I want to begin this post by saying a huge thank you to anyone and everyone that has ever read my posts, liked them and shown any interest, however little. Just a small sign that people are noticing the blog means everything. When you invest your time into a creative endeavour, even if you don’t work on it all the time, it can consume you. The time you spend thinking about it, planning, writing, editing and uploading photos to a post can take hours and if that time can in turn give someone a few minutes of entertainment or some inspiration then, job done in my eyes.
I am wanting to use this post, as the title suggests, to announce some news and updates regarding the blog, my writing and travel.
Looking Back
I launched this website in July 2016. I was so keen on the idea of having a successful blog that I decided to not just have a free WordPress Blog, but to go all out and become self-hosted, meaning that if my blog ever became big then I wouldn’t have to uproot to a more professional server and move all my posts across to the new one and risk losing some work and my sanity. I decided to just go for it, so, every year for the last 4 years, I have paid money for the upkeep of Sound Mind Travel.
There was one year where things weren’t going great money wise and I very nearly closed it down but I had a good, long think and decided that I didn’t want to lose all my posts and the work I had put in so far.
I am very glad I made that decision, this blog is my baby but, unfortunately, a very neglected one. I haven’t spent nearly enough time watering it and nurturing it as I should. Every blog is a potential business and also has the potential to reach out to another person and shape their life in some way whether it be through inspiration for their own creative endeavours or that sense of community that makes the online blogging world so wonderful.
I have tinkered with my blog sporadically over the last 4 years, sometimes leaving it for a whole year, dormant and sometimes remembering it exists and getting a burst of creativity and doing a post and feeling a massive sense of accomplishment. Every single piece of writing, however small, matters. It is something brand new that you are putting out into the world with your unique voice. Every voice has something different to say and every voice matters.
A piece of advice from me if you so wish to take it – don’t ever decide against releasing some writing or starting a blog because you feel there are ‘too many out there.’ There is always room for another voice and every person sees the world from their unique way. We all have our ten pence worth to contribute, whether we save that for sharing with friends down the local pub or to actually write up and release it to a wider public.
Publishing News (but a Possible Fork in the Road)
I have been experimenting a bit more with my writing over the past year and some of you will be aware that I started a Blog series appropriately named ‘My Life Mystery Shopping.’ I had been frantically experimenting with my work/life balance for 4 years to see if I could make a full-time career out of lots of different self-employed jobs in order to be able to exercise full control over my life rather than ‘working for the man.’
I achieved this and decided to write all about it as I experienced many bizarre and, in hindsight, hilarious misadventures. It would feel like a crime not to write about it! I have released two of these posts so far and have the rest practically written so they are coming your way soon. But then that will be it for this series of posts because, and this is the exciting part, I have actively started writing a book about it, so it is happening! I have written the proposal for it and decided to just go for it and start sending it off to publishers because when it’s a non-fiction book, you can propose the idea to publishers before even writing it.
Image by Ruth Hartnup
What do you know, the first and only place so far that I sent my proposal to, emailed back with interest asking to see the whole manuscript with a view to picking it up. I was on the bus when I received that email and my heart nearly stopped, honestly, I was absolutely beside myself! My heart was pounding and the first thing I did was screenshot the email and send it as a message to my friend. I hopped off the bus, through my front door and then began doubting this whole thing because that is what I always do. I was suspicious about this though, it really did seem too good to be true.
I went on to the internet and began looking up the publisher in question because I thought that there had to be a catch somewhere. After not too much searching, I found an article that a novelist had written about this publisher. He stated how miserable they had made him because apparently he had had his manuscript accepted but then received a contract with a hefty fee that he had to himself pay. It isn’t a normal state of affairs for the publisher to make the author pay anything and this guy was quite affected by the experience after initially celebrating his ‘lucky break.’
After delving further and finding another post warning against this particular publisher, my bubble was officially burst. I felt devastated – that euphoria and pounding of my heart quickly jerked back in defense and I felt shrouded in a cloud of gloom. Why couldn’t this have been real? I thought. I put my heart and soul into writing that proposal and I deserve real recognition, not just some scam! I felt heavy.
I contacted a friend of mine who is a published author and asked for his wisdom. He regretfully informed me that yes, many publishers accept your work but get the author to pay loads of money for their own publishing contract and that it has happened to some people he knew. He voiced his sympathies and then told me to keep writing and just keep trying different publishers and something more fruitful would come along.
I ignored the email I had received from the publisher completely as a sign of protest but then a few weeks later, I received another from them asking if I still wanted to be on their books and send my completed manuscript to them. I paused and wondered what I should do, and what I decided was to ask them straight out – would I be charged if you were to publish my book?
I received a reply a day or so later saying that it all depended on the type of contract they wished to offer me upon their receipt of a completed manuscript. It made me wonder, just because those other authors were charged fees, would that mean every author in their books were too? Perhaps not, perhaps some that they knew would sell really well would be eligible for a free contract. One could only hope, so, getting back to my present way of thinking, what I’ve decided to do, is retain a bit of hope for this.
I Am Writing A Book!
I’ve decided to fully write the book to the best of my ability and see what type of contract they offer. If I’m not happy with their offer, I am just going to be excited that I have written a book, tweak my proposal and send it off to other publishers. I really do believe I have something unique to tell people, collecting as many freelance jobs as possible in order to make a living wage is no easy feat, especially when you’re a bit of a clumsy oaf. I don’t know when this book will be ready as it requires A LOT of work but hey, there’s going to be one so I’m excited.
In other news, I have recently been experimenting with writing articles for other established websites to see if they are publishable. I wrote an article about Jersey in the Channel Islands, a place I know well and it has been accepted! So I am really excited about that and it is going to be published soon. I will post about it when it is up and provide a link if anybody would like to give it a read.
With these bits of good news and a bit of a better outlook on life which I have written about in my last post, I am feeling encouraged and very creative with regards to the blog so I am currently busy writing lots of articles and what I’ve decided to do is
…drum roll…
annoy you all by regularly posting one blog post a week until the end of 2020. To celebrate this, I am going to host a competition at the end of the year and give a few people the chance of winning something that I haven’t decided yet! But it will be something nice.
I am also going to be getting the blog tweaked and revamped as it is in desperate need of an update. I will update my ‘Where I’ve Been’ section to reflect the new countries I have visited recently and sort out some plumbing works to be taken place on the behind the scenes parts of the blog. It can be difficult to maintain a website, there is so much more to it than you might realise!
In the mean time, it would be beautiful if you could continue having a cheeky read of whichever posts interest you on here, whether they be about mind or travel.
Talking of actual travel, I’m going to be writing posts about lots of places I’ve previously been to as there are a good few I haven’t written about and well, every place deserves to be written about!
I’m also going to be embarking on some more travel over the next few months, me and my boyfriend are going to go on a big trip somewhere to celebrate our ten year anniversary, another cause for celebration! We loved our recent trip to Malta and found it lovely having a bit of Winter sun and enjoyed spending time on a very beautiful island with super friendly people.
So, there you go, that’s all the news I have for you right now. It is quite a lot and I am very happy with it all at the moment. I am grateful to be able to share my journey with you and I hope you are enjoying your own journey, whatever that may be!
I will be back in a week with a new post.
Thank you for reading.
xxx
