An exciting writing week

This week has been an exciting week for me in my writing life. It all started early in the week when I checked my emails. I had been emailing tips and letters to magazines, and had emailed best magazine with a diet tip. Then this week I got an email from the editor saying that she'd love to use my tip, could I please send a photo of myself. I duly did this. Success number one! I shall start looking in the magazine from next week cos I'm not sure if they inform you when it will be in the magazine.

Second exciting event happened yesterday. I was on the phone to Rebecca Woodhead having a coaching session about autoresponder emailing, when she mentioned that I could be an Amazon bestselling author, Moi? It turned out she was right. When she and I checked the Amazon US store link to 'The Railway Angel' my first YA fantasy ebook published in 2011, it had hit 2 of their best seller lists for sci-fi and fantasy. One was at 66 the other was at 86. Me, an Amazon bestselling author. Hurrah. Anyway, Rebecca then posted a message on Facebook about this, tagging various people we knew, asking them to download it, share the message etc. What happens? By the end of the night, it had reached these dizzy heights in the lists

I don't know if you can see this OK or not, but the top one says it's now at 16, the bottom one is at 32.

So, I can happily say that I am an Amazon bestselling author. And I will do when I do my talks.

Thank you, Rebecca, for finding this out for me, and getting everyone in our team to respond to it, and post messages to me, esp the EMP bosses.

PS If you wish to learn how to write letters to magazines and get paid for them, or find out how to become an Amazon bestselling author, then email me with the header 'letters' or 'Amazon' so I know where it's come from, at

awlist3493948@aweber.com

'The Leaping Angels' is now out

The fourth ebook in my 'Guardian Angels' series called 'The Leaping Angels' is now out on Smashwords, Amazon and Apple. It's yet to reach Kobo. Here are the links:

Smashwords: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/448507

Amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00L123QJ8?*Version*=1&*entries*=0

Apple: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id890824994

I couldn't believe how easy it was to upload the book to both Smashwords etc. Thought it would be hard, but no. Someone has already bought it from Amazon. There is one more ebook to come in the series. I have already come up with an idea on a side series from it. The idea came to me last night when I watched a programme about benefit tenants and housing agencies.

Meantime, I am working on the second mermaid story called  'The Vanity Quest'. I finished the first draft of it this morning.

A letter to my 10-year old self

This was originally posted on the AuKids website last year. As I have been posting about living with Asperger's Syndrome and schooling, I thought this would be apt to go on here. So here it is:

If you knew something about yourself as an adult which you didn't as a child, what would you say to your ten-year-old self in a letter? This is what Julie Day would say having been diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome as an adult.

Dear Ten-year-old Julie

It's 1981 and in September you will be starting secondary school. You see the building, and will think, 'oh my, it's big.' This will make you believe it is why you are shy. You will find it hard to fit in, as most of the class has either paired or grouped up, leaving you on your own.

You will be quiet and hardworking. You will find it hard to make friends by yourself, and will be too shy to speak out in class. Unfortunately, due to being shy you will be bullied by both a girl you know from primary school and a group of girls who are older than you. This is probably because they see you as different and vulnerable. You will get the better of them. After some time you will either ignore the older girls or speak up to them and that will shock them to leave you alone. They will leave school after a couple of years. When the other girl tries to retaliate, you will get told off by the teacher. It comes to a head when you get her mum involved by getting her to come to the school to see the headmistress. It won't be for a while that things start looking up, but they will, so take heart. When you do decide to volunteer to read out in class, your heart will race and you will be very nervous. And you will do it, although shakily. Things are better for you when you start the sixth form, where you will be doing a business studies diploma. Because this is something you want to do, you will get on with it all right and feel that you are fitting in more.

I am writing to you because as an adult I now know that there's a reason for your shyness. You have Asperger's Syndrome, a low form of autism. Asperger's Syndrome/autism is often called social awkwardness because people with it find it hard to communicate with others, so don't make friends easily. This is why you couldn't and only able to tag on to groups of girls, and make friends that way. If this had been known back then, I feel that life would've been a lot different for you. In that you might have gone to a school specially for autistic children or the teachers would've supported you more if they'd known about you.

So there is a reason that things happen and why you are like you are. Have faith in that, because you do make one friend, whom you meet via a group of girls you latch on to, and you'll see during your adult life. So, it's not all bad. Good does come out of your secondary school years, even if for most of it you find it hard to cope with. Light is at the end of the tunnel, even if it appears years later!

From Adult Julie

 

So, if you know something about yourself as an adult that you didn't as a child, what would you say to your child self? Be interested to know.

 

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Asperger's Syndrome/autism and schooling

This post is in conjunction with a report in the Daily Mirror the other day about a boy who was excluded from school because he has Asperger's.

Back in the 1980s and 90s I was at primary and secondary school. In both schools I was bullied by other girls, yet I had an education. Some lessons I liked, some I didn't. I still had an education. But it appears that children with Asperger's are not getting this education I had. Why? Well, the report I read in the paper said that this boy had been getting on fine at primary school, albeit he did have habits such as banging pencils on a desk. Then he was diagnosed with AS, and the school excluded him, not being able to cope with him - this was a mainstream school. The same happened with his secondary school, and now he is being home-educated by his mother. I feel that this is really bad, esp as it says that this excluding of children without warning is illegal.

But there can be a good side to this. If the mother is home-schooling her son, then she can teach him the basic subjects and the ones that are most important for when you are an adult, such as maths, literacy, not topics like science or geography.

I have read there are mainstream schools that do have special needs units in them for children with AS or autism, so maybe this mother can find one of these for her son.

So, I wish the mother all the luck in the world with educating her son. From me, who did have an education whilst not knowing she had Asperger's at the time, and was bullied.

How my library talk went in April

On 26 April I gave a talk at Sydenham Community Library to a group of adults about 'The 5 Steps to Publishing an Ebook'.  I was going to do a report on here, but Debbie Young of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi) offered me a slot on their blog and I said yes. It went up last Saturday, and you can read it here http://www.selfpublishingadvice.org/reaching-readers-with-library-talks/#comment-236975.

As you can read, I considered it a great success. So much so, that I plan to do it again with another library whom I've yet to approach about it, and I intend doing a follow-up about what you need to know when publishing your ebook.

If you know of any library in the SE London area that might be interested in an author giving this talk, please let me know. Am keen to do this again, as I so enjoyed it.

So watch this space for more news on more talks.

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How to make the most of a writing retreat

This is the third and final post I will be writing about the retreat I went to on 9 May. The answer to the above is not eating most of the below (our table of cakes). Yes, I did eat a fair amount of them.

I am talking about writing. Not just what you take to the retreat to write, but how about where you are staying? Last year, I picked up a leaflet about the history of the place and its founder. I thought, this would make great articles. Perhaps I could get more info about them next time. So, this year when I got there, I asked the staff there, mentioning I was going to write articles, if they had more info I could have. They showed me a folder which had a chapter about the family. They also gave me two thick wads of info about the founder and the place. All useful fodder for planned articles. So, in the afternoon, as well as writing a bit on a couple of main projects I had with me, I researched articles in the magazines I had with me, and drafted out three travel articles. The last morning there, I finished drafting the third article, so gave back the two wads of papers to the staff.

That is what I mean when I say make the most of a writing retreat. Where you go, does it have a history? Can you write articles about the place? About the person who owned it? About the food there? Don't forget to take lots of photos when you're there. I did. I took photos of all round the house and grounds, in case they are needed if your work is accepted.

I emailed the first article with photos this morning. Have to wait now to see if it is accepted or not. Two more to type up in the meantime. Watch this space...

Retreat Part 2 - What I learnt

This is part two where I talk about what I learnt at the retreat. There are three different ways I learnt: about plot, about one of my characters in Charlie and about myself.

I didn't learn that much about plot, but what I did learn was that you can write a book in verse instead of prose, the traditional way. Eg Robert Paul Weston's first book is in rhyming verse. You can do it as diary format, either by journal, blog or text. This was in Elizabeth Wein's second talk during the weekend. We did exercises, and it was doing one of these where we had to write the first scene in the pov of another character that I learned a bit more about Charlie's little sister, Wendy. I learned that she cared about him, which doesn't come across in what I had already written. So I am going to add a scene where Charlie faints and sees her looking at him concerned.

So that is what I learnt about plot and one of my characters. About myself: I learnt that although I'm an Aspie, if I want to find out something from someone or connect with someone for a reason, then I will go and do it. After I had the one-to-one with the agent, who suggested I try writing to niche publishers, I remembered that a couple of the others were primary teachers. Would they know about reading matter for special needs children? I approached one of them, Zoe Boyd-Clack, whom I recalled was a primary teacher, and she kindly phoned her brother, whose partner works with special needs children to ask about what books they read, to find out which publisher the books are by. I have yet to hear, but I do hope I do. So, that is what I mean by when I want to do something, I do it.

If I hear any news about that, I will let you know. It was a great weekend. I got a lot of writing done (more on that in the next post), made contacts and got ideas on where to send my Asperkids series to.