I talked flash fiction, read some of the stories and sold some books too! There were many laughs and a lot of lovely chat (and tea!). Now I hope what happened today is the very beginning of a new chapter in my writing life. I am writing the follow up book (though at the moment finding it hard to balance marketing with writing but I know I'm not alone in finding that balance difficult to get right. It will come with time I'm sure). Today is the start of something special then, I hope, with more books and signings to come in due course.
So when things go right for your characters, when their dreams come true, how do they handle it? Do they find their own personal fairytale coming true to be all they hoped for or more, or does it become a nightmare and they find they can't handle it at all? Is there a price to be paid for having the fairytale come true and can your characters pay it? Bound to be some very interesting stories there, I would have thought.
I remember feeling thoroughly fed up at times when all I seemed to receive were rejections and all the writing advice was to keep going and not give up. The first thought was always along the lines of "well, that's easy for you to say, you're a published author". Has any writer NOT felt that way at times? Anyway, the advice is true! I've been writing seriously for 20 years (and really aiming for publication for about half that time or thereabouts. For quite a while I was happy just to write for me - and that's absolutely fine to do but I felt the need to try to move on, to at least give trying to get published a good go. I wanted to make sure I had no writing regrets. If it didn't happen, I would know I'd at least given it my best shot.).
Did I get annoyed when people said to me "got anything published yet"? You bet!
Image Credit: The first three pictures below were taken by me, Allison Symes, on 8th July 2017. The last one was taken by my lovely Chandler's Ford Today editor, Janet Williams, also on 8th July 2017.