Any of you who have read my last post will recognise that while not suffering as much as others, I've been a bit stressed through lockdown.
So it was a surprise when, on the heels of some bad news (an assignment I was expecting just… vanished) I suddenly felt like I'd emerged from a deep, black hat, like a rabbit.
I gave myself the afternoon off and connected up my new website – this one, the one you're looking at with this blog. I'm fairly pleased with it, being the non-technical type, and I hope you like it. It shows off my books to better advantage, I thought.
And it was while I was putting them into the website that it suddenly struck me that I've written easily half a million words. I've released Book 1 of the English Garden Romance series, a novella prequel to that, a short story just for subscribers, a guide to the flowers in The Garden Plot, Book 2 of the English Garden Romance series (released in October), and another, stand-alone novel (to be released... sometime.)
This is seriously good going for someone who also has a job as a self-employed consultant to keep herself fed, and I've taken the opportunity to lean back and applaud what I've achieved. There are too many of us – not just writers, everyone! – who thrash on, and don't celebrate what they do.
Much of this is how we're brought up.
Girls in particular aren't encouraged to talk about their successes – somehow that translates into 'boasting' and being 'too big for your boots' as my grandmother used to say. Women of all ages, of all professions, are slapped down for talking of what they've done.
Well, what I want to say is – PHOO-EEY.
Actually, I'd like to say something a lot ruder, but I don't want to be caught by Google as that kind of site. So phoo-eey will have to do.
Life is short. Much too short to hide your light under a bushel, or a top hat. So lift your head, blink in the light and let your talent shine out.
Thanks to Kranich at Pixabay for the blog image.