Is it really December? Where did this year go? Anyway, more of that later. I’ll blog about all my New Year’s resolutions that I didn’t achieve (lol) towards the end of 2024.
Today I kicked off the start of the holiday season minus the sentimentality with a trip to the Devil’s Fayre: the Krampus market at Voodoo Belfast. There were stalls selling occult jewellery, alternative festive gifts, seasonal baked goods and more and it was great to browse for some horror-themed prezzies.
Continue readingAt the weekend I posted a reel on all of my social media channels for #sentimentalsaturday sharing a trip down memory lane to when I was living in Japan.
Between 2003 and 2007, I taught English in Tottori, Northwestern Japan, and during that time I had 3 travel articles published in Nova City Magazine (2004-2006).
I rediscovered these nostalgic gems while tidying and they’re now enjoying pride of place on the bookshelf.
The short articles are of my impressions on living in Japan (picture 2) and my favourite Japanese writing kanji character (picture 4).
When I first moved to Japan, I didn’t speak any Japanese other than a few emergency phrases. While living there, I got myself a tutor and studied for the Level 3 Japanese proficiency test, and took this exam at Kobe University in December 2006. My Japanese conversational skills were quite good for a time, after living there for 4 years, but sadly I forget a lot of what I learned as I no longer have an opportunity to practise, apart from watching anime on occasion.
On a happy note, I met my lovely fellow author hubby in Japan – he was also teaching English – and at some point, we hope to visit our old haunts and bring our little adventurer with us. It’s really just a case of getting our savings together for such a trip!
This month, my Kindle app notified me that I just passed a silver reading achievement. I’ll be honest, I didn’t know there was any such Kindle challenge, but it was fun to find out that I’m close to gold, nonetheless. Although I prefer reading paperbacks, eBooks are undoubtedly more convenient. For me, I tend to mostly read my Kindle books in bed, or out and about whenever I have a moment to spare. So far this year, I have read 44 Kindle books, but I’ll do a proper update towards the end of 2024.
My new part-time library position has definitely helped keep my reading goals on track. It’s good to model reading in front of library users. Books are important, and I’m a firm believer in making time for reading, rather than leaving it to a free moment. My TBR pile of paperbacks on the coffee table at home (with expandable bookends, lol) is not whittling down in size as I keep buying more books. What can I say? I’m as much of a bookworm as I am a writer.
So, what am I reading this month? Halloween is over, but you wouldn’t know it from my current selection. Ghost horror, supernatural and psychological are top of my list at the moment. I’ve started reading ‘Home before Dark’ and ‘Whispers in the Sand’, but the others are next on my TBR so I’ve included them here. Apart from Riley Sager, which is a library borrow, I bought the others.
I must not buy more books… (X 10)
Yeah, right! As if that will ever happen.
Here’s a video celebrating autumn, and all the beauty of Mabon. Halloween is over, but the autumn colours are still here.
The temperature has really dropped here in Northern Ireland, though we have managed to avoid snow, unlike some photos that friends in England have shared on social media. I’m sure that will change over the next few days though as snow is certainly forecast.
Last Saturday we went to the Santa parade in Belfast, which was at the little guy’s request. Apart from that we haven’t been personally getting into the whole festive spirit just yet. I know that a lot of people, and a lot of businesses, get their Christmas trees and decorations up from mid-November onwards, but for my family personally, once Halloween is over, we leave the generic autumnal decorations and door wreath in place until the 1st of December when we get ready for Yule. It’s still Mabon for a while longer!
Literary life for me lately has been busy, busy, busy. I realise I haven’t posted an update in 6 days. I normally try to blog every 4 days or so, but the delay has been for a good reason.
I’ve finished another book! Hurray, happy dance!
This one is a collection of ghost stories and is just under 50,000 words – so, about the length of a short novel. I finished the last story on Sunday and spent Monday reading through the whole collection to check for typos and consistency. On Tuesday I began typesetting the paperback and formatting the cover. Yesterday I finished uploading the proof and ordered a copy for my editor. The copy should come in the post next week ready for the red pen treatment.
In the meantime, it’s business as usual. I’m still chipping away at novel WIP#7, which is at 56,858 words, and novel WIP#8, which is at 51,734 words. Those two manuscripts have taken a back seat lately while I prioritised the story collection. It’s about time I gave them some attention.
Next year, I’ll be back to being a one-book woman. All this juggling is too much to keep track of!
It’s always lovely to check into Libraries NI and find out where my novels are currently being borrowed. It makes me so happy to know that readers are discovering my books among the shelves, and that they’re finding their way out of Belfast and across the country. Here’s where they’re currently all on loan:
The Blue Man is in the Belfast Heritage Writer’s collection, on the shelves at Hollywood Arches and Newtonbreda libraries and is on loan at Portrush library.
The Fairy Lights is in the Belfast Heritage Writer’s collection, on the shelf at Newtonbreda library and on loan at Ballycastle library.
Matthew’s Twin is in the Belfast Heritage Writer’s collection at Belfast central library and one copy is out on loan.
The Buddha’s Bone is on the shelves at Belfast central and Newtonbreda.
Gods of Avalon Road is on the shelves at Ormeau Road library and Belfast central, where it was currently in the Halloween display.
Authors, did you know…?
If your books are eligible through the Public Lending Right service, you get paid for every time a reader borrows your books from a library? The payment is similar to getting paid for readers who download your books on Kindle Unlimited.
I must say, knowing that readers are borrowing my books is a welcome dose of motivation to keep writing. Even though the payment from the Public Lending Right fund is less than readers buying my eBooks, paperbacks or hardcovers outright, it makes me feel good knowing that readers who may not be able to afford to buy my books can still access them. Books are for everyone!
November is here. A few years ago I used to find November a depressing month after all the fun of Halloween and before the bright lights of Christmas. But as a Halloween aficionado, I enjoy keeping the spooky decorations up until mid November before switching over to the yuletide ones, and I find all the seasonal cheer keeps my mood up in the darker months. Especially with seasonal affective disorder so prevalent here in the northern hemisphere with the shorter days, any extra lighting certainly helps. It’s good to be mindful of things to keep one’s spirits up.
Starting a new position certainly helps with that too. My new bookish venture for November is that I’m starting a part-time library post in addition to teaching creative writing, which I started last month. I will soon be in book paradise, hurray!
I wonder if working in a library will mean that I won’t be shopping for books as much, seeing as I will have no excuse not to borrow more books? Hmm. Only time will tell…
Samhain blessings, folks! It’s finally here…my favourite seasonal holiday of the year. Today the veil between this world and that of spirit (if you believe such things) is at its thinnest. This means that ghosties, ghoulies, and all things nasty can travel freely to pay us a visit. I’ll bet the horror lover in you enjoys that notion as much as I do.
I say that, but have to admit, I have never spent the night in a haunted house. No, I am a haunted house neophyte. Is that going to change any time soon? Erm…nope. My imagination is bad enough, thank you very much.
Yes, I can happily summon a demon out of the darkest depths of the corner in my bedroom without having to resort to a seance, or staying in a poltergeist-ridden hotel, or devising any other such supernatural scenarios to stimulate the thrill-seeking part of my brain. My overactive mind, saturated as it is by caffeine, provides enough terrifying fodder for my many horror books.
Why do I love horror? I’ll get into that in another post. Why do I love Halloween? Because it is an unsentimental time of year that allows us to look at the darker aspects of the world instead of having to deny that they exist and pretending like everything is roses. Halloween lets us celebrate death, which is a natural part of the life cycle.
Speaking of death, allow me a morbid thought today of all days, when the veil is thin. I’m an author. Like any author, I’m hoping that my books will outlive me. Is that depressing? I don’t think so. Writers create work in the hope that a piece of that work will live on. Even when I am worm fodder in the soil, pushing up daisies, who knows? Maybe some of my books might linger. I’ll be haunting the legal deposit libraries (The British Library, etc) watching over them for sure, ha ha!
And on that macabre note…
Happy Halloween, everyone!
Okay, so this post was fuelled by frustration. As you all know by now, I am an avid Halloween fan. A passionate lover of all-things-Samhain. A few days ago, while at yoga class, I happened to be dressed head to toe in my Halloween best (as you do). The woman on the exercise mat next to me eyed my spooky leggings and T-shirt with a nervous eye and quipped, “you must love Halloween?” to which I replied that, why yes, I do love Halloween and have so many Halloween outfits; enough for every day of the month. She then went on to say, “You must have Christmas outfits too?” to which I responded that I happen to have one dress.
Later, after the class was finished, the same awkward woman happened to enter the ladies toilets as I was about to leave. She saw me, smiled, and backed out, murmuring that she would use the “other bathroom as I’m in a rush”. A likely excuse. It was obvious from how her roving eye perused my clothing that my choice of Halloween attire was the real reason why she so needed to find another restroom. Cue eye roll, forehead slap, enough said.
Or not. Why, the expletive deleted, do some narrow-minded people consider Halloween to be Satanic? That is the only reason I can possibly think of for that woman’s reaction – and she’s not alone. I often receive a multitude of suspicious and fearful looks when I wear my spooky favourites. It seems that some folks see Halloween as a sign of Devil worship. Oh dear. Are some folks really so uneducated about the origins of Hallowmas, or Samhain? Satanic rituals have nothing to do with it. Don’t take my word for it; here are two articles you can read on the topic, one from an academic perspective at the Open University and the other from a religious point of view.
Samhain, to put it simply, marks the end of summer and the start of the darker half of the year, when people would gather their harvest and honour the dead. Traditionally, people would have worn spooky costumes in the belief that spirits would not have bothered their own kind since they believed that the veil between worlds was at its thinnest on All Hallows’ Eve.
What on earth has that to do with Devil worship? Precisely nothing.
Roll on Halloween!
There are so many misconceptions about writing and publishing that I thought I’d sift through a few of the most common beliefs and see what’s true or false. Want to grab a coffee and join me? Alright then, let’s go.
Common myth 1: Everyone has a book in them
Nope. Afraid not. That funny yarn from Aunty Mabel or the odd thing you heard about Bob while gossiping in the office kitchen won’t necessarily turn into an entertaining fictional story.
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Leilanie Stewart 