When designforwriters.com came up with the cover design for #Forfeit one of the things I leapt on for my brand was the font. It totally works with my name and adds a level of frivolity and quirk.
Look who else is using ‘DaftBrush’…
If it’s good enough for me, then it’s good enough for raising millions!
Laters
Cx
I always considered my writing to be a selfish thing – purely because of the time it distracts me from my husband and daughter. I did it for me and being perfectly honest, if they asked me not to do it, well, I’m not sure I could give it up. A month sans vin… meh, okay. A month without writing… *palpitations*
But when I finally published #Forfeit and the paperbacks arrived, my daughter was blown away that I’d made them. It might be selfish, but it’s also showing my daughter that if you have a dream, then you make it happen.
And it’s so cool to know my little girl is proud of me. She’s helped make swag for my readers and street team – it’s not child exploitation, honest! She has a #Forfeit keyring on her school bag. And every now and agan, she’ll rustle up a picture for me. This is from the other day. A reminder of who’s my biggest fan…
The first piece of fan art I ever received was from BoneTags, a Wattpad reader. I will treasure this forever because when Moira shyly told me she’d done a drawing of Daisy and Xander, I couldn’t believe it. I was astounded people were reading my books, let alone loving them so much they’d be inspired to create art for me. I love Wattpad for creating such a supportive network.
Have you ever received any fan art – or made any?
Oh, weight = x – 1 (but I feel okay)
Before and After? Do you know, I might brave some photos when this is all over…
Laters
Cx
Wow, I haven’t posted for a while about my sobriety. Update needed. Well, I still haven’t touched any booze (so long as you don’t count Becks Blue which has less than 0.05% alcohol in it!) but with only five days left to go, I am preparing for November 1st.
I’ll admit to purchasing a case of red from Laithwaites, BUT I have absolutely no intention of getting hammered. I’ll no doubt end up way too tipsy, but I suspect it’ll be on two glasses, not a bottle. We’ll have steak and dauphinoise potatoes (our fave Saturday night dinner) and share a bottle of Malbec. I’ll savour every sip, not sink it like it’s beer, and I’ll have a glass of San Pellegrino water with each glass of wine. And that’ll be it. One bottle of wine will be opened, not two. And I’ll be happy with that.
I’m looking forward to that first sip. A lot. I’m not looking forward to a hangover. Or regrets. I’ve had a month of no regrets – I don’t want to go back to them.
In other news, concern has been growing over my new cheese habit. I’ve been replacing my empty wine calories with cheese, crackers and assorted nuts (brazil, hazel and cashew usually). All very yummy, but what if when I start having the odd glass of wine again, I still have the cheese and biscuits? I’ll be the size of a house in no time. Noooo.
Fortuitously, my cheese habit got knocked on the head yesterday when I took my DD to see Box Trolls. Right now, I’d rather vomit over my own head than eat cheese again. Every cloud…
Now all I need is to get get my writing head back on.
Laters
Cx
The inspiration behind my last post ‘Why Readers Rock’ came from Alyssa. It never fails to amaze me how much people will do for you, people you’ve never met.
One of the most totes awesome is Alyssa. She read my books on Wattpad – I didn’t really know her on there, but she contacted me via Twitter and said if I ever needed a proofer, it’s her day job. Um, how quickly can I snap your hand off? And the girl did a sterling job of proofing 138,000 words for FREE, so you can bet your knickers I’ll be sending her Nearly Almost Somebody when it’s ready too (whether she likes it or not!).
So Alyssa was already a superhero in my eyes, but then when #Forfeit had been out a few weeks, I get an email telling me this:
She orders copies for her friends so they don’t have to pay horrendous postal charges. How cool is that? So today’s post is to say, THANK YOU, ALYSSA.
Love you
Cx
One of the things I’ve adored about my writing journey is connecting with readers. It didn’t really happen until I joined Wattpad, but over 20,000 people have read both Forfeit and Distraction – and I’ve connected with a vast number of them.
Some comment on the books – to crit, to praise, to laugh, to vent.
Some message me to say how I inspire them – which never fails to blow me away.
Some stay with me – they join my street team, they become friends.
The lovely Maia in Norway is drawing me maps of the village in my books – like Jilly Cooper has. I adore those.
Amber, a blogger has changed her profile pic to a photo of her holding a copy of #Forfeit.
And Cynthia, my friend in the US, sent me a pic she found – saying it was perfect for Libby. I agreed and made this very rough teaser. And boy is it rough. I’ve so tampered with it that you can’t see the ballet shoes on the ledge beside her. Perfectly Libby.
NAS is coming soon!
Cx
Today, I’m getting in the Nearly Almost Somebody zone. So here’s some music – the inspiration behind the Somebody in the title…
Cx
When I embarked on this sobriety challenge, I thought I had the most marvellous activity to keep me busy on the dark nights, sans vin: editing the hell out of Nearly Almost Somebody. The reality has turned out somewhat different.
Each night, I sit down to get cracking – and by cracking I mean map out my existing chapters in a spreadsheet so I can see how many need a lot of work and many need a mere tweak. I started doing this over two weeks ago. I’ve mapped out fifteen of forty-three chapters. It wouldn’t be so bad if this ‘mapping out’ was in depth, insightful and making it so I could whizz through the edits in a flash. But most of the mapping consists of nothing more than, “Maggie is murdered,” or “Libby gets poisoned.” I’ve written more in this blog post that I have in my ‘mapping.’
But this isn’t like me. I’m the girl who typed 210,000 words in three months. I don’t do writers’ block. But I don’t really think it’s the lack of booze causing the problem – not that a glass of room temp chardonnay would exactly hurt the situation. No, I think I’m just overwhelmed with the scale of the project. I know the answer is to just get on with it, to type anything, but instead, my evenings disappear in whirl of inactivity. I’m procrastinating with the best of them. I’ve even procrastinated over my procrastination – to such an extent that I now have three categories to my non-writing behaviour:
Guilt-free, Karma-building Procrastination – this involves doing something that doesn’t help your project directly, but will one day reap rewards. Currently, I’m waiting for Natalie Martin to send me the rest of her second novel. I alpha read for her; she alpha reads for me. This istime well spent. Sadly, until she sends me more to read, I’m stuck on with two less worthy levels of non-writing activites.
Guilt-neutral Procrastination – completing a usually tedious task (ironing, pairing socks, jogging on a treadmill) but doing it whilst mulling over your plot. You might be doing anything bar typing, but it’ll all be used when you do get back to your laptop.
Guilt-ridden, You’ll never make it as a Professional Writer Procrastination – you know… Facebook. Cat videos. Those pointless quizzes. I did one to find out if I was colour-blind today. I’m not. Shock.
16 days to go. I’ve never wanted a glass of wine more in my life. I thought this would get easier as the month went on, not harder. BUT then again, I’m going to bed sober and I won’t have a hangover tomorrow.
Laters.
Cx
ps. In case you’re wondering, this post is Guilt-neutral Procrastination.
Hurrah! Though oddly, I craved wine more tonight than any other time in the last two weeks. I thought it’d be getting easier.
Ah well. Still can’t write. Terrifying thought that I might only be a creative genius on the sauce. Maybe writing needs a glass of wine (two max, any more and you can’t type efficiently); editing defo requires sobriety. I shall plan my time better next year.
That’s right. Even though I’d sell my husband for a golden ticket (friends can buy them so you can drink if there’s a special occasion – I’ve disabled it on my donation page), I think I’ll do this again in January, and again next October. It’s good for me, my will power and my liver. But I’ll make sure I’m editing something next time!
If you fancy cheering me on, you can sponsor me here: https://www.gosober.org.uk/profile/carolinebatten
Motivation measures:
Weight? X – 3.5!! Did a 2.5 hour walk/run with 2x kids at the weekend and gym today. Feeling good.
Before and After? But I’m still not taking photos.
Laters.
Cx
Check out how Daisy got on when she undertook “Dry-Tober” in #Forfeit…
Turns out, it’s possible.
At the weekend, I went to the pub with friends, had dinner and several bottles of Beck’s Blue and didn’t actually spend the entire time thinking, I WANT A BEER. In fact, the nearest I got was when a friend ordered a small glass of merlot and I mused over how that was one of the things I was looking forward to in November – a lovely glass of a decent red.
And I’ll have one. Which kinda makes me feel like an utter fraud. You see, over the last two weeks I’ve picked up some new followers of my little blog (I’m as shocked as anyone) and two of these followers (*waves at the beautiful Ellie and the very chic A*) are doing this sobriety lark for real. Ellie started out in October, and A has been totally sober since February. I want to apologise to both of them for the booze I’ll be back on come November.
That said, change is on the cards. You see, I’ve discovered:
1) My world doesn’t end if I have no wine of an evening – in November the only booze allowed in the house will be on Wednesday and Saturday nights.
2) I can have fun sans wine of an evening. I quite like being the sober person in a room full of tipsy folk; they provide excellent book material!
3) I get three times as much done in an evening when I don’t make dinner with a glass of Rioja in one hand.
BUT, and it’s quite a big but…
I haven’t written a word of Nearly Almost Somebody since September 30th. Not one. I’ve mulled a few things over, I have scenes between Zoe and Ed playing on a loop in my head, but can I write a sentence? Nope. Time is an issue. And tiredness is an issue.
Seriously, when does this bouncing out of bed start?
Jokes. I’m doing good, I’m proud that I’ve nearly made it to the halfway point and I haven’t actually been an arsey cow.
If you fancy cheering me on, you can sponsor me here: https://www.gosober.org.uk/profile/carolinebatten
Motivation measures:
Weight? X – 3.5!! Yeah, baby.
Before and After? I’ve even given up taking photos. Still.
Laters.
Cx
Check out how Daisy got on when she undertook “Dry-Tober” in #Forfeit…
And it’s mostly to do with communications technology and the lack thereof. I live in a valley with no mobile reception. I know. There’s barely a patch of the Far East without reception, but Cumbria? #deliverance
(I’m allowed to say that – I was born and bred here)
But you know. I can cope mostly as we have BT Broadband. Except for yesterday and most of today. Even as I type, I have no idea if this will actually post, so this will be brief.
It’s day 9 which means a whole week has been sober free. I survived a weekend AND watching the Great British Bake Off sans vin. It is a tad wearing at times… roast chicken without a glass of decent, barely chilled Chardonnay? ugh. Paella without rioja… actually, I couldn’t face that so I made some crappy pasta dish instead.
It’s hard. I’m doing it. You’re not. So sponsor me. Nuff said.
https://www.gosober.org.uk/profile/carolinebatten
Motivation measures:
Weight? X – 2
Before and After? Like my broadband could cope with a photo. I’ve had better dial up.
Laters.
Cx
Check out how Daisy got on when she undertook “Dry-Tober” in #Forfeit…
Caroline Batten 