The last month has vanished. Since starting work my free time has been squeezed as it is and I have had a load of other stuff going on which have either filled those precious moments or flawed me so I haven’t been able to use them.

I have a free morning today so I intend to ignore my phone and even the doorbell if necessary. I have printed ALL my draft books so I can read them again in hard copy. I am hoping the post man is going to drop a draft copy of my new book to me today. It still needs a huge amount of work but I wanted to get it printed so I could work on it in hard copy. Ok the mastic man has just been to look at our bathroom, couldn’t ignore the doorbell after all – best laid plans…

First things first – a HUGE thank you to everyone who has supported me in publishing my first book, especially to the people who have bought it and shared it and written reviews. I am so touched and so grateful. I have had some amazing feedback too so I am super proud. I gave a copy to Luca’s nursery today, whether they wanted it or not 🙂 I know the next steps are to contact schools and the library and go in to local shops but for now I am really happy that I have launched it and got it out there, it is surprisingly hard to put your work out there so I have to remind myself to be proud for that reason alone!

So I have just finished two rhyming stories based on colours to give away as free PDFs when people sign up to my newsletter. Not that I have a newsletter yet…hmmm…it’s on the list!

This is one of the draft covers…

This is an example of one of the monsters in the book. What do you think of the font? I may try a few different options.

I am also so behind on my e-mails and I have left my illustrator hanging now for AGES. I asked him to do some things for me and I did pay him (of course) but since then I have been away with the busy fairies. It is definitely my next job to apologise and get back to him on our next project.

I have also not had much time to spend with my new writing besties – Jenny Jewel and Penny Byrne who you will hear more about soon. We just set up a Facebook page for Penny’s new book Seymour’s Seaside Picnic. Check it out! It is a collaborative project for the Jersey Child Care Trust. Lauren Radley is illustrating it with local school children contributing the bears which are from all around Jersey. It is going to be brilliant.

I also haven’t been able to attend the Jersey Writers Social Group since starting work as the sessions are on one of the mornings I am in the office. I had only recently started going but I already miss it. I used to love listening to other peoples’ writing and also the group interaction was really great. I met some lovely people and I do intend to go in the school holidays when I am not working.

What else have I been doing? Well we went away to Alicante for a wedding.

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My husband has entered a charity fundraising event White Collar Darts for my favourite charity Brighter Futures. We have a dart board up in the kitchen and even I have been having a go. I am either pretty good or I miss completely. Yes I have got the dart in the wall several times – eek! Yes this board has seen better days. This is also my bullseye. Woo!

Luca has also been a bit poorly recently, nothing serious but it does mean I have a tired and grumpy companion. I also had to take some time off work to be with him but I managed to catch up the hours. I can do some work from home if necessary which is great.

We were going to have a big halloween party this weekend but unfortunately that’s been cancelled. I am really disappointed because one of my core values is starting some family traditions for Luca and an annual halloween party is one of them. We have had two so far and this would have been his third. We have a back up plan but I am still a little bit heartbroken. But these things happen and it is much better for me to get over it and have a good time doing something else with Luca than for him to have a sulky angry mum around over halloween! There are loads of halloween events taking place around the island too so we will go join in as much as we can. This was last year. Thanks to my amazing sister-in-law Abbie for the make-up!

I have also had quite a few new EFT clients recently. Check out my EFT website if you want to learn more about that side of my life. I love EFT!

I have just ordered some artwork to give-away for a school raffle prize. It is so nice to be able to do something like that. I never used to have anything I could contribute but I have ordered the print and I have a frame and I will also give away a few books too. This is one of the prints I have ordered as I haven’t seen it framed yet.

As it has been so busy I pencilled some free time in this week. Free time to do loads of things I haven’t been able to do but that’s what I like to do with my free time! I can’t tell you how happy I am that I have finally found the time to write this! I know it is rushed and chaotic but that’s life.

If you want to buy my book you can find it at Amazon. It is available on kindle (if you have kindle unlimited it is free) or you can get it in paperback. Thanks for the support…more books coming soon!

Thanks so much for checking in, have a great day,

Anna x