Thursday, 31 October 2013

Society of Authors meeting

These are usually great fun, and Monday night's was no exception.  Unusually we met in the Astor Theatre, Deal - which has, I discovered a lovely bar - so if I ever want to go somewhere for a quiet drink on a Monday night, that's the place.

I went in a really miserable mood - feeling down about finances, there are two threads to this: one is the struggle to make up the deficit each month, the other is to keep track of our 8 creditors - and stop them all taking us to court.  But that is neither here nor there.    I was miserable on the way there because the petrol was low and the first garage was closed and I feared this might be a result of the storm.  However, the Pegwell Bay garage was open.   And the car park at the theatre was free so I had a whole fiver!

I was immediately cheered by a burst of applause when I arrived and lots of compliments about my hair. Got a drink and a plate of food and gradually dissolved.  It was a bit difficult to talk because the room was echoey with hard surfaces - eventually Mary Kenny, who had organised the evening, got us to go around talking about branding ourselves as writers.  It was an interesting discussion and I made the odd contribution... but I fear I am becoming renowned for my "talk" and not really saying much.  Everyone was so nice and positive and supportive, and I was instructed to get myself published.  Three options were suggested, novel-writing competitions, on-line serialisations (e.g. Wattpad) and the general self-publishing path - everyone promised to write me reviews on Amazon if I did... well, I suppose if it means little dribbles of money are coming in it might be better than nothing.

Anyway, it's always interesting to hear about how other people are faring - and the general tone was fairly positive, although at the same time, it's obvious that most of us aren't making absolutely buckets of money from it.


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