Books I'm Reading & The Writing Life In General

This post is going to be an update of what I've been up to lately, so I'll do a list so it's all put in some order:

1. Book Issues

I bought two books by Alice Fowler- The Edible Garden - How To Grow Your Garden and Eat It and The Thrifty Gardener. 

I bought both in ebook/Kindle format, because the shipping costs from Amazon were considerably more than the cost of the two books put together.

I'd rather use the shipping money to buy more books, thanks. Go ebooks!

I'm also reading J.L Campbell's action/adventure/romance, Contraband.

Joy is a fellow writer/blogger and I met her while doing a blog challenge and to be honest, if I hadn't "met" her, I would never have thought of reading her books because they were outside my comfort zone.

I have mentioned before that I'm predictable when it comes to my reading selections, right? I even "stalk" an author online for months, read as many freebies I can get, before I decide  to spend my hard-earned cash.

Money is tight around here, and I prefer to use what cents I have to support whose  works I like, whether they are famous or not.

As a writer, I know each sale makes a difference. But there are also some badly written/edited books out there, so I have to be very careful that I get good value for my money or soon, I'll be so disillusioned I'll end up what's easier/tried/tested. But I digress.. I'm still reading Contraband, and so far, it's going very well. The review will follow soon.


2. The writing life

The writing is going well, though it seems to be happening mostly at night. I'm taking notes, creating characters for my next story. I wish I had more time.

The blogging is also going well enough, though I was a bit disturbed by this article, which basically explains why companies using Facebook pages have found it increasingly difficult to reach their audience through unpaid, organic promotion ( Thank you Joy for the heads-up).

I realise that this is a Facebook issue, not something that affects all social media, but for now, my focus is going to be on growing on my subscriber base on my blog, instead of building social media followers. I want to build a subscriber base no one else can control access/can change rules of engagement on me.

3. Health 
Mma  is doing well enough. She's still taking extra meds,which are knocking her out. So most days I have Zombie Mma hanging around, not my real mother. I know this phase of the meds will end very soon, and I'm looking forward to her driving me nuts with questions and unwanted advice:-)

As for me, I'm feeling a bit tired, more sluggish. I need more time in the garden, and less stimulants.
4. My gardens 

They're doing very well and we've been harvesting a lot of produce in the past month. I do need to spend a lot more time there, not just to grow things but to also rejuvinate myself. We're also doing major planting for the Autumn garden.

Autumn is my favourite time to garden - not too hot or cold to be outside playing, so I'm looking forward to the change in season.

5. Apps

I've been playing with a number of productivity and publishing apps (thank you Christelle for showing them to me).

They don't necessarily make my life easier or better and they certainly won't make me a cup of tea, which I need more than I need them right now. But a girl can never have too many new apps to play with:-)

6. Time management/scheduling

I need to simplify. Do less.. do what's important and necessary right now. Problem is, I have the Shiny New Thing Syndrome. Which is why I still play with apps, even when I've found ones that work well enough for me.