Bob is a Furryhead!

It's been a pretty quiet week, just typing up some bits and pieces of scenes from my notebooks to see if anything was worth using. Not sure where these little poems would fit, and I don't think they are worth spending much time on revamping or re-crafting, so thought I would post them here for you all. Hope you enjoy!

The Green Chair – Alzheimers comes to stay

Clunk, splutter, giggle.

A mass of household goods,

a chest, a table, some cutlery

sliding on every bend.

Scrape, gasp, wriggle.

The pigtails bounce with glee,

a whole new world of discovery

contained in a blue work van.

 Murmur, shout, backfire.

Mum tells us to sit and behave,

the huge chair holds safe

as we all go along for the ride.

Screech, crunch, retire.

We make it safely home,

the blue van now stands empty,

Grandma now reigns over our home.

Self-Help!

An evening to reflect

A day that started bright

An afternoon of contentment

And an evening to relax.

 What will happen down

the line, who knows, but

giving our all will make

it surely like to succeed?

 Nose to the grind, pedal

to the metal, pull those

socks up, and show fine

fettle. Do what you do

The rest will follow, and

all your results will be

for whatever input has been.

Find your way to work

 And be, love and live,

the rest will follow your

lead to the joy and

greatness you have found.

 Bob is a Furryhead

Bob is a furry head. He

squeaks and tweaks.

Curly pawed he gambols

and twitches. Paws on

a sixpence, big-eyed

and playful. Bob is a

furry head. He growls and

he hisses, bites like they’re

kisses. Play lace, or chase

mouse. Bob is in charge

of our house.

have a great weekend....

I am a busy therapist in mh day job, and it never ceases to amaze me that people are often unaware of the importance of the words that they use. You know, those words that we constantly allow to run around our heads and pop out of our mouths before we even think about it. As a writer it is essential to make sure our words and sentences convey exactly what we mean. We write and rewrite sentences and phrases, consult dictionaries and thesauruses (thesauri?) to be certain we have conveyed our exact meaning to our readers.


Yet in our actual day to day lives we don't pay this level of attention to the words we use or think. With this in mind is it any wonder that others misconstrue what we say, and so often we manage to confuse our own unconscious minds too?


Obviously I'm not advocating the level of precision given by a master wordsmith to his magnum opus, but I think we could all benefit from choosing our words and constructing the beliefs and values we hold (which are really just sentences and phrases we have chosen to believe after all) with a bit more awareness of their actual meaning, and making informed decisions as to whether they really are serving us well or not.

Why is it hard to find the time....?

I've had a really hectic time of things with my day job recently, and this has got me thinking just how easy it is to allow ourselves to stop doing the things we really love. You know, those ones we look as a bit of time just for us, when we relax and unwind, and I have realised that my writing seems to come under this category for me. Now, my writing is actually a valuable part of my income, and I spend as much time working on building a network of fans for it as I do for my work as a therapist - yet I still see the actual writing part as my hobby.

I wanted to try and work out why this was the case for me, and probably for many writers out there - who are making money from their writing yet still prioritise other aspects of their lives as having more importance. I started by looking at what I get from writing, what I need to do to write successfully, and when I have been most successful at doing so and getting a finished article/book/blog post (or whatever I want to get written).

Firstly I realised that I get utterly immersed when I write. I am not someone who can sit down and just write for an hour or so, and feel that I have managed to get something created that has any value. I like to utterly lose myself in the characters lives, and just let them write their own stories - I simply can't do this if I am snatching a few 100 words here or there.So, for me writing is very time-consuming. I need to know that I have two or 3 days straight (often working through the night) to just get the story out there, get it onto the page and then I can use the odd hour here or there to edit it, and fine tune it over a number of months, but the actual initial push needs dedicated time with no distractions.

I get a huge amount of release from writing, it is a cathartic process for me. I often write about characters that have similar problems or hangs ups to me, or have had similar upbringings, or things happen in their lives. This can obviously mean that often it can be quite difficult for me emotionally, as I am working through my stuff alongside my characters working it out too. I also get a huge sense of pride and achievement when I complete a story.  The other thing I get is a lot of love. It sounds crazy but many of my characters are like family to me, and by giving them my undivided attention I feel that they give me the privilege of seeing everything about their lives, and they give me a great story line.

I realised that my most productive patch to date was one in which I had very few clients in the day job, was working through a lot of things to do with where and what I wanted my life to be, and how I was going to achieve it. Recently however my life has been very highly focussed on building my business, and helping others - there simply hasn't been the time for me, or my characters. So, the lesson I have learned is that I either need to change the way I write (which I don't want to do) or I need to find the time to write. That said I am going for the latter. I am going to try and book myself a two or 3 day holiday from my business every month so I can work on my writing.

So, what is holding you back, and how can you make a change so you continue to get pleasure from your hobbies that make you money, whilst maintaining a normal job/life/family etc?

Huge apologies to everyone for my long absence. I have been really busy at the day job, trying to re-establish my therapy business following my departure from raography training. It has been really interesting and I have learnt a huge amount about myself, and about how to market myself better, and the power of social media and blogging when doing this.

I have realised just how little effort I have put in over the years to marketing myself either as a therapist, or as a writer, and so understandably I haven't achieved the huge heights of success that I have dreamed of. I promise, that I am more determined than ever to ensure that I don't blow it this time. It is incredible how much work needs to be done to ensure that your name gets out there, to ensure people realise you written a book - let alone to convince them to buy it!

And then you realise that you could have been saving yourself so much time if you had just put as much effort into the marketing as you did into learning your skills - whatever they may be. I am realising that shortcuts such as HootSuite,  having a VA to answer calls, and using online databases to find interesting, useful blog/twitter/facebook posts (that are hopefully easy and enjoyable to read too) can make it all so much simpler. But I still like to make sure I keep the odd personal element in there, such as writing this, or personal DM messages to say thanks when someone follows me.

I'm getting there, and I promise I will try and get back here later in the week - I've been discovering VLogs too - you never know maybe I'll do one of those for you all too!

Oh, and Anna and Jim are slowly getting there - Jim is such an adorable man, but he is downright scary when he's angry - I didn't know that until this week!

Being unwell, and trying to write...

Well, it has most definitely been a very up and down year for me so far. I decided to go back to university to retrain as a radiographer, and - much as I love this, and am getting huge amounts of satisfaction from learning new information, and a new skill - I am finding it really hard to establish any kind of balance in my life.

I know those of you that are waiting eagerly for the next Castle Cluny novel, or lets face it anything from me at all, are probably getting more than a bit impatient, but I have found that between keeping up with university, keeping a roof over my head, and staying healthy I don't seem to have much time on my hands! After working from home for 8 years, I am fully out in the real world, and on placement in hospitals too, and so am exposed to a lot more bugs, and my immune system has taken a real battering, I am currently on chest infection number 3 since October, and sound like Muttley from the wacky races!

I was wondering how I managed it all before, the studying, running the business, writing and everything else, and realised that my life goes in definite phases. A friend of mine with bi-polar pointed out that I was just like him before he got diagnosed, and just how much I rely on 'up' periods to get masses of things completed. I did a bit of a reflection on my life and realised how right he was, that everything I achieve is always done in incredible bursts of energy and creativity, and then I spend the rest of the time beating myself up for not being able to maintain that level of achievement, until  I hit crashing lows in which I get nothing done at all - and could even appear to be going backwards. A change in my supplement programme seems to have helped to even out my moods - which is great as it seems to mean no crashing lows - but has also taken out the highs which really were my productive patches - I would never have achieved anything in my life if it weren't for these patches really, so I doing it the hard way, and trying to learn to expect myself to be a bit less super-human, but sadly this means it takes much longer to get a book out to you all now.

I am trying to learn to cope, and still make things happen - but it does mean that writing has had take a bit of a back seat to my life - and for that I apologise profusely to any fans out there waiting. I intend to use my summer holiday from Uni to do some really amazing things - so please do keep waiting for me, I will make sure what I put out is worth the wait I promise.

I have Anna and Jim heading in the right direction in the Castle Cluny series, and have an off-the-wall fairy-tale mash-up for you all, and I hope you will love them both, even though they are both very, very different indeed!

xxx

Rosie Macdonald Books now available in the Kindle Owners' Lending Library!

I am really excited, I have now managed to get the first in the Castle Cluny Romance series, An Aristocratic Awakening,  the heartwarming relationships tale, A Date with Destiny, and my charity short story and poem compilation, Cornucopia into the Kindle Owners' Lending Library.

For those who don't know much about the Kindle Lending Library,  on Amazon's website they say :

              "With Prime, Kindle owners can now choose from thousands of books to borrow for free 
               including over 100 current and former New York Times Bestsellers – as frequently as a 
               book a month, with no due dates."

This is very exciting for me, as it gives me the opportunity for you all to read my books for free, and to hopefully enjoy reading them as much as I enjoy writing them. So, give yourself the gift of romance this Christmas for free, and curl up with a great book - whether you own a Kindle or not, you can download Kindle software onto most devices and take advantage of great books, and great savings.

Well it seem writers block can extend to blogs ...

I have been so stuck for anything to write about recently, that even coming here and putting fingers to keys has been really tough. Apologies for anyone foolish enough to hang on my every word for the very long delay - I hope you will feel better now, knowing that I am back and have written something for you again now!

I have had a crazy summer, so far, have been running back and forth to Norfolk as my Dad has recently had surgery, and my Mum needed some support etc, plus had to admit my real-world job is no longer viable. So I've been searching for new jobs, and getting slowly more and more frustrated when nothing has turned up so far. It has left me with a curious case of writers block - I can write short pieces, prompted by my writing group exercises, when the rest of the group are there ensuring I write something, but when it comes down to actually writing any of the novel projects I currently have on the go I have no desire whatsoever to write about them.

It would appear from the pieces I am writing in my writng group that my style is changing a bit, and this may be why what I am writing in the Castle Cluny series just doesn't seem to be happening right now - but I feel that I need to finish the series and get it out of my system. So, to those waiting with baited breath for Anna and Jim's story, I will now apologise profusely and say that it is going to be late. I am hoping to complete it and I hope that you will enjoy it, but I will be honest with you all, I am really struggling at the moment!