Now I’m not one of those authors surrounded by admirers and praise singers. Long gone are the days when people stopped me and asked for my autograph (and yes that did happen when I was young and almost famous). Today my biggest critic is DH (Dear Husband), although thankfully they wouldn’t let him post his 3 star review – because he knows me.

A little about DH. He’s a man’s man, and wouldn’t know his feminine side if he fell over it. He’s tough, he’s a John Wayne clone, and can’t even bear to watch emotional and sentimental movies where the women cry and the little kids get beaten up. He’s the down to earth practical kind. I’m sure you get the picture.

He takes little notice of my writing, (except for the technical side of uploading the final mss) but I think he has been quite surprised that I’ve sold a few books. He reads them of course when I’ve finished them, and passes comments – lots of (helpful) comments.

To my surprise, he offered to read Amie 2 for a second time and then, as they say, the trouble started.

“You have her hiding here for a couple of days?”

“Yes, because…”

“Here she is, stretching and limbering up after sitting all that time?”

“Yes, because…”

“When does she take a pee?”

“A what!”

“A pee. She’s eating and drinking we know all about that, and you don’t tell us when she pees.”

“I don’t think that’s necessary.”

“Why not? It’s supposed to be a real situation …”

“Well Sandra Bullock never peed once in all that time she was stuck in space, and you didn’t question that when we came out of the movies.”

“I still think she should continue with her natural functions.”

“But she is out in the middle of the African bush… it’s not exactly a trip to the rest room.”

“People will notice the gap in your story and it won’t ring as true.”

“It’s not going in and that’s final.” (through gritted teeth). Don’t pursue this, I think, and ask me to describe where all those energy bars and biltong went.

“And there are still no sex scenes.”

“I’m no good at sex scenes.”

“But they are a young, healthy, married couple aren’t they?”

“Yes but….”  (to be continued)

I am running a huge promotion early next week and offering Walking over Eggshells for FREE for the first time ever. Yes, you read that right, FREE!!  I am swallowing my pride to see if a few downloads spread the word about me. It’s an enormous learning curve to price drop on several sales sites and co-odinate everything. So I would like to say a big thank you to Sarah Jane Butfield who was amazing today helping me to get my head round planning my first big free promo. So, if you’ve been too impoverished, or you have better things to buy with your money, now is your chance to get a copy of Walking over Eggshells for free.

A little bit about Sarah Jane as she is also a writer and a whole lot more.

Sarah Jane Butfield – Nurse, mum, step-mum, wife and indie author advocate is also now an international best selling author of three travel memoirs set in Australia and France. In addition she has launched a writer self-help series. Books 1 & 2 are out now. Sarah Jane also has a medical memoir due to release this summer called, ‘Ooh Matron!’ For more about her work visit her author website http://sarahjanebutfield.wix.com/sarahjanebutfield

This busy lady finds time to help and support aspiring, new and experienced authors with many aspects of book marketing and promotion through her website and social media group called Rukia Publishing. The majority of the work they do is free and any paid services help to fund expansion of the website to be able to help more authors.

The Rukia Publishing social media team is made up of readers and authors and in addition to sharing, tweeting and reblogging they help me to produce a free daily newsletter that allows authors to advertise their free and price reduced promotions, author events, new releases, pre-orders, etc. The service is free for readers and authors so tell everyone about us please. We have a reader advocate, Shontae Brewster who is spreading the word to reader groups and book clubs.  This means that they can receive it as a resource to access author news, free and discounted books.

Here is the link:  RPBP News http://eepurl.com/bcAAGH

Time for for our history lesson and I just introduced you to James Ist, 73rd, and 105th.  If you remember, they dragged him down from Scotland and popped him on the throne, but oh dear, they had no idea what they were letting themselves in for. He slobbered and dribbled a lot and he really annoyed the more fastidious courtiers. After every meal he was festooned with food and he was not what they had expected, especially after the lady-like Elizabeth. They cleaned him up for this photograph.

To make matters worse, he had Sir Walter Raleigh executed for being left over from the last reign, and tried to sort out the difficult question of Ireland and Scotland.

But it gets worse. He encountered great problems as the Picts and Scots and Celts were by now all muddled up and no one was quite sure where they belonged any more.  James himself was a bit muddled up as he apparently liked boys as much as he liked girls. He was referred to as  “the wisest fool in Christendom”.

He insisted they re-write the Bible in English and put his name at the front and thus he became an international, bestselling author once he uploaded it to Amazon. Everyone gave him 5 stars in their reviews because he was the king and he threatened to invade America if Amazon even thought about taking any of his reviews down because they were written by friends.

But was he able to produce an heir?  Next time…..