gotta get blogging again

Had a great Writers' Dozen (WD) meeting yesterday, always inspiring. Having read the 'The Market for Memoirs' from Writers Digest, July/August 2010 (thank you Pam) it would seem that having a following on a blog is useful. Therefore I will try and make regular entries in this one. (The Travel one is going to lie dormant for a while.) One of the authors in this article also said that after 50 rejections from agents, publishers etc you should consider self publishing. I'm thinking of going straight to the latter option and saving myself the time and the angst.

I learned quite a bit about marketing yesterday, and realise I'm not very good at it. Luckily we have an expert marketing person in our group who can put me right, thank you Monique. I have drawn a smiley face on the paper stuck on my shelf in the study telling me to spend as little as possible on the Visa card this month. (I'm on an austerity kick) The smiley face is to encourage me to be upbeat when re-writing the marketing potential for my memoir.

As a form of research, and, also for enjoyment it must be said, I have ordered several memoirs from Abebooks. The first arrived this week, 'Bad Blood' by Lorna Sage. It won the Whitbread Prize for autobiograpy in 2000 or 2001 so it must be good, and it is so far. I'm expecting Doris Lessing's first 2 volumes of autobiograpy and 'Empty Cradles' by Margaret Humphreys, the social worker who blew the lid on the lies and cruelties endured by unaccompanied children sent to Australia from the UK in the 1950s and '60s. The film 'Oranges and Sunshine' is based on this book. By the way, if anyone is worried about my Visa bill, these books are very very cheap! Besides if I get published they can be a tax deduction.

I'm dying to get stuck into writing but I have a film to finish first, namely a DVD and 20+ copies,  about our recent NZ trip. Then there's Annika's birthday party...aquarobics...reading on the radio...