Into Our Lives a Little Rain Must Fall

Turbulence is a word associated with oceans, but when it comes into your life, it can be like waves crashing on to the rocks. My week has been one of good moments and bad moments; the worst of which was being diagnosed with Lymphoma; a form of blood cancer. So now the battle begins. The next step will be a blood test and then a decision about treatment. Meanwhile me and Pat strive hard to be strong, knowing that we have our faith in God to hold us and faith in the specialists to do their job. Into this turbulent water there still flows a pool of good news and expectation. It has all been a changing week really. Last Monday my friend; Dave and I were practicing a couple of music number for our Saturday night ‘Sing-along-supper’ at church only for our performance to be cancelled because I had forgot to enter our names in for the ‘gig’. It didn’t really matter though because there was a lot going on anyway. Tuesday I had an eye appointment with a specialist. Now I have to take that a step further, but it isn’t such a big worry. Wednesday was the day I was diagnosed with cancer. That put a damper on our day, believe me. I managed to get a game of snooker in on Thursday and, believe it or not, we had some people come to look at the house. The estate agent knew we had sold, but because the initial deposit had not arrived the house was still, technically, on the market. Friday was a meeting of our church house group, and that afternoon the deposit turned up at the estate agent’s office. So now we can say we have sold. Saturday we had a fun evening at church; the aforementioned ‘Sing along Supper’, which was hilarious. But there were also three women from UK with Jamaican ancestry singing gospel songs. They performed the next day, Sunday, at our church in what was called a ‘Gospel Explosion’. Brilliant singers and terrific songs. After that we had lunch with two of our friends who returned to England today for good. So by and large it has been a compact, changing week. And throughout all this I have been editing my manuscript, trying to get the word count down; not an easy task but absolutely necessary. But the big news (the big, good news) was that my novel NORTH SLOPE went on a promotion with BookBub on Friday. It rocketed into the top 100 and reached #1 in Action & Adventure, #1 in Espionage and #3 in thrillers. It had sold almost 1000 copies by Saturday morning and tipped over the 1000 mark by Sunday. It is still in promotion at 99 cents: a bargain. Why not have a look? What’s that saying? Into our lives a little rain must fall. At the moment there’s a storm raging in mine. Wish me luck!

Tears and Smiles

It’s been a crazy week for me and Pat one way or another. A lot of people have asked what the bad news from the hospital was all about. The specialist I am under wanted more tests before he could decide what was causing my problem, so rather than pre-empt him and attempt to diagnose my condition; I will wait until he tells me later this week. It isn’t the best of scenarios, but my faith in God has given me an enormous strength and belief, and I have no worries or fears plaguing the life out of me. Unfortunately, Pat is suffering and there isn’t a thing I can do about it.

On Thursday we began talking about the house sale and the fact that we could be out of here by the end of November. This threw up another problem in that if I needed extensive treatment we would have to move into rented accommodation, with the inconvenience of having to put most of our stuff into storage and make a decision about our fifteen year old cat. So imagine our surprise when that morning the estate agent told us that the buyers would be confirming the purchase of our property with a deposit, but were quite happy to leave the house with us until April at the latest. (They were unaware of my problem by the way). I see God’s hand in this. It means we can get through the unpleasant detail of hospital treatment and not have to worry about the whys and wherefores of our house move until it suits us.

I haven’t heard from my publisher yet. I’m not unduly worried, but it is a significant change in response time to when John Hale was in the chair. He would have a decision within a week of receiving your manuscript. I asked him about this once. He just shrugged as if reading through a manuscript was not a lot different to reading a synopsis. I’ve already mentioned before that I will self-publish on Amazon if my MS is rejected. What a change from the old days, eh?

Now that we know we have sold, we can begin clearing out the stuff we want and what we don’t want. I think we all know how we accumulate things, but now we must decide what goes and what doesn’t. I am toying with the idea of selling my computer and buying a laptop. My local shop is currently recommending a Lenovo G580 (Windows 8). Any comments? Wish me luck!

Selling or not?

Just because our books are published by Robert Hale doesn't mean we shouldn't be marketing them as authors. The PLR is nice-to-have, certainly, but by marketing our books we might build up a readership that grows from book to book.

See my article at:

http://nik-writealot.blogspot.com.es/2013/10/why-isnt-it-selling.html