that keen on as it had mostly apple in which I can't eat. The same as Friday night.

Sunday: for breakfast I had dry cornflakes and some toast. Lunch was home made tomato and basil soup. The last time I had tomato soup it was in a can and was OK, but this was so different. It was fresh tomatoes whizzed up into a puree and was yummy. I had it with a gluten-free roll. Soon followed, when I went back to the house, by a cake. Dinner was chicken curry, basmati rice and salad. This was so nice that I ended up having two servings and got full up. I found space for the pudding which was fruit salad, but this time it was mainly strawberries, so I had a few of those with a couple of grapes. A good ending to that day's meals.

Monday was our last day there, just the morning. I had a hard boiled egg with toast. I haven't had an egg for years as soft ones don't agree with me anymore. So this was a treat to have, and I savoured it. I did have a couple more little cakes before I left that lunch time, and while I did my last bit of writing.

So, it was a great weekend of writing and eating lots of gorgeous dinners. They outdid themselves this year with the menus, esp for us people with food intolerances. Will be going again...

Grammer and punctuation in dialogue - a RNA talk

Yesterday I went to a RNA meeting in Holborn, where the talk was by Elizabeth Hawksley (co-author of a book called 'Getting the Point'). It was all about punctuation in dialogue. There were a few readings where punctuation was missing and it sounded awful, and a few exercises of writing in punctuation. These came from the book. I learned a couple of things which I wasn't sure about. These were:

1. When a person has a lot of dialogue, say that goes into two paragraphs. You put one speech mark at the start of the first paragraph, one at the start of the second paragraph and one at the end of that paragraph.

2. When you have a quote at the end of the sentence (like the sentence in brackets above) you put the full stop after the speech mark. This has been something I've not been sure about recently, and now I know.

I found it an interesting talk. It reminded me that I don't know everything, and I needed to get out the book after all, which was in my spare wardrobe. This I did this morning, and is now with a few more reference books at the bottom of this computer desk.

So, if you're not sure about your grammar and punctuation, then buy the book.

Oat drinks - a product comparison

Due to a dairy intolerance, I can't eat/drink cow's milk so I had to find another milk to have with my breakfast and lunch etc. I tried soya, but ended up being intolerant to that as well. I tried nut milks but they also disagreed with me. I then tried oat milk and hit lucky. That was several years ago now and I still have oat milk, and it still agrees with me. But over the last year or so, I have noticed there are more oat milks out there than when I first had it. So, over the last couple of weeks, I have tried another one and compared it to my normal one, Oatly. Here is what I thought:

I tried oat drink by ProVitamil. At £1.29 it was 10p cheaper than Oatly. I tried it with cornflakes and porridge. I have to say that I didn't like it as much as Oatly. It didn't have the creamy look and taste to it that Oatly has. It tasted blander.

Whereas Oatly oat drink, as soon as you pour it out, you can see it looks creamy, and it does tasty creamy with cereal or porridge.

My verdict - Oatly is the best out of the two.

There are more oat drinks out there, and I might try them later on against Oatly. We shall see.

The London Book Fair - Part 2

So after I had lunch at the busy café, I went back to the Kobo stand where I knew the next talk would be - Opening up to Indies by ALLi. I managed to find a seat so I didn't have to stand or sit on the floor. While the audio was being set up, I chatted to the two older ladies sitting next to me about writing ebooks and we swapped cards. I also had said hello to Lorna Ferguson, (Hi, Lorna). Then the talk happened by Debbie Young and Dan Holloway, who told us in their own ways how they came to write the book. I laughed at the image of Debbie being a teacher and being chased by young girls because she had told both groups they were sorry. The book  is all about helping other bodies like libraries, agents and publishers etc to open up to indie authors and help them be discovered. Then it was time to mingle again. I chatted to and listened to Debbie talk to Denise Barnes, then another author, putting my points across when I could.

After that I decided I'd go to find the publisher in the other court. With my map, I found the stall, but was disappointed that it wasn't as I expected it to be - a stand with book samples and no publisher. I then went to the restaurant, but it was too noisy still so after several minutes I left and went to find the pub in the Strand for the social later on.

So that was my LBF this year. I doubt it I'll go next year as it is moving to Olympia, a bit further away.

The London Book Fair 2014 - What I learnt

So I went to the London Book Fair at Earl's Court on Tuesday. I managed to get there earlier than I expected so I had time to sort myself out then find the stand I wanted to go to for a talk. The first talk was called 'Book Discovery for Authors' and was a question session to the panel of Mark Coker (Smashwords), Andrew Rhumberg (Jelly Books) and Joanna Penn (author and member of ALLi). It was all about how to get your books discovered by readers. I took lots of notes, but will only do a summary of the main points I learnt.

The challenges that authors face is shelf-space. Now that more authors are publishing ebooks. Joanna said that they solutions are to write and publish more than one book, and grow your email list. (This is something I plan to do now, and next ebook I publish will have a message on the contacts page asking if they wish to join my newsletter). Joanna also said it is a good idea to join with other authors writing the same genre and create a box set. Andrew said to have a great cover, be consistent on social media and write interesting stuff not just buy my book. Readers will determine your success. Mark said that you need to take your readers to an emotional high and make them say wow.

Joanna, who also writes non-fiction, said that when you publish a non-fiction book, check out keywords on Google etc. Don't give the book a title that readers won't look for.

Mark mentioned the 'Pre-order' he has on Smashwords. This makes it easier for readers to find the books in estores. And, if you put your ebook for pre-order and you get readers buy then, when the ebook comes out, you get the sales on the first day. Budget for this in your launch.

How do you know what works? Joanna said that indie authors are more focussed on what works.

The single most important thing to do to get discovered more - grow email list. Mark said the book.

Put your contacts page at the back, as readers want to know what you write before they know you. Price your book good, lower is best. You want to eliminate friction from reader between giving them the sample and them purchasing the book.

Then book trailers were mentioned. Don't pay too much, it's for a special audience but if you enjoy doing it, then do it.

Later at the weekend I will talk about the rest of the day. See you then.

TKMaxx and unwanted clothes and accessories

Hello there. Do you have any unwanted clothes, accessories or books in your house? I know I do. TKMaxx have partnered with Cancer Research UK again to raise money for research into child cancer. They want any unwanted clothes, shoes, accessories, books and/or DVDs and CDs. All you need to do is to put them in a plastic bag, and take them along to your nearest branch of TKMaxx. In the store you should find a huge cardboard box with the poster for the campaign. Just put the bag in there. I have already donated a pair of  joggers and a petticoat, I already have in mind more clothes and some books to give to them as well. It is a well worthy cause to donate any unwanted clothes and that, and I prefer doing it this way than in those bags you get through the letter box, which are mostly scams.

For more info check out www.tkmaxx.com, and look for give up clothes for good. Has all the info there and real life stories to inspire you to do more. Give it a go.

A thank you for following this blog

Do you have trouble setting goals in your business, be it writing, drawing or marketing? If you do, I am now giving you a freebie that can help any business. A goal-setting template based on the one I get at the goal-setting brunch I attend every other month. I shall now try to attach it to here, if not then try to put it in the actual post. Here we go. I can't find any button to allow me to insert a document here so shall have to try to put the whole doc in here.

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Goal setting by Julie Day

for any business

Name:

My main goal for (month of) …....................................................... is:

To get there I need to do the following:

1.

2.

3.

Goal table

Put your goals in to bite sized steps that you need to reach them for the month.

	Bite-sized steps	Obstacles (what can hold you back)	To do by	Done (tick)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

Have you managed to do any of your goals for the month? If you have, please let me know either on Facebook or via my Elite Marketing Blog.

Well, it worked better than when I tried to put it into my Internet Marketing Blog yesterday. Hope it displays OK.