Hi, and welcome to my blog. I hope you have a good time while you are here and maybe learn a little along the way.
I expect other people have different reasons for writing a blog, but mine is very simple: to express my thoughts and feelings about what is proving to be a most enjoyable, exhilarating, educational and utterly frustrating experience. Indie publishing! Marketing! Promotion! I’m sure many feel the same way. I would love to hear from you.
Here on my blog, I can run on, ramble, wax lyrical, vent or write with journalistic economy as I choose. I may even make a spilling error and neglect to correct it, or split my infinitives, mix metaphors or throw participles around like confetti at a wedding. I can’t write whatever I want on Twitter or Facebook. I belong to some interesting groups, but the posts tend to be brief; everyone seems to prefer it that way. There is another reason for having a blog. Everyone seems to expect it from authors. As if we don’t do enough writing! I think by the time I’m in my eighties, my fingers will be worn to nubbins. That will be the time I learn to type with my toes.
A common question to authors is, Why did you start writing? I’m glad you asked. It all began long, long ago when I was seventeen, taking driving lessons and desperate to get my own car. What I needed was a quick way of making a lot of money. I did consider robbing a bank but quickly rejected that idea. I had always been good at writing stories in school so the notion of writing a book popped into my head and I was smitten. My first attempts – need I say – were pretty pathetic, but then somewhere along the way, I found my niche: historical fiction.
Like many others, I juggled writing with raising a family and jobs, and it wasn’t until I was in my mid-thirties that I wrote something I was pleased with a looked for an agent. I had emigrated from England to Canada by that time and found an agent in Toronto, just down the highway. (I believe there were only two in Toronto at that time.) Eventually, she found me a publisher, also in Toronto. It was wonderful, exciting, and over far too quickly. I signed a three-book contract, but they only published two books before selling out to another publisher. At the same time, my agent abandoned me and went into furniture sales.
I admit I was devastated – my burgeoning career in the toilet – and I gave up trying to get published, but I never gave up writing. Fast forward to 2015 when I was introduced to self-publishing and Amazon.
While all this was going on, I became a mother to three and grandmother to six. No pets. Although I would love to have one, his lordship won’t agree because it would interfere with our lifestyle. That is a clever segue into informing you that our lifestyle consists of spending half the year in Ontario and the other half in Mexico where we own a house in a gated community two blocks from the beach and about half an hour from the airport and the lovely city of Puerto Vallarta. (No prizes for guessing which months are spent where.)
I’m now working on my 11th ebook. It’s set during the Russian Revolution and concerns the disappearance of Grand Duke Michael, the brother of Tsar Nicholas II.
Thank you for visiting. Come again anytime.
Check out my author page at Smashwords:
https://www.smashwords.com/books/search?query=Susan+Appleyard
Or Amazon:
https://www.amazon.ca/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=susan+appleyard
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DIGGING INTO THE PAST 