design – The Girl Who Whispered

Let’s get back on track!

Hi all!

Dusting off the cobwebs on my blog (and website, and Twitter, and… everything, really!)

So, as I explained, I am currently completing a Master’s Degree and… wow, is it difficult! It’s been taking up so much of my time that I haven’t had chance to do anything in terms of writing, editing, marketing, etc. It’s crazy!

But today I had my viva, and although I haven’t yet finished, hopefully I have freed up some time to get back to blogging, writing, editing, and updating everything!

It’s good to see that I’m still getting royalties, even though I have done next to no marketing what so ever. And come onto my WordPress in what feels like a few months to see I’m getting traffic through – even if it’s a little, it feels like it’s actually improved, even though I haven’t been blogging frequently.

As I’m nearly the end of my Masters I’ve been really thinking about getting my own business up and running, selling my own work (see below for links to my two published books), doing a bit more freelance work.

I have also wanted to do a vlog or something similar… maybe branch out a little from writing, getting back into photoraphy, both landscape and architecture as well as modelling photography (I have plans of making a room into a photography room!)

And… I have plans for a new instagram account.. but this one will be a bit of fun.

Of course, get back into writing and editing my two last books; Ender’s Love and Rose Garden Sanatorium!

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Using constructive critism… and not throwing in the towel!

I’m feeling 100% well lately, but I’m still going to attempt this blog post!

A couple of days ago I decided to reach out on a Facebook Group called ‘We love reading books.’ What better way to get advice on your writing but from book fans!?

So I wrote a post asking if there would be anyone who’d be interested in reading a few chapters of my ‘Rose Garden Sanatorium’ so that I could get feedback. I was actually surprised that a LOT of people commented back jumping at the opportunity! So after sending out a load of personal emails with a PDF of the first few chapters, I’m starting to get a little bit of feedback.

Of course, my skin isn’t that thick to deal with negative feedback, not because I was shocked to hear my work isn’t perfect! But because I have low self-esteem in general.

But after getting the feedback, I realised that- okay, so THAT person didn’t like it – Well, not the story, but the writing style, he did say he’d like to read more! I have had some ideas on how to improve it!

I also got a lovely reply back from another reader and she was very nice. She was a lot more supportive in the sense that she told me she loved the story and did give me some feedback on how to improve it a little too.

And what is interesting, is that, I actually feel all the more happier now that I have used that feedback and done a few alterations. It’s that little bit better than it was before I sent it out. 🙂

I did also, get some lovely comments on Twitter from some other authors, so if you are reading this and you were one who encouraged me, thank you for your kind words!

And no, I’m not giving up. I’ve spent ten months so far writing this damn book (well a series), I for sure am NOT giving up on it! And I do want it to be the best it can be. I’m proud of the story line and I love the characters (well, most of them).

Moral of the story, take negative feedback with a pinch of salt. Not everyone is going to love it, but use the critism to your advantage, use it to make it better!

Plus, even famous authors have negative feedback! Just look at Dan Brown! Now his works are getting put into films! (I love his books!)

This new thing called Steemit – earn to write!

So, I came across this website a while ago, called ‘Steemit’. A friend of mine introduced me to it. And it’s not bad! You actually earn money for blogging.

You can blog about anything, from photography and art, some people blog about cryptocurrencies and a lot of people, like myself, use it to blog about writing. I’ve posted a short story, wrote about how I create book cover designs, and posted up samples of my book(s).

I don’t know much about cryptocurrencies, but this is real money that can be converted into bitcoin and then you can subsequently sell into real money such as USD or GBP.

Only, I’ve found it extremely difficult, as a noobie in cryptocurrencies, to convert this steem and steem dollars into GBP (I’m British, don’t judge me!).

Now, it’s not as easy as going into your Steemit account and just selecting an option to cash out into your account, you have to use a website called blocktrades to transfer the steem or steem dollars into bitcoin and it transfers it into another account such as CoinBase. Bitcoin is therefore now in your CoinBase account!

Only, I’ve had massive issues getting my PayPal connected up to my CoinBase account, so seem to have hit a block in this cryptocurrency road!

I have the option to add a bank account, but to verify this bank account, I have to transfer a small fee to a bank in Estonia (which I will get charged for!)

Someone has mentioned that you can use another account called Wirex, not me, because I’m in the UK!

Or another one is Payaz, and I have no idea where my wallet address is to put into Blocktrades! If there is one at all!

So, watch this space, I’ve posted another blog post on my Steemit account asking for help!

If you know the answer to this, please do let me know! I’m tearing my hair out!

If you’re on steemit or your interested in steemit, do check out my blog here.