E-books on the near horizon: E is also for emotions

I was astonished to see that more than a month had passed since I wrote my last blog and I wondered what on earth could I have been doing. Wasting time?  Surely not! Frittering away my energy and emotions?  I have come to  realize that my energies may not be taken up by work alone – they can also  be taken up by just the thought of work; or by any other emotional circumstance, even if it seems to be a good circumstance. Therefore, I am relieved to report that, upon investigation, I find that my energy/emotions have actually been taken up by worthy endeavours.

So, emotion # 1): My friend Hazel Campbell has managed to reformat Cordelia Finds Fame and Fortune, including the illustrations  for uploading to Amazon. That in itself is enough to take up a lot of  my emotional energy, as I realise that my plan to put most of my books (where the copyright has reverted to me) onto Amazon, might be about to materialize. One hopes that the presence of a number of my books on Amazon might generate more interest. Yeah, right! Anyway, publication date might be next week!

Emotion # 2):  I reviewed and sent off another potential e-book, Ebony and the Auntie of the Starlight to the artist. Publication date? Hopefully some time in July/Aug as it has an Independence theme.

Emotion # 3): I located and reviewed another story, Daughter of the Time to Come (once slated for publication, but the publisher stopped doing children’s books and eventually went out of business) located the artist who did the sample artwork and he is still willing to work on it. That publication date is slated for later in the year, probably about Heroes’ Day. So far, that’s all a lot of emotion, as you can see. A lot for me! I like my emotion in small does.

Emotion # 4): Things I Like was interrupted  - still have one illustration left to paint, then try for sponsorship, because I really think that it will be good for  early childhood. Emotions floating around in the air with nowhere to settle.

Of course, we have to have a new story for Christmas - blog, or e-book. Can’t keep redoing the old one, Once Upon a Starlight. (Is it the same character as the one interacting with Ebony above? Yes, it is.) This, however, happily  is not yet a fully formed emotion.

Emotion # 5): hot on the heals of all these potential e-books, I’m seriously thinking also of transforming The Ring and the Roaring Water ( the second of the Time Travel books) into an e-book. We’ve found  what could be the last pre-press copy, so have to check it.

Then I was asked to do a writing workshop for children at Franklin Town Primary. The children responded very well indeed; lots of interaction.  The best story was written by a boy! Wonderful! Well plotted, exciting! (We ignore the potential of our boys to our peril! But we know that, don’t we).  Anyway, this has fired me up about not only doing readings, (which is what we writers usually do), but also writing workshops in schools.  Emotion # 6.

Emotion # 7): I got a wonderful review from a writer whose work I respect, on my book of adult short stories on Amazon, The Land in the Purple Evening, as follows.

Review from Amazon

A delicious collection of short, short stories that makes reading feel like an unhurried afternoon sitting and talking with a good friend over tea. The gently told stories are all rooted in interpersonal family and community relationships looking at respect, love, duty and emerging awareness of life through the eyes of a child or an ingenue. I am not an education professional but would suggest that the material is suitable for age 13 and up.

Lovely, eh! Love the ‘delicious’. It makes me feel like I could just dance all around the room, in the air.  So delighted by it, I’ve decided to  seriously compile another collection and have started reviewing my other adult stories. That’s sort of lovely as well as daunting. I found one which was published by Bim & Kyk-Over-Al years ago (which I hadn’t even realized, and just the other day, so to speak, out of the blue, someone asked if I was the same Diane Browne who . . .she photocopied it for me) and  I just had it retyped – before it faded completely. So the thought of compiling that collection extends the emotion.

It really would seem that I’ve been very busy indeed, and even if it hasn’t all been actual pen to paper, brain engaging computer work, it has been hectic emotionally, especially when we all know that the e-book plan might not work at all. ( Amazon is not the real solution!)

 Come to think of it, it’s a wonder I have enough emotion or energy left to write this blog.

And then this last weekend was Calabash. But that’s another blog, another emotion.