Masthead header

So it has been awhile since I have updated this blog, I know I have said this time and time again that I will update more regularly but that does not seem to happen!

I do have a good excuse though since we are now currently living as a family of seven with my in-laws because our house has been demolished! That’s right our house is no more!

It has been 20 years in the making but we are finally moving forward with building a new house! The slab should be going down in the next few weeks but I thought I would share our excitement and some updated photos.

Of course our fur babies were very confused about what was going on at the time but they have settled in now and I am sure they will get another shock when we move back into the new house!

What’s going on???

So once we had moved out into my husbands parents house (aren’t they amazing to put us up like this!)

Magill Demolition came and we saw the satisfying demolition of our house. we may no longer have this house but we will always have the memories that it held. From the birth of my first born, then a miscarriage, our second and third born as well as the passing of my beautiful fur baby Jasper (I did remember to grab Jasper’s ashes before we had the house knocked down).

Danger! Demolition in progress!
Going!

Going!

Going and now a pile of rubble!
Gone!

So as you can see we now have a vacant block ready for the new house to go up, we did subdivide the block so our block isn’t as large but we still have a decent size. New fencing is due to go up in the next four weeks and then hopefully we will see some more action on the block and I can update some more.

We have our plan and all sections have been completed so now it’s just a waiting game to see some action.

Here is an image of our house plan, we can’t wait to see all our choices come together!

I know, I know I haven’t been on this blog in like forever, my apologies. Things have been rather hard with the covid-19 situation, working, kids and just life in general.

I am back though and with some absolutely fab news!

It’s been 2 years in the making but my chapter in the anthology Eighteen Point Five is almost ready to be published and I am so excited to see this projection come into fruition!

So what is the book about you ask?

It’s an uplifting and encouraging anthology of 25 people living with a disability or disorder. Either written by them or a writer.

To be published in September 2020!

So exciting don’t you think!

If anyone would like to order a printed copy, please send me a message on this blog or on my facebook page and I will add you to my ever growing list so that I can make sure I have enough books available once the book is ready to launch!

How is that for a first post in awhile!

Hopefully I can get this blog up and going again, on other exciting new I have a mentor helping me to get “The Cat and her Mistress” back on track again…this editing part is so hard!

For the past 3 to 4 years I have spent a lot of my time crafting my manuscript for “The Cat and her Mistress”. One of the hardest things I have found is making sure that my characters are not one dimensional and have depth to them. I’m not talking about shape by the way, I’m talking about what makes my characters them, what their personality traits may be, do they have any character flaws that makes them human? Or an elf or a fairy for that matter. What makes them them?

It’s almost like building something out of clay, first, it’s this big clump before you shape it but slowly bit by bit, you start to see the mound of clay take shape and you can see the features begin to appear. It does take a lot of work so that you are not falling into cliche characters that really have no personality and just follow sayings that are commonly used. I want my characters to be unique, yes to have flaws, to have different thought processes and to truly be their own person. I want them to be as real as can be, to make mistakes and to learn from them (or not).

I’ve also found the world building an interesting one as well and learnt quite a bit before I decided after I had the basics of the world I was creating that map making was not my forte and that there were many technical aspects that I had not even taken into consideration. I knew I wanted a map to go with my story but had no idea that rivers, rocks and mountains had to go a certain way to be realistic as the real world so that it is believable. I was thankful that I had a professional that was able to do this for me, you can check their fantastic work at this link here http://www.fantasy-map.net/ and I think for me it was well worth getting in a professional for this and very happy with the outcome.

Here is a bit of a sneak peek of part of the map for The Kingdom of Aereraswen

 

Today I’ve had a very informative day at the Getting in Shape Online for Authors workshop which was run by the SA Writers Centre. It was a long day but a good one!

Hopefully, I will be able to put what I have learnt to good use and can make this site and my Pippa.K – Author Facebook page work well in the online world.

Later this month, during the Salisbury Writers’ Festival I’ll be attending another workshop called “Working with an Editor with Sam Cooney”. I look forward to hearing about how editors function and hope this will help me to vastly improve how I work as a writer.

With this workshop, I’m hoping it will help me to understand the process of editing better as I complete my manuscript.  I’m well aware of the importance of having an editor and I want the “The Cat and her Mistress” to be the best it can be and want the process to be smooth as I ready it for publication.

Onto other news, I recently entered some images of mine into Aspire to Inspire “Colours Of My World” art exhibition and they will be holding an art exhibition as titled  “Colours Of My World” which will include all different themed pieces of visual and literary works from the Autism community. There will be special guests Tim & Judy Sharp there who will be presenting Tim’s work and opening the celebrations with a talk about their personal journey to success.

The images I have entered:

You may have seen this one previously, titled as “Children’s laughter colours my world.”

 

Titled “Dreaming in Pastels”

Titled: Hazey & beautiful

Titled: Puppy dreams come in colour

And finally, titled: Rainbow of colour.

I wasn’t sure about sharing this here (being so public) but I wanted to share this experience because I want this page to be as real as it can be and not just all beautiful memes or fluffy kitties.

As of this past week, I have had to put a stop to my study, it wasn’t a decision made lightly and when I first enrolled I had every intention of completing it.

Unfortunately, there has been a few issues within myself, one being my anxiety and social phobia that is holding me back. But as many know that living with anxiety, it’s not an easy thing to get past.

My theory for study I did perfectly and my lecturer was very impressed with my work. When it came to my placement, this is where it came unstuck and whilst I seemed to cope fine at the placement and the school has been amazing in supporting me, I was becoming unhappy and spent the nights leading to my placement in tears and dreading it at no fault of the school. It was my own demons that I was fighting.

Amongst all this, I have also found out (towards the end of last year) that I am a BRCA 1 mutation carrier which means that I have a high chance of both ovarian and breast cancer. I have had the preventive surgery to minimise the risk of ovarian cancer and I am currently having constant screening for breast cancer. Something was picked up at my latest routine breast MRI but thankfully this has turned out to be benign.

We will continue to monitor things but I also have the thought of preventative surgery at the back of my mind in case we do decide to go down that road.

During this both my lecturer, the school staff, friends and family have been really amazingly supportive in regards to this decision of stopping my study and the school and lecturer are happy to welcome me back at any time if I choose to go back. I honestly don’t know if that will happen but the door is open should I choose it.

This is the real me and I hate the way my anxiety makes me feel but have had to step back.

I would still like to get into something somewhere, not sure how I will go with that for the time being, my family need me to be at my happiest…to get through the mountains that lie ahead.

If you managed to read this far then I give you a high five! With all that in mind and thinking of the positives, I guess that this means I can get back to the large job of doing the rewrites and editing of “The cat and her Mistress”.

Oh and because I can’t do a post without a photo, I DID have to finish it with a fluffy kitty. Meet Willow…