'Tis the Season

You'd think yes, but actually no....

This could quite easily double up as my end-of-year roundup, but we'll see.  Basically, we're at my Mum's for Christmas, with everything that entails, and I need to write something.

Because that's how things work now.  I write.  I've had my little tablet since just after my birthday, and if I'm honest, it's been pretty revolutionary.  I needed something that I could use in the evening while my phone was playing audiobooks to get the Chap to sleep, and something that wasn't the computer.  Computers are too easy.  They make my habits easy.  But my tablet is crap enough to make my habits really hard to do, leaving just typing stuff as the only realistic option.

And it's brilliant.  I've found an outlet for my stories that doesn't involve late nights and dangerous behaviours.  Wattpad is great.  I've found a friend.  I've got two long books about half-done, and the feedback I'm getting on each chapter is really positive.  I think that might be one of the things I need in order to keep going.  I need feedback and support, which is why my Flickr behaviours are so addictive.  I get sucked in by favourites and comments.  It's dangerous.  But not with writing.  I still get nice comments, but I can somehow manage to get to bed before midnight.

And just this month, when it looked like none of my stories would be ready for publishing, I took a short story and put it through Smashwords.  It's over there on the right, just under my profile stuff, available to buy, for something like 75p in our money.  Smashwords is also great, and I liked it so much, I wrote another short story and made it available for free.  I'm developing unhealthy behaviours with the stats page, hoping that I might crack 100 downloads before Christmas, but at any rate, I'm having a very positive experience.  The plan is to get the HGS thing in shape in the New Year and upload a chapter book for a coupla quid.

Like we're about to form some kind of
 Power Rangers Voltron Mega Zord kinda thing,
which me and my siblings could probably
actually do if it came to it

And so it is in a good place that I find myself at the end of this year.  There's a blog post to be written about what's come out of therapy recently and how it relates to my Cinderella thing, but I'll save that for another time.  Spoiler alert:  I had a horrible childhood with enough privilege to paper over the cracks.  It'll take some working through, but in the meantime I've come to spend the festive season with the very people who caused it all, and I don't feel bad at all.  These people, aside from one obvious exception, are the people who will ultimately see me through.

LMW

Mission accomplished

So, yay!  I got a story published on Smashwords, which was my goal for the year. 

Clicky-link here: Kiss Me Again or check out the fancy-pants widget over there on the right. 

Due respect to Smashwords, which is a wonderful website that really, really wants people to publish eBooks.  Also, they provide all kinds of stats and data and fancy-pants widgets to help you sell your book.

Also, Wattpad has been a revelation.  I'll write something about that at some point too.

So I'm happy now.  It was a draft that I'd had knocking around in a more or less finished form for a while, the computer geek big bum story.  It was fairly straightforward to get it formatted and uploaded to the site.  I'll need to do a bit more work on the next one, but basically, it's great, I've achieved my goal, and I'm keen to do it again very soon.

Also, sold a copy, which makes me feel legitimate.  This is important for me.

LMW

There's a draft in here...

Except this is a short story, not a big book

This is exciting.  I have a draft, and it's now a revised draft that I'm happy to spread about.

I'm also happy to spread it about freely, because I'm fairly sure I'll be giving it away for free when I come to properly publish it via the proper publishing thing I'm looking at.  First one's always free, and if I can get more than 2 people to download it, I'll count that as a win.

Clicky link here for the revised draft.

It's just shy of 5k in terms of words.  I think that's not too shabby.  You can read it and leave it at that, and I'd really welcome some feedback, mostly on the whole 'doctor' 'Dr' issue that presented itself.

Of course, there's a back-story and a trail of inspiration which might give you a window on how my mind works these things out.  Read on below, with spoilers...

I have a page now

I now have an author page on Smashwords.  You should go and have a look at it.

https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/lmwilliams

Sadly no books yet, but there's some bumpf about what sort of stories I intend to write.  Also some teasers about a different sort of content, which I remember writing about here.  Time to start a Sissy Party tag for the blog.  I've already got one for the HGS, so...

Interested parties should explore the Smashwords site.  It looks like a good platform.

LMW