January Roundup

January has been a reasonably productive month. Not stellar, but at least I've made some progress on a variety of fronts. THE BOSS'S SECRET is moving forward; fairly slowly, but at least it's moving. Which it wasn't at all for the last third of 2015. I'm not sure how long a story it's going to end up being. Probably between 40K to 45K words, which is a chunky sized novella.

I've also done a lot more reading in January 2016. I've read quite a few Jean Plaidy novels, but I'm taking a rest from them now. Historical novels very often feature figures from history who had very imperfect lives that do not end up happily. And while this makes for fascinating reading, it's also a bit depressing too. So sue me if I like happiness and good outcomes! That's why I like romantic stories with 'happily ever after' endings.

I've also been reading non fiction, especially the Mini Habits book, and another book from that author, How to be a Perfectionist. Both these have been enormously helpful to me in my outlook on productivity and life in general. They both promote acceptance, rather than being hard on oneself. And help one to develop a realistic and more contented way of dealing with the past and moving forward. It's all so simple, and many thanks to Stephen Guise!

I've also been thinking about redoing my web site. I decided that I'm not going to pay ridiculous annual license fees to Adobe in order to continue using Dreamweaver, so I've had to look for alternatives. Mac alternatives now that I'm a thoroughly committed Mac user. In the last week or so, I discovered Rapidweaver, and this seems to be the solution I've been looking for... and fun to use! I'm only footling about with test sites at the moment, but sometime in 2016 I hope to produce a new Portia Da Costa site. It won't be swish and glamorous like some author web sites. Not a 'cult of me' site. One of the reasons is that I don't have much in the way of author photos, and I won't be getting any new ones. I'm a fat, haggard old blob now, and due to allergies, I can't wear the makeup that might make me look marginally more presentable. That means the only pix of me going forward will be the horrible truth, in the form of goofy selfies, taken with my iPad! LOL

Things I'd like to do in coming months are finish BOSS, hopefully start something new, and maybe get some of my self published work into a print format. Maybe by bundling short things together. I've also got stuff I really, really need to get out there. It's no good to anybody just festering on various hard disks of mine.

I'm sure progress will still continue to be snail like compared to most writers, but I do feel positive and optimistic, and I hope to enjoy myself. And that's what's important to me! :)

Don't Panic!

Don't worry... it's still me, Portia Da Costa!

As it's the new year, I decided that I'd try a new look, both here and over at my web site. I've been meaning to do something for ages, because the pink and fluffy, with a Victorian background, just isn't in sync with what I'm writing any more. I do have another Victorian book coming out, but even that has a restrained black and white cover.

The new colours are to match, more or less, the livery of my Black Lace books nowadays, especially the Accidental Trilogy... though the header is my evocative blindfolded girl... Gwen, from In Too Deep.

There's still a lot to do, a lot of tidying up and improving, but I feel better for starting to make changes and starting 2013 with a sharp new style.

Bit of a round up

Here are some bits and pieces of news and links.

First of all, I've been pottering with my web site and tidying up the links for most books. Instead of a raft of buy links on the home page, I've now put all the buying links on the excerpt pages, so that each book or story has its own area with blurb, buy links and excerpt. It's still not a work of art but it looks slightly less bitty now.

In order to shift the links to the individual pages, I've had to make individual pages for a few books that didn't have them... and add new excerpts. New naughty titbits include a snapshot of my story UNVEILING HIS MUSE, which is included in Alison's Wonderland and a smidge from my June Spice Brief, A GENTLEWOMAN'S RAVISHMENT. There's also a nugget from ANOTHER CHANCE, a Spice Brief out later in the year, although that's already appeared on Portia's Prose. [click the titles to savor these cheeky chunkettes!]

I'm also excited to hear from my agent that my DOROTHY STARR novels and stories are now going to become available as ebooks. DESIGNED FOR SIN is already out as a Kindle ebook, but HOTEL OF LOVE and MIDNIGHT STARR [short story collection] are also now in the pipeline.
[ps. the Dorothy Starr web site is rudimentary and not really worth looking at, but I hope to make it nicer soon. Another procrastination technique.]


I've also had some good news about an older Black Lace title of mine. IN TOO DEEP has received a lovely review from Niki at Joyfully Reviewed. Here's a bit of what she has to say...

In Too Deep is hot , hot, and even hotter. If the letters don’t get you going, the sex when they finally meet will. There’s not a single page that doesn’t ooze passionate sex. If you are looking for a hot read, you will definitely find it here.

You can read the full review here.

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Eating: Jumbo Chocolate Swiss Roll
Watching: various
Reading: Patience/Sherlock for Dummies
Writing: victorianoid
Feeling: ok

two useful things...

I haven't yet done any writing today, but I have done two useful things. Sort of...

The first is spread the pink pretty plague across another of my web sites:

WendyWootton.co.uk

It's a bit of a lash up, and the whole site could do with redesigning and revamping, but thanks to the wonders of CSS style sheets I've been able to change my colours and my font, as well as cook up a few quick title graphics in Photoshop. It's no great wonder of design, but it looks a bit fresher... and it's still got my honest to goodness, ah bless, home made look. I hate over designed, over glossy author web sites that are all branded and all that... yek! If God had meant people to be branded he'd have made them into tins of beans!

I've also managed to begin to understand my new accounts software! Hurray! And I think I'm going to like it better than Quicken, actually so yah boo sucks to you ratfinks at Quicken who don't think the UK is important a place enough to continue creating your software for... The 'other' software program is much prettier, and I think it'll be able to do what I want...

Watched the last bit of Priscilla this morning over breakfast, then cycled to a bit of Snakes on a Plane... er... not sure I'm too keen on this, as it's one of those 'spot the person who's going to die horribly' movies... oh, and a cat just got 'snaked'... and I don't like that at all!!!!

I might like it better when Samuel L. Jackson starts swearing a bit more!

--
Telly: Snakes on a Plane
Chocolate: Hotel Chocolat
Mood: okay
Writing: must do some soon!
Reading: instructions for my accounts software
RSI: not bad

thanks for the memory...

Well, it seems to be working again... Blogger that is...

Anyway, am v. pleased with my technical prowess today, even if I haven't done any writing as yet. My one gig module of RAM arrived this morning, and I was able to install it myself, without need for calling on the services of 'a man'! Am most chuffed about this, and have been able to install Dreamweaver now, on my lappie, which is going to speed up web updating for both my clients and me...

In fact I've finally managed to update my main website...

web site housekeeping day

Okay, it's a kind of foofing about, but it's something that would have to be done anyway, so I did it. My main site www.wendywootton.co.uk has needed some minor updating for a while, so as I just can't get into writing, and I needed to avoid my proofchecking, I thought it would be more useful to update my site rather than spend the day cruising MySpace making new friends.

There are no great design changes. It was mainly adding info about Sex in Public, and posting links to a few reviews, and updating all the blog links to point here instead of the old place. The review bit was actually very cheering. In total, there seem to be quite a few of them now, and when folk say nice things about my writing, it fair bucks me up! It was all very time consuming work, though, and fiddly here and there, but thank heavens for Dreamweaver that can do global changes for things like the blog link.

One of these days, I suppose I should do a makeover of both my Wendy site and my Portia site, but I'm having enough trouble applying myself to writing as it is... In fact, I know it sounds silly when I design myself, but I'm almost tempted to get someone else to makeover my site for me. I was reading on a romance writers' message board only yesterday how important it was to have a high impact site if you really want to make an impression, and I know the poster was right... But I've always resisted anything that looks too self conscious, as I don't want to look like a product or a brand... I just want to project a very personal sense of 'me' with my site. Not me as the big time writer [like, yeah...] but me as a the real, living person... And if I should go for a new design, by someone else, one of these days... there's one thing I will not embrace, no way, not in this freaking universe... and that's referring to myself in the third person on my site!!!!! I mean, how pretentious is that? I'm not the Queen, for God's sake! When I encounter a 'third person' site, even if I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the author is the sweetest, most unassuming and most genuine person you could possibly imagine, there's this subconscious muttering gnome of curmudgeonliness inside me going 'get her, the snobby cow!'

I have heard people say that the 'third person' approach makes people think that you're much more successful ie. it implies that there's a whole team of people looking after business for you... But I think the shrewd site visitor can always tell what stage the author's career is at from the amount of books listed, their type or genre, and their publishers - and from that deduce that there is no mighty machine behind her or him. LOL!

Yikes, I don't know what brought that little tirade on! Just felt like a bit of a whinge about one of the many minor niggles that get on my wick from time to time...