this is me…

This is me! I have been hearing so much about Artificial Intelligence recently, that I thought I might perhaps pop in a short post about me, so that you know that I am a real person.

I live in England, but travel around Europe a lot in my camper van, with my husband.  The photo shows me in Spain, sitting at a table, bearing witness to my other passion besides Irene Mawer.

Miss Mawer has been with me, and also with Andy, for the last four years and I can now see some sort of light at the end of the tunnel.  Although the research will never end, I am nearing the end of the research that is within my current limits.  This means that my first draft is almost written.

Does that mean that my book is almost finished?  Unfortunately not.  Ha ha ha.  I have always known from the start that the whole thing would need to be re-written and then after that, I will need to find kind souls willing to read some or all of it, to give me feedback.  And that process will lead to a lot more work.

Happily, I have now decided on a format.  I have always known that this would not be an academic work – I leave that to those with much more background knowledge than I, yet I found myself drifting into writing a mini-dissertation.  This was not wasted effort, though, as it meant that my research has been thorough and that every point that I make can be proved should anyone query my thoughts. 

I feel much lighter of heart knowing that my book will be telling stories, rather than submitting evidence as if I was in court.

Of course, writing is the ‘easy’ bit.  The next bit is overwhelming – the self-publishing bit.  I have been learning about it for the last four years, gleaning little bits of knowledge here and there.  I learned enough to know that there was too much for one person to learn, and that if I try to learn it all there will not be any time left to write the actual book.

Thankfully, my trusty, unpaid research assistant has come to my aid; my ever-patient husband, Andy, is reading Joanna Penn’s free book Successful Self-Publishing (I can send you the link if you want to read it yourself).  He reads bits out to me and, together, we are planning our way forward.

I am full of buzz-words, and it would seem that I plan to ‘go wide’, which I think means that I will sell my books from my own website and from any other platforms I please – as opposed to being tied in to one publisher or one platform.  I am not totally sure yet as to how it all works, but I am confident it will come together.

So, there we go, my great plan is finally becoming real. 

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www.irenemawer.com

That’s all for this week.  I will be back next Tuesday with the next Irene post which will be about a play called His Excellency The Governor.