Hi anyone who has stumbled across this blog. I have a new blog on my website www.jenniclarke.com

Time to try...

Time to try another way to achieve success on many projects at the same time.

Every day I aim to...no I WILL

Edit a chapter of The Eye
Edit a chapter of Souls
Write one section of Playing with Babies
Draw something
Create a dragon eye on my computer
Ask some questions to twitter writer friends
Do a little Yoga

and work, eat, drink, sleep when I have time!

Wish me luck? No I need no luck, just the strength of a dragon.

Maybe not this one.

book cover dilemma

I seem to be going round in circles trying to make a better cover for my revamped book The Eye
 ( previously DragonZ Eye). But despite trying many different angles and backgrounds, fonts and colours it just doesn't look right. My clever husband has tried too, but it all looks wrong.

I know people will say 'go to a professional if you want a professional look' but sadly I do not have the courage - or is it conviction - to spend money in this way. It seems frivolous and selfish.

Money has been terribly scarce in my life for a while, and now that I have  little more than is needed to pay bills and buy food I find myself reluctant to spend it. Both my sons are trying to find their way in the world and it is tough for them as jobs are so scarce, I feel it is better to wait and see if they need some help before I spend it on a whimsical idea - Dragons Freedom. There will be three books so I know it will be costly.

I also know that book cover illustrators need the work too and would welcome the money - a dilemma.

I guess I will have to sleep on it.

Original cover -

Seen any dragons lately?

Hi there

I have been looking, and pretending not to look, you know just being aware of what is out of the corner of my eye. I saw some dragons in the sky on the way to Valence the other day. They kept changing their shape disguising themselves as clouds, but sometimes those wings just give them away.
 And maybe I saw a snow dragon as I walked my dog, But as they are so white it was hard to tell whether it was just a trick of the light and a swirl of wind blown flakes.
I like to think that it was a dragon. Sighs.

Anyone else seen one ?

I should be....

I should be...

1. rewriting my author blurb
2. resubmitting my manuscript to createspace and kindle after another edit
3. writing an article on maths and april for Practical preschool mag
4. starting an article linked to gun play for EYE mag
5. drawing pictures for next book in Dragon's Freedom series
6. writing more article ideas for submission to mags
7. editing Souls book 2 in the Dragon's Freedom series
8. writing the next book in my Playing with Babies series

and what am I doing?

facebook, webmail, twitter and now blog

Bad girl !

The bit about the author

The bit about the author

I always try and read the info about the author at the end of a kindle book. I'm not sure that I like the impersonal 'the author has blah blah.
Today I read about Pauline M Ross.  It was personal and fun and enjoyable and left me thinking that I know her a little.

So I will change whatever it was I wrote at the end of my story and try to be more me so that readers can understand where I am in life and the world.

What do you like to read about the author?

What NaNoWriMo taught me..so far.

Thanks NaNoWriMo

It was perhaps a coincidence but I had an idea for a character and the desire to write her story just before November last year .
I saw that NaNo was starting and I set out on the adventure for the first time.

I wrote- and wrote.
No plot and no ending, I listened to my character and wrote.

No stopping to correct grammar, punctuation, spelling, just words as they poured from my soul.
I didn't even bother with chapters and I wrote over 50,000 words in the month and continued through December until the first draft was complete.
I did not always write in order, just wrote a scene as it came to me and then slotted it in. Left red writing when a scene became slow or sticky and then revisited it another day after leaving it in the background of my mind to grow.

The story now rests, brewing and maturing.
I am looking forward to reading The Finder and beginning the editing process.

I had read many times that the first draft should just be written, but I didn't think I could do it, leave a page covered in blue and red squiggles? Ahhh panic....

But I can and I did and I think it is a great way to get a flowing story.

And it was great FUN :)

I'll let you know more when I begin the edit.