Hi Readers,
I hope you are all well and you are having a fabulously creative year!
I have been busy reading books this year (more than writing) and I am happily on track to meet my reading goal of 12 books. I have read 8 so far this year. This is not too bad with a nine month old baby pulling at the pages as I feed her!
I have been reading quite a few Quick Reads books of late which I have loaned from the local libary. I love to support my local library as I feel it has such a vital part to play in the health of the community. When I walk in I often see babies and children in the children section, either reading or attending a monthly class. I often see elderly people relaxing with a newspaper and students looking up books in the reference section. A library is a wondrous places for people of every age. It crosses so many paths and lives.
Today, I finished reading a Quick Reads horror story called ‘The Little One’, by Lynda La Plante, which I found to be excellent. The story was one where the paranormal meets human; a subject I am always fascinated with. Keeping in mood, but slightly different in theme, my next read is going to be another Quick Reads book called ‘Wrong Place, Wrong Time’, by Simon Kernick. It is basically about friends who go out hiking and encounter a half-naked girl who cannot speak English. She is running away from someone and it is up to the friends to decide whether they should help her, even if it means putting themselves in danger. Ths synopsis totally grips me and I am so excited to read it.
I have been posting reviews on Goodreads for some time now. Some reviews are more detailed than others and some contain my views from a writer’s perspective. I guess that there are certain books that don’t leave much to say and so ask for a very simplified review – not to say these are bad books – but they are books that perhaps didn’t spark anything substantial to note down. Then there are those reviews in which I ramble and cannot get my words out quickly enough as I am filled with inspiration.
So what else have I been up to? Well in the beginning of July, I attended the amazing Buckingham Literary Festival, over three days. There I attended two talks by well known authors, Peter James, Louise Doughty and Clare Mackintosh – where I received signed copies of there books. These talks were super inspiring with the authors talking about their inspirations, how they approach writing and their thoughts on the Police unit. I have lots of notes on the talks, which I intend to write up and post on here very soon. I also attended two talks on writing; one on fiction writing and one on publishing. Again, I have lots of notes from these which I shall share with you in the near future. At the festival, I had been given a leaflet about a fiction writing class, which well known author Judith Allnatt will be heading. I signed up immediately and I cannot wait to attend in October. As writers, I think it is wonderful to find a network of people in the same world as you. There are so many wonderful literary festivals in the United Kingdom, and I am noting down Hay festival as a must visit for next year.
Readers, on a different note, have you heard of Trello? Last week, I discovered the Trello app by chance. It is a project management app, but one which I believe will also be perfect for my novel planning and research. With Trello you can collect all of your ideas, notes, images and keep them together in a given order via a card system. I am now using it for my first novel and I really think this is going to help me make quicker progress with that all essential ‘dipping in’ and ‘dipping out’ system that seems to work between baby feeds and nappy changes. I really recommend you try this app, if like me you tend to have bits of your novel everywhere and in no particular order.
Lastly, if you would like to keep up to date with my literary happenings, then please do follow me on Twitter and Facebook and Goodreads, which I use for all those little posts that I don’t necessarily want to use on my blog. I do like to keep my blog exclusive to my writing, occasional updates and book reviews. You can find me here;
Facebook Author Page link;
https://www.facebook.com/alittlebirdtweets/
Twitter Author Account link;
alittlebirdtweets (@alittlebirdtwee) on Twitter
Goodreads as Donna Henderson
I hope to see you there!
Best Wishes,
Donna x
a little bird tweets 
The library is awesome, it’s like a lost culture time has forgot. I use to go a lot until I started getting movies and could only get 10 a month so I go at least once but usually twice a month. I also had Trello which is a great app but I found myself using Google Keep because it’s for the simple minded people like myself that gets lost with too many useful features that Trello has.
I love the way you say it is like a lost culture that time has forgot. I think that describes a library perfectly. I go once a month too to take out any books, but I can renew etc online now which is so useful – for those times when a book is taking a lot longer to read than first anticipated. You have sparked my interest with Google Keep, and I am off in a second to have a look. I find it very intriguing discovering what other systems writers use to create. There is a world of different systems and methods out there and it is great to find one that really works.
Microsofts OneNote is another one with a lot of features. I just use what worked for me.
I will have a look at that. Thank you.
Thank you for the visit! I’ll follow you on twitter.
9 months already? My they grow so fast.
Take care… jc
Time has flown by JC. Baby has grown and developed lots now. I hope all is good with you. See you over on Twitter 🙂 Best Wishes
Hi there,
I really like reading your post after a long time. Happy reading adventure!!
Thank you so much, Madeeha. I am delighted you enjoyed my post. I hope all is well with you. Happy reading 🙂
My pleasure..
I remember discovering your blog through fiction writing browsing. It feels good to read your post!
Thank you so much 😊
Good to see you back and thanks for visiting my blog too! Nine months have flown by. I’ve seen Judith Allnatt talking at a writing conference here in the Midlands and she was great so I’m sure you’ll get a lot from that day. I must look at visiting some lit festivals too.
Thanks Rebecca. Yes it has flown by…baby has changed so much from those newborn photos. I am very much looking forward to the one day course…I just love meeting other writers…they always give a boost of motivation. Let me know if you go to any festivals too…I might see you there 😄