Holiday over, I have time to write my blog again. I’ve not been wholly silent, cyberspace, as I pumped out ten history blogs for schools during June, did a couple of radio slots and a library podcast.
Really I should devote the time to my next novel, NRT, which has touched 30,000 words of the first draft. There are other demands on my time however. My Monaghanfoss Facebook page has been rather neglected, although it will be fed by this very blog. I’ve launched into the world of LinkedIn and am now linked-in to 2 or 300 people with whom I have vague professional connections. Then there’s Twitter, which I should be using more to pimp my latest novel Glint of Light on Broken Glass whilst skimming over all those tweets from friends, colleagues and distant contacts all pimping their books in turn.
There is lots more to pump out there into cyberspace – the reviews of Glint, a couple of media slots that are still live. You may also have seen my meme of historical characters reading the book. They will carry on popping up for a while too. I should chase my Neilson ratings and see how the Amazon sales are doing. I should prod my readers rather more strongly to get more reviews up there (whilst scrupulously avoiding sockpuppeting). I should get my head round Facebook adverts and the Boost button, which has proved more tricky than net-based advertising should be.
I also help edit or administer another four FB pages and a website, and find it polite to respond on my colleagues sites and try to read those reams of online magazines I’ve subscribed to.
And all this takes time. A successful self-pub ebook writer who I know socially says she can spend 12-14 hours some days working the media. Yikes! I need to sleep sometime. And there is a read world to inhabit and actual breathing humans to interact with too. Not that you are not human, gentle reader, but you’re not standing next to me now, in the garrett, listening to the birdsong at dusk through the skylight.
I come full circle to those 60,000 words that still need writing, that double disappearance and sticky murder that is still unsolved. A novelist needs to write novels. A time comes to let Glint fly and turn my love and sweat into NRT. There is never enough time.
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