It has been a while since I wrote my last blog and I apologise for that. We have been having another tough time with signals that my daughter’s tumour had returned and – as a result – I just didn’t have the energy or the strength to write much and keep up my blog and my social media contacts.

We don’t know where we stand right now concerning my daughter’s health but life goes on, hers and mine. Thank God for that! But we are extremely aware now that insecurity is the fundamental on which our life is based. With this rare form of cancer – Klatskin- we don’t know where we’re heading, nor when or if will come back and in which form.

So we cope on a day-to-day basis. And I pluck up my courage and return to writing.

To bring some positivity into my barren existence, I’ve made a list of 100 things I love greatly. Sharing them with you might give you a good idea who I am. I can recommend everyone to make such a list. The spin-off is twofold. Firstly, rereading your treasured items never fails to lift your mood and secondly you realise you could jot down another 1,000 things when you get going.

So here is my list:

1. Fresh laundry
2. Schubert’s “Ave Maria”
3. My cherry tree in full bloom
4. The moments after waking from a restful sleep
5. Downton Abbey
6. Staring out of the window while I think
7. The hugs my kids give their old ma
8. Bird songs in spring
9. Bare feet on soft, wet grass
10. A hot bath
11. Writing, whenever, wherever, whatever
12. Strong coffee with cream
13. The rhythm of walking
14. Standing on my head (the easy way)
15. Taking care of potted flowers
16. Macadamia nuts
17. Lying in the sunshine (in small doses)
18. Listening to my clock tick
19. Cream sherry
20. Breathing
21. Being with real friends
22. A beautician treatment
23. Eggs, hard-boiled, omelet
24. The BBC series Lark Rise to Candleford
25. Social media contacts
26. Driving my car
27. Strong tea with milk
28. Watch birds fly and settle
29. Thick butter on toast
30. Authenticity
31. Tulips
32. Being in the UK
33. Going to the hairdresser’s
34. Speak English
35. Raisins
36. Wearing high-heels
37. Being in love
38. Praying
39. Being touched by music
40. Sitting in an outdoor café
41. The taste and texture of shrimps
42. Being absorbed in reading
43. Watch beautiful people
44. Dream of success
45. Feeling my body stretch during Yoga
46. Orange juice with a hint of mango
47. Swimming in cool water
48. Listen to children’s voice at the seaside in summer
49. Stroke the cat’s soft fur
50.  Read a women’s magazine
51. Home-made cakes and pastries
52. Being slim and well-dressed
53. Go to a famous museum
54. Feeling enthusiastic about an idea or plan
55. Be at peace with myself
56. Being instructed and inspired
57. My Yoga institute
58. Salads with avocado and a raspberry dressing
59. Cooking lavish meals for family and friends
60. Sparkling water with a squeeze of fresh lemon
61. Meditate at sun rise
62. Cheese (many varieties)
63. Sitting in a clean house
64. Watch the flames of a wood fire
65. The idea of travelling
66. Breakfast
67. My salary in my bank account
68. St. Dafour jams
69. Going to the sauna
70. Watching (old) photographs of my family
71. The scent of hawthorn and lilac in the evening
72. A huge bouquet of roses
73. Unwrapping a gift
74. The heavy scent of ozone after a summer’s shower
75. Listening to the readings and sermon in Church
76. Being enveloped by silence
77. Having plenty of time
78. Funny, little dogs, preferably white
79. Olive oil
80. Lipstick
81. People being happy
82. Beautiful old age
83. History (human)
84. Seeing my children develop
85. Feeling part of a group
86. Energy/energetic
87. Baked potatoes with sour cream and chives
88. New clothes
89. Butterflies and dragonflies
90. Coaching international students
91. Coming home after an exhausting day
92. The idea of a great partnership with a man
93. Daydreaming about the world (and me)
94. Being nice to people
95. A candle lit room
96. Beautiful nails
97. Working on the computer
98. Old hand-made lace
99. Sunlight and shadows playing on a mountain ridge
100. Being content with myself.

Trying to get my writing juices going again, I am “doing” Julia Cameron’s The Right To Write, an Invitation and Initiation into the Writing Life. Every chapter has a specific writing assignment and I so enjoyed the so-called “Bad Writing tool” that I’d like to share its results with you.

The first step of the Bad Writing tool was to snip out ten stories that struck you in various tabloids, for example an ESP story, a money story, or a story of murder and mayhem. It was interesting to see if there were any common denominators in the selected stories. Were they upbeat, downbeat, weird, kinky, heartwarming, etc.? Ahem, I tend to like weird, tongue-in-cheek stories (like the one below).

The second step was to set aside 30 minutes and write a story in longhand as fast as you could. No checking, just writing. The idea was to write your own tabloid story but I twisted the assignment around a little and just wrote a story freely based on one of my clippings, fully indulging in “bad writing”. So it has been written explicitly boldly and badly for the reason of not seeking perfection.

The Wife

Estella tucked an unruly auburn curl behind her ear while gazing at herself in the mirror. The angry look in her hazel eyes almost jumped at her.

“Gosh I hate her, I hate her!” She confided to her reflection, “Bella may well say I have no foot to stand on, well, fuck you Bella, the bitch irritates me from here to Tokyo and I may hate her as much as I like!”

Bella, schoolmistress Bella, was bound to dislike the current relationship her best friend Estella was having with Giovanni. Not because of his extravagant good looks or his fat wallet, not because he was ill-mannered or too old for 32 year-old Estella, not because he had any addictions or kinky wishes in the bedroom, no, he was wrong for her because he was MARRIED, with two young kids in tow.

“But everyone knows he hardly ever sees his wife as she’s always in Milan or New York, being the fashion editor for Vogue. Is a man not entitled to some genuine fun and warmth?” Estella sighed, tying her abundant curls together with an elastic band and getting up from the stool in front of the ivory-coloured dressing table. With a smooth gesture the silk dressing gown slipped from her shoulders. Nude, but for a pair of pink velvet slippers, she made her way to the bathroom. Reluctantly. Here there was no escape from the source of her anger. How she hated Giovanni’s wife Mathilde! Biting her lip, she skipped into the shower, deliberately avoiding her gaze of darting to the object of her scorn.

Giovanni would be there in 15 minutes so she had to hurry. She wanted to present herself beautiful and smiling when he came in. Opening the tap she inhaled the scent of his Dior Homme after-shave that still permeated the glass cabin. Her thoughts drifted to the lustrous caresses he had given her right here only yesterday night, her firm buttocks pressed against the wet panel, his kisses hot and demanding, so much lust and energy. She sighed again and tried to ban all thoughts of Mathilde from her mind, only focus on her and Giovanni. How they would make love before going out to dine at Gastons, getting tipsy on champagne and oysters, before coming back to the condo for more delightful passion.

“I am SUCH a lucky girl!” Estella said to herself aloud, “if only there would be no signs of the lawful wife here. It is just not fair. Oh, here I go again!” the well-shaped brunette wailed, “I seem almost obsessed with the wife. It stops me from enjoying Giovanni. Oh, I hate her, I hate her!”

Estella stepped out of the shower, still not allowing herself to look at “the thing”. But when she was dry and ready to get dressed, she couldn’t help it anymore. There was a magnetism in the thing stronger than her own will. “It” was a quite innocent looking blue-and-white electric toothbrush on its stand. The moment her eyes zoomed in on it, Estella felt her anger getting out of control. Before she knew it, she flung the thing against the mirror that instantly cracked but didn’t even leave a dent on the plastic object itself. She stood with the toothbrush in her hand again, ready to smash it against the mirror one more time when she heard the key in the door and Giovanni’s sonorous voice calling her:

“My doll, are you there? Estella baby, where are you? Do I have to come and search for you? Is that the game today? You know what I will do when I find you, don’t you, my naughty princess? Doll, my doll, where are you hidden?”

Estella looked at herself in the cracked mirror with Mathilde’s toothbrush in her hand, big tears started pouring over her beautiful cheekbones. Giovanni was with her in seconds, gazing at her in astonishment.

“What is it, my doll? What is wrong? What are you doing with M’s toothbrush, looking so forlorn? And what happened to the mirror?”

“Oh Gio,”Estella sobbed, dropping the toothbrush in the washbasin and falling into his arms, ‘I can’t stand it anymore, having your wife’s stuff lying around here!”

“But doll, this is Mathilde’s house too. You can’t expect her to remove all her belongings from our holiday home? She has no idea about us.” Giovanni looked genuinely surprised.

“I know, I know,” Estella sniffed against his majestic chest, “But oh I do wish she and her damned toothbrush didn’t exist!”

“I understand that honey but she does exist and there is nothing we can do about that, now can we? So dry your tears and….”

They kissed.

I was taking a walk after work in the first spring sun last week when I felt a pair of eyes staring at me from the meadow. I looked up and saw it was one of the smaller sheep, a lady sheep, the same I had been chatting to a few days before. She stared at me while the others around her kept grazing or stretched out in the first weak sun rays, happily ignoring me.

“Ah you,” escaped my mouth before I could help it, “how are you today, Dolly? You’re a sweet one!” The sweet one didn’t move, just kept her eyes fixed on me, even stopped chewing the fresh greens between her teeth. For a split second the funny notion crossed my mind that this sheep knew exactly who I was; that she saw the real me, stripped from my exterior wear, my ego-related weaponry, my important thoughts and mighty resolutions that always follow me on my walks. All the useful chores I would carry out the moment I crossed the threshold of my home again. Ha! Everything stopped there and then.

Dolly made me ponder myself for a short while and I must say it felt good how one innocent sheep just standing there in the late afternoon sun was able to hold up a clear mirror that reflected all the loveliness, care and goodness in my soul, which I know is there but which usually gets snowed under by the important thoughts.

Now and then, in life you can also come across another human being who has that same effect on you: someone who suddenly sees into the brilliance of your soul and for a split-second make you realise what this life is all about. Before they get off at the next tube station and you’re on your own again.

But even if it doesn’t last: you never forget you were briefly seen as you really are. It puts the important thoughts into perspective.

Most polls I hold on my FB Author fan page get quite some reactions but either I’m not so popular anymore or a poll on blogging doesn’t fire so much enthusiasm. Let’s hope for the second reason . My last blog post on this same topic To Blog or not to Blog dated 20 February  – yeah, yeah look at me being terribly negligent blogwriting-wise these days! – had an unexpected amount of 16 interesting comments so I do believe writers still warm to the subject whether or not they write regular blogposts.

Anyway, I will continue to do polls on my author page as I like to get feedback on questions that run through my often overactive brains. A new one will be up soon, so stay tuned!

Here are the results of the poll: What are the pros and cons of regularly adding writing-related posts to your blog?

Very time-consuming, just a lot of work for very few readers                                                  7

I don’t write blog posts that regularly                                                                                       5

I have been writing more blog posts lately and hope to do so more often                               3

I think it’s essential                                                                                                                  2

I only started my blog recently                                                                                                1

It brings interesting traffic to my blog                                                                                      1

I don’t have a blog                                                                                                                   2

Mmm… let us see. Not much enthusiasm for blogging here,I dare say. And a overall negative approach to the whole venture. Lots of work with little outcome seems to be the general opinion. Is this true? Please say no. Ah well… I for one will continue to write here on this page though my blogs are often also non-writing related general snippets that cross my mind.

I hope you will continue to drop by and leave your comments. You see, I was the one admitting it brings interesting traffic to my blog!

Recently I have been wondering about the essence of blogging after I read an article about successful fashion bloggers, who get millions of hits to their blogs. These bloggers need to be on their toes all the time, spotting trends and bringing interesting titbits of street fashion news to their readers. Quite some pressure rests on their shoulders to continue to be innovative and never wide of the mark. Next to that, they write blogs almost every day because their fans could easily desert them if they fail to live up to the short attention span of their clientele. Master classes are organised for prospective fashion bloggers to learn the ropes and become as successful as Anna Della Russo or Bryanboy (200,000 hits per day!).

So is this the same for writing-related blogs?

When we see with what precision and skill these folks approach their anvil, I have to admit I’m nowhere and should seriously consider giving up blogging all together. One of the first mistakes I make when writing a new post is tackling it as if it has to be preserved for posterity, quite similar to writing a novel. Blog posts are by definition meant to be read once and disposed of directly afterwards. Of course, the writing has to be crisp and clean and the words need to give off the whiff of an opinion but if we keep in the back of our minds that they’re usually read with one eye on the News, or Facebook, or that lovely blond passing by in the street, we might get into the right gear. Book reading is quite another matter, there is stillness in the room, you don’t hear the sparrows twitter in the oak tree outside and you get the fright of your life when the doorbell rings the moment the fragile heroine is stalked by that pockmarked villain and might be killed by him in the most atrocious way. Ah yes … that type of writing is intended to leave a lasting impression on your soul but not this blog!

Still I want to learn to become a successful writing-related blogger and have decided I will study the subject to some extent. Can anyone recommend useful background material?

Meanwhile I’ve asked my friends what they think of blogging (pros and cons) on my FB Author Fan page. I would be delighted if you filled in the poll as well. Feel free to add more options.

More on this subject when I have processed your answers.

What do you do when your sales slacken and your book(s) slip down the Amazon ranks?

It is an understatement to state that the marketing side usually is not the writer’s forte. In the old days publishers were responsible for all these matters after the creative process was finished so the sensitive, creative writer’s soul was not exposed to any of this ‘bureaucratic nonsense.’

Nowadays with writers self publishing their work or signing contracts with Indie publishing houses, these vulnerable creatures are confronted with the horrible, real world of promotion and sales. This may sound as an exaggeration but it is in fact how I feel. I am simply not good at promotion and fear I never will be and then when the sales slacken – as they do – my self-confidence in my skills drops at the same rate as the sales and I worry and wonder about the thing I love above all: writing books.

Shall I abandon this folly, believing I have stories to tell that people actually want to read? Shall I return to being a non-writer? Of course not but it does seem contradictory to bring out yet another brainchild when the first one didn’t become a huge success. I mean: why bring out another toilet pot when your first one decorated with what you thought were the most enchanting flowers and birds didn’t sell? No marketeer would advise you to run the risk and do it again, now would he?

Still, if you read the stats of the author poll I held on my FB Author page, you will see that that is exactly what writers do: they refuse to let non-readers grind them down and set off cheerfully writing another book. Stubborn? Definitely! Wise? Perhaps…

So here are the answers:

Work on my next book like crazy                                                               11

Too busy working on my next book to worry about it                                11

I run a free promo on amazon  (only for self-published)                             5

Eat chocolate                                                                                              4  

Create new tweets and add fresh content to social media sites                   4

SALES? What are SALES? Am I missing something                                    3

Spams everyone with the links to their books                                              3

Ask for interviews and blog tours                                                               3

Resign myself to being a cult writer who’ll only be appreciated after I’m dead 2

Bury my head in the pillow and slip deeper under the duvet                          2

Change my avatar into my cat’s                                                                     1

Join a blog hop                                                                                            1

Advertise my book on paid genre sites                                                      1

Panic, try to analyse why and then (hopefully) do something about it        1

So the trend is clear, huh? We’re all stubborn! Some explanatory comments were given:

Gerry McCullough: I really wish I knew the best answer to this, Hannah! I’ve ticked at least 4 boxes!

Vivienne Tufnell: Look at the bigger picture of seasonal variations, and of the flux of finance. In the UK< everyone is broke, all got big bills after Christmas, fuel bills because of the snow, and it’s still a week to pay day. Books are luxuries, when you’re struggling to pay bills and put food on the table, so it’s one of the things that get cut first. And yes, working on getting another book out is always good because a) it distracts and b) it’s seen that books sell more books. Apparently the magic figure is about 10 books available, and the sales feed the others.

John Holt: Difficult to say really – I have four books currently available. If one suddenly stopped selling I would try to work out why. Was it a seasonal thing? But if the other three were still doing Ok then that argument wouldn’t apply. Perhaps it had already sold in great numbers (I wish) and everyone had now purchased it. On the other hand if all four were slipping then I would have to try to work out why. Are sales for other authors slipping. Finally like other self-published indie authors I have to do all my own publicity and promotion, so I would have to see if there was more I could do.

C Reg Jones: It’s my first book, I’m an absolute nobody who has no way of promoting my work outside of FB, Twitter and Amazon, so I expect it not to sell, lol. That, on top of the fact that horror never sells as well as romance or crime sort of keep my downloads down to about 80 – 110 a month.

Kristen Stone: If we had the answer to this Hannah, we would all be in the top 100. Remember there are something like half a million authors on Amazon all competing for sales. What really annoys me is seeing bad books do well and good books falter. But that’s the way the cookie crumbles.

Currently #FREE today on all Amazons: When The Ink Dries  so grab your copy. Ending with some much-needed promotion seemed like a jolly good idea.

Please burn a candle for my family and for all the patients and their families in the entire world. If you’re one of the lucky ones who hasn’t – yet – had to deal with this monster yourself or in your close circles, you may not grasp the importance of this message. I know I didn’t until my daughter was diagnosed with bile duct cancer but we now know that cancer = hell on earth. So please say a prayer, burn a candle, take a moment today to think of all the people – millions – who are facing this deep suffering with all its uncertainties, pain, mutilations and still HOPE TO LIVE.

Frankie Sachs’ excellent guestpost on book spam was widely read, extensively praised and actively commented on. The main theme of Frankie’s reasoning – and the one which seemed to resonate with many folk – was that it’s not the amount of times you shout ‘buy my book’ across the social media but the quality of your messages, in which you reveal interesting parts of yourself and thus trigger potential readers’ attention. Frankie’s key word is authenticity.

I totally agree with this viewpoint but also realise that not everyone is equipped with innate marketing tools, spreading the best possible light on your products 24/7. We also all know loud shouters oftentimes get more attention than shy, quiet geniuses. It’s the only reason loud shouters will always be part of the human race! I wouldn’t dare to consider myself a genius but I tend to have a certain shyness when it comes to promoting my published book. On the other hand, I suffer daily from the fact it keeps sinking down the amazon ranks and I have no idea how to reKindle people’s interest in it. It’s a good book – I know it is – and deserves more attention so although this is not the reason for this blog post here’s the link.

Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk

In fact, I need help from my author friends with the promotion side of being a writer: new ideas, advice, suggestions. Please give them in the comment section below and I’ll be eternally grateful to you. I’ve also created a poll on my FB author page , in which I kindly ask you to take part by answering the question: what do you do when your sales slacken and your book(s) slip down the Amazon ranks? The answers will lead to a next post, for sure.

The reason for the “alert” is that my second book is currently being edited and will be published within the next few months – hopefully. I know that Prior to You is an even better book but will it be read solely for the fact it is an even better book? Of course, not! Still, we all write to be read – next to the fun or necessity of having to tell stories- and I want to feel successful in this part of the job as well.

So what could be more enticing than a piece of the cake itself? A cake that will cost you a mere $3.62, £0.77 0r €0.89? Especially for you I have selected a juicy slice. Hope you enjoy the taste and become interested in buying the whole. You won’t be disappointed. No one has been so far.

It’s a section from Chapter 9 and ends just before they… um…well, you know… you’ll have to find out for yourself…

“You’re burning.” Luuk gently peels the shoulder strap of my bikini top to the side, and presses his cool lips to my shoulder. “Come out of the sun for a while. I don’t understand this mania with tanning. I love your fair skin just as it is, winter or summer.”

He puts the strap back in place and gets up. With both hands he pulls me from the sun bed, and holds my hand as he escorts me to the shade of his chestnut tree. There he busies himself with stacking the remains of our breakfast on a tray and cleaning crumbs from the tartan rug. While he’s doing that, I wander over to his easel.

“Oh Luuk! It’s our house! Oh, it’s wonderful. I thought you never did houses.”

“I still don’t. It’s just a backdrop for the person in it, the proud owner of the premises.” Luuk lifts his left eyebrow in his typical way. “Now come over here, milady, and let me put some suntan oil on you before you’re all scorched and ugly.”

But I can’t part with the painting yet. I keep staring at it, mesmerised. As always, when I see Luuk’s latest piece of work, I become overwhelmed by a kind of hunger. I want to inhale every detail of its freshness and beauty. Shedding my own skin, I step out of myself and enter his soul, living the emotions he so nonchalantly pours from himself onto the canvas, where they come alive in their most brilliant forms. Every brushstroke is a caress, an act of love, an extension of his giving self. This picturesque aquarelle of our new Bergen homestead oozes Luuk’s deep-felt, yet tranquil spirit in modest, pastel colours. Only the deep red hollyhocks show a stronger passion, the kind that makes the girl’s cheeks blush and her eyes shine. Luuk has captured the entire feel of the summer’s day, with the glints of sunlight playing through the foliage, the exposing heat and the coolness of the shade.

Both his life and mine are in it, together and separate. So much of our elated mood after his return from New York last night has been stroked forever into the image, melded with the passion of how we made love, then slept in each other’s arms before enjoying a mellow but festive breakfast of croissants and coffee outside. The colours speak of a morning filled with work, both painting and writing, interrupted somewhere in the background by phone calls, demands of clients, another coffee, my break in the sun, and finally the discussion about the upcoming party.

“Feasting the soul again?” Luuk’s voice is in my hair.

……………………………………………………………………………..

Below you find a guest post by Frankie Sachs – a writer pal I met in my Authonomy days and whom I respect for his candid and sharp-witted opinions.

We all know it’s hard to write a book but even harder to “get it out there”. So far, I haven’t been very successful marketing-wise with my first book so I’ve decided that I will explore some – hopefully- constructive channels, such as doing blogtours and interviews, but first and foremost I will take Frankie’s advice to heart: LOVE BOOKS and WRITERS and be active in our online communities.

I must admit I have been guilty of some spamming too, you know post the links to my book on Twitter and FB and rub my hands with glee when my friends RT my messages. Does it help? I’ve had a handful of downloads as a result, so -no- not impressive. Does it irritate me to have to scroll through the same links over and over again? It is not really irritation, it rather saddens me. It seems like such a huge waste of time and of “virtual paper”.

Anyway, last summer (!) Frankie wrote this guestpost for me and I owe him a huge apology for publishing it only now. Tons of excuses, of course, but I just hope he will forgive me by honouring the saying “better late than never”. Frankie is always very outspoken in his opinions and I truly hope this razor-sharp and helpful post will provoke some discussion. Here you go…

Every time you plug your book, I vomit in my mouth just a little and it tastes like spam.

You hate spam, right?

Me too!

So why would you think other people want your spam?

Forget the automated services that plug your book seventeen times a day across all your social media sites. (I’m looking at you, BookBuzzr.) Forget the spammy comments left on blogs and message boards for the sole purpose of linking your book. Forget the online author echo chamber where all the online authors reblog/retweet/repost each other’s spam.

You know what that marketing plan is designed to sell? Knock-off viagra, barely legal cheerleaders gone wild, and ebooks on how to market your ebook. (Classy!)

Social media channels are saturated — SATURATED — with noise: “Buy my book!” “RT this link!” “Click to save a puppy!”

You need to be signal.

Because goddamn, in an internet full of noise, people love them some signal.

This is hard, this is so hard. It’s as hard as writing your book was, maybe harder, because it takes all the same things: creativity and insight and empathy and wit and a willingness to put yourself out there (metaphorically) naked. And you have to do it in front of a live studio audience full of hecklers and trolls and people that will hate you just because you’re there.

It means you have to be you, and at the same time you have to be not you because it’s the internet and you can’t take it personal. You have to be you with a pinch of Batman thrown in.

It takes time and energy. It takes presence, and really being present. It takes authenticity. You know the thing about authenticity? You can’t fake it. And it takes the unicorn of the writing world: voice.

It doesn’t matter how many times you tweet your Amazon link or spam my blog or post about your book on a message board I read, if your online personality doesn’t have <i>voice</i>, I’m not going to buy.

No wonder we want so bad to believe there’s a magic marketing combo; find the right ratio of retweet to fresh content, the right length of blog posts on the right schedule, hit the right number of Facebook likes, and you, too, will be a Kindle millionaire! (Or, you know, hit triple digit sales.) The truth is, there is no magic formula. No Twitter + Blogger + Facebook + Kindle = marketing success.

Anybody selling you a method is a snake oil man.

Go back to brass tacks. Get out of the writer ghetto and find the communities you love <i>as a reader</i>. Engage in them <i>as a reader</i>. Be excited about books! Talk about books that aren’t yours, books you aren’t talking up in exchange for being talked about in return. Talk about old books and new books and popular books and books nobody has ever heard of. Enjoy yourself and enjoy the company of other readers. And the whole time you’re doing this, in the back of your mind, pay attention to yourself; pay attention to what turns on your inner reader, what makes you <i>want</i> a book you’ve never read.

Because what turns on your inner reader probably turns on my inner reader too. (Hint: it’s not followbacks and automatic DMs.)

Note:
After I finished the rough draft of this post last night, a link washed up in my Twitter stream: <a href=”http://www.imediaconnection.com/article_full.aspx?id=30254“>The world’s worst social media advice: What to ignore</a>. Read that if your current book promotion strategy makes you die a little inside every time you plug.

Frankie’s very short bio:

We’re seven days into 2013, so time to see how the New Year’s resolutions are holding. Well that is, if you had any. I always have, not that I write them down on paper or solemnly pledge them before God and people (well perhaps before God) but I usually have some good intentions. This year, I had the usual, plus an extra one, which is the most interesting one, of course.

Losing weight is always on the agenda. I have been dieting since the age of 14 and will continue to do so till my dying day. Most people would call me skinny but I have inherited my father’s constitution which means all the fat settles around the stomach/belly region. Hence when I’m overweight I look like a heron that has had way too many fish: thin limbs, protruding belly. I believe the tendency to overeat is recorded in the genes. In that respect I’m an odd mixture between my gourmand father and my austere mother. I have both appetites and both on the same day, so one minute I stuff myself and then refrain from eating the rest of the day. I also never allow myself to gain more than 7 kilos, at which point I start dieting again. I had my fattest point by mid-December, gaining the spare kilos since September (!). The recent flu helped me to get rid of the first 2 kilos and yes I’m (still) in my austere mind-set, so off they go. For the first time ever I’m been dreaming of a young, muscled, tanned male personal trainer to help me stay on my natural weight and give me nutrition and other training. If I ever sell enough books, I’ll hire one and I’ll be that girl! Yiha

My second resolution is always doing more yoga and being able to carry out new asanas. So far because of the flu my regime has not really started but tonight I will have a go and this year this is my challenge. I have little hope I will manage but I’m going to try.

My third resolution is walk 30-60 minutes every day. (Done).

My fourth resolution is write every day. I exhausted myself with the final edit of Prior To You with shifts of 18 hours at the computer last week so I take it a little slower right now. The manuscript has been sent to my publisher and I’m waiting for the editor to get in touch with me. First, I intend to start to ‘revive’ the short story collection Stand By Me before I continue with my third novel Daughter of the Alvar.

My fifth resolution is tougher than I thought, I thought it was a piece of cake but it aint! I intend to silently bless everyone that crosses my path but often I  recall this promise when the person in question has already moved one hundred miles onwards.

And then that last one I was talking about. My children gave me a wonderful Sony camera for Christmas and I will use it –among others- to become more actively involved in Pinterest. My first new board will be called Trees with Character with snapshots of all funny and respectable trees I come across. So far they are titled: Weeping Madonna (birch tree), My life with Warts (pollard willow), The Evil Eye (see below). But I haven’t got enough to pin them up yet.

That’s it for now. This week I will try to press-gang some people into writing or reposting an interesting guestpost.