Ho! Ho! Ho! Ho chaps! Ho chapesses! Ho chapettes! Tis the season to get busy. Busy doing what? Busy putting reviews of 'A Christmas Calling' on the Amazon website. Just find the book and write a review. You don't need to have bought it from them. It doesn't even need to be a good review. All reviews help in getting them to increase the promotion of the book. Which means a lot to a new author.
So come along friends! Review, review, review!
Thank you if yo do!
Wednesday 29 November 2017
Sunday 26 November 2017
Clear and clean
I just deleted about 5,000 emails. Might include some of yours! But it had to be done. I feel refreshed. Clean. Clean like this winter day (I'm playing with descriptions of the scenes I see as I'm out cycling, mostly):
"It was as if the air itself shone. Like every impurity had been frozen out of it and laid on the ground in the sparkling frost. Even distant trees, houses and fields stood out in stark, cold clarity. The sky above, stretched to the silver horizons, was a shining, blue dome of pale perfection. It was a nice, clear day. That is, an ice-clear day. The only clouds were my breath, suspended for a moment and then dismissed by air so invisible it could not bear them. It could not bear them."
Clear. Clean. Like being forgiven, really.
"It was as if the air itself shone. Like every impurity had been frozen out of it and laid on the ground in the sparkling frost. Even distant trees, houses and fields stood out in stark, cold clarity. The sky above, stretched to the silver horizons, was a shining, blue dome of pale perfection. It was a nice, clear day. That is, an ice-clear day. The only clouds were my breath, suspended for a moment and then dismissed by air so invisible it could not bear them. It could not bear them."
Clear. Clean. Like being forgiven, really.
Wednesday 15 November 2017
FAT GOOSE?
"Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat, let's keep preparing till we fall down flat!"
That's a bit how it feels at the moment. People sometimes say to me in the last few days before Christmas, that as a vicar, 'I suppose this is your busy time'. Actually, no. The last few days, with all the main seasonal services done, is often a bit quiet, giving opportunity for some nice visits.
No, the time when you start to feel you're coming unglued is NOW! Early November through to mid-December. It can easily become somewhat overwhelming with all the usual weekly stuff still needing doing and all the Christmas stuff pressing in, and over the weekend I realised I'd reached that point where you either stop voluntarily or you'll just drop down anyway. It isn't a pleasant feeling. Kind of like coming unglued. Hence my old saying, "I'd rather unwind than unravel."
So I took two days off. Yes, two whole days, like a normal person. Like a weekend, except it was Monday and Tuesday. On Monday I went out on my bike and watched some TV. Yesterday I went to London on the train and spent most of my time in Harrods. I love Harrods. I bought things.
In the evening I went to see a film with Tom, my elder son, then we watched a program at home about how the nation celebrates Christmas. It was really nice.
And today? I feel restored - enough for now.
Still trying to sell the first book, 'A Christmas Calling', which is doing quite well. Get one if you haven't already! It'll set you up for a festive Christmas. But also adding to the pressure is having to gear up for the second one, to be released in the New Year in preparation for all the hopes of the new-life season, called 'A Spring Awakening'. It shows us how David and Angela, the two characters from the first book, and their friends, go forward together.
In some ways, it's enormously hopeful.
But only because, in other ways, it's terrifying.
That's a bit how it feels at the moment. People sometimes say to me in the last few days before Christmas, that as a vicar, 'I suppose this is your busy time'. Actually, no. The last few days, with all the main seasonal services done, is often a bit quiet, giving opportunity for some nice visits.
No, the time when you start to feel you're coming unglued is NOW! Early November through to mid-December. It can easily become somewhat overwhelming with all the usual weekly stuff still needing doing and all the Christmas stuff pressing in, and over the weekend I realised I'd reached that point where you either stop voluntarily or you'll just drop down anyway. It isn't a pleasant feeling. Kind of like coming unglued. Hence my old saying, "I'd rather unwind than unravel."
So I took two days off. Yes, two whole days, like a normal person. Like a weekend, except it was Monday and Tuesday. On Monday I went out on my bike and watched some TV. Yesterday I went to London on the train and spent most of my time in Harrods. I love Harrods. I bought things.
In the evening I went to see a film with Tom, my elder son, then we watched a program at home about how the nation celebrates Christmas. It was really nice.
And today? I feel restored - enough for now.
Still trying to sell the first book, 'A Christmas Calling', which is doing quite well. Get one if you haven't already! It'll set you up for a festive Christmas. But also adding to the pressure is having to gear up for the second one, to be released in the New Year in preparation for all the hopes of the new-life season, called 'A Spring Awakening'. It shows us how David and Angela, the two characters from the first book, and their friends, go forward together.
In some ways, it's enormously hopeful.
But only because, in other ways, it's terrifying.
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