Welcome to my new blog. After spending the majority of the last eight years living abroad, the time has come to settle back in the UK and begin a new chapter.
When you live overseas it’s very easy to fill a blog with posts about the peculiarities and peccadilloes of your adopted country, especially when still suffering culture shock and huge bouts of homesickness. After a while the bizarre becomes the norm. When we returned to the UK after 3 years in California I took great delight in the simple things such as being able to peg my washing outside to dry (because nobody airs their undies in LA); returning from the Netherlands and I’m just grateful for a dry day.
We’ve promised ourselves we will live our life here on the south coast of England as we lived it on those overseas assignments – making the most of our free time to explore. So far this has extended no further than a half day out in the New Forest and a blustery boat trip around Portsmouth Harbour, but it’s early days.
However, the main purpose of this blog is to raise my social profile, and to let potential readers know more about me. The time has come to embrace the new age of self-promotion. I want my novels to be published, therefore I need a social platform. Every agent/publisher these days checks you out on social media. In addition, I’m currently weighing up the pros and cons of self-publishing, in which case a prolific public profile is essential.
Self-promotion doesn’t sit easy with me, nor does talking to strangers. I’m a reluctant tweeter, and yet, from tweeting about very little, I’ve accumulated a following already in triple figures, which baffles me (although in the whole scheme of things I appreciate triple figures is nothing). However, ignoring the handful of US armed services personnel stationed in the wilderness, the majority of these new virtual acquaintances are other writers/book people, which can only be a good thing. The downside is now that I have followers, I have to give them something to follow.
I will hopefully find plenty of interesting topics to blog about, plus of course, there will be a regular ‘book corner’ when I’ll talk about what I’m currently reading, updates about my own writing, and hopefully some guest posts.
A few pics of the New Forest plus some of the locals
