I finished my 4,000 word essay! Hurray!
… I didn’t read a new book this week. Or write a book review. Oops. As such, I’m going to review a book I read some time ago today, and for the next couple of weeks, I’ll try to read two books a week to make up for this week and last week’s slips.
Now, the book I want to talk about is one very close to my liver, in that I have a lot of bile related to it: “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” by Mark Haddon.
Image © publisher / cover artist.
Filed under 2017 Posts
If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you’ll know that before I published my first poetry book “Under the Tree” via CreateSpace and Kindle, I published a first edition using Blurb!
Here’s a comparison between the two versions. The current Kindle cover is on the right; the first edition, the left!
Image © Penny Gotch (http://www.pennygotch.co.uk).
Fancy getting your hands on one of those ultra-rare editions?
Well would you look at that! Here’s one of them on a book shelf!
Image © Penny Gotch (http://www.pennygotch.co.uk).
Along with a lot of other books!
Image © Penny Gotch (http://www.pennygotch.co.uk).
In an actual book store!
Image © Penny Gotch (http://www.pennygotch.co.uk).
Take yourself to the Waterstones on St Margaret’s Street in Canterbury and you can pick up an exclusive first edition copy of my book for just £4.99!
And message me a photo of yourself with the book and your receipt and I’ll write you a personalised poem for me!
There were just 3 copies left last time I checked. Get searching!
~ Penny
Related Post: Sunday Scribblings: “Under the Tree” Final Sale
Want to get in touch? E-mail me (pennygotch@gmail.com), message me on Facebook, send me a tweet (@pennygotch) or leave a comment!
Available Books
Solo: Under the Tree / Dark Heart
Collab: Personal is Political
Images © Penny Gotch (http://www.pennygotch.co.uk), Liam Whear, Susan Wright & Molly Penford.
Filed under 2016 Posts, Book Sale
Image © Jez Arnold (https://www.flickr.com/photos/jezarnold/140044286/).
Well it’s been rather quiet and empty here for a while, hasn’t it? I meant to update weeks ago, but what can I say? Life’s been incredibly busy for me recently. I graduated from university with a First, I moved into a new bedroom, and I’ve started a Master’s Degree. But that’s no excuse for going completely silent here, and for that I apologise. On the plus side, though, I’ve got three big bits of news to share with you. So let’s get going!
Image © OpenClipartVectors (https://pixabay.com/en/newspaper-article-journal-headlines-154444/).
First of all, I shared on my Facebook recently that I’d written three articles for International Pro Wrestling: United Kingdom (IPW:UK), a Kent-based wrestling company, to use in their show programmes. I’m happy to announce that this has now become a regular thing and in all likelihood, I will be contributing to their programmes for the foreseeable future!
This includes: event reviews (like the one of Future 8 in the second 11YA programme); match previews (like the one for Sammy Smooth versus Tommaso Ciampa in the Just Too Good programme); and focus pieces (like the one about the GZRS in the Supershow 2015 programme).
IPW:UK do programmes at most of their main shows and they’re available free with a VIP ticket purchase or for a small fee at the event. If you’re interested in reading some of the stuff I write about wrestling these days, check it out!
Image © Penny Gotch (http://www.pennygotch.co.uk).
The next piece of good news? I’ve been published!
Zillion Press bought a piece of flash fiction from me for their anthology “Polychrome Ink: Volume II”. It’s a little piece inspired by my own struggles with writer’s block and depression called “That Dreamy Girl”.
The entire anthology can be bought online from the publisher’s website or from various other places including Amazon and Createspace. To find all the purchasing options, click this link to Zillion Press’s Store page and give it a look.
Image © Penny Gotch (http://www.pennygotch.co.uk).
And finally, the big news I’ve been taunting you with for quite a while.
You may remember that for my Final Year Independent Study for my BA, I created a playlist of ten poetry videos. If you enjoyed those, celebrate: I have poems written for five more.
Yes, you read that correctly: I have five more poetry videos ready to be made. But these won’t be going on YouTube! Instead, I’ll be putting the these five new videos, plus the ten from YouTube and some “Making Of” type features, onto a DVD!
Right now, I still have to undergo the filming process for the new videos, so this probably won’t be happening until somewhere around the summer of 2016. I’ll keep you updated on the progress as I start filming and let you know how everything goes.
Oh, and here’s the playlist for the old videos in case you never got around to watching them!
~ Penny
Related Post: 13/07/2015: “Dark Heart” Out Now
Want to get in touch? E-mail me (pennygotch@gmail.com), message me on Facebook, send me a tweet (@pennygotch) or leave a comment!
Available Books
Solo: Under the Tree / Dark Heart
Collab: Personal is Political
Images © Penny Gotch (http://www.pennygotch.co.uk), Liam Whear, Susan Wright & Molly Penford.
Filed under Book Promotion, Post-Grad Posts
~ Penny
Related Post: 23/05/15: “And Yet”
Want to get in touch? E-mail me (pennygotch@gmail.com), message me on Facebook, send me a tweet (@pennygotch) or leave a comment!
Available Books
Base image © Sembazuru (http://www.flickr.com/photos/sembazuru/6974372/). Edited by Penny Gotch (http://www.pennygotch.co.uk).
If you follow me on Instagram, you may have noticed that I post a lot of selfies. And those selfies tend to be tagged with things like #IAmVeryPretty or #IAmCuteToday.
It occurred to me that if you don’t know me, you might assume I’m conceited or big-headed.
I’m not. There’s another reason I tag my photos that way.
So I decided to write an article explaining that and post it on Readwave.
It’s called #FakeItTilYouMakeIt. It currently has 290 reads and 9 likes. And it recently hit the Readwave homepage.
So why am I talking about this? Because it’s the first time this has ever happened for me.
Image © Andre666 (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1NumberOneInCircle.png).
I’ve been posting on Readwave for almost a year now. I’ve submitted articles, poems and stories. And they’ve all found a good number of readers.
But none of my articles have been on the homepage before.
I’ve written about bullying. I’ve written about annoying television adverts. And I’ve written about comparing myself with other people.
But if I could only have one article go the distance, I’m so glad that it’s #FakeItTilYouMakeIt.
I believe that everyone deserves to feel happy about the way they look. Good self-esteem and body positivity are vital in a world that tells us we’re ugly so they can then sell us things.
And the thought that my journey towards self-acceptance is helping others is so heartwarming to me.
Image © Nemo (http://pixabay.com/en/hearts-valentine-love-romance-37308/).
So thank you for reading, sharing and liking #FakeItTilYouMakeIt. It means the world to me.
And remember: you’re beautiful.
~ Penny
Related Post: Sunday Scribblings: Life Can Be Tough
Want to get in touch? E-mail me (pennygotch@gmail.com), message me on Facebook, send me a tweet (@pennygotch) or leave a comment!
Available Books
Filed under Sunday Scribbling
Base image © Sembazuru (http://www.flickr.com/photos/sembazuru/6974372/). Edited by Penny Gotch (http://www.pennygotch.co.uk).
Life isn’t easy.
As much as we like to pretend that there’s some simple solution to everything, there really isn’t.
Unpleasant things happen to us, or we make bad decisions, or things just get too complicated for us to cope with.
Sometimes, life can be tough.
Image © OpenIcons (http://pixabay.com/en/sad-unhappy-sorry-cheerless-smiley-98457/).
And you might think that’s not true for a writer. After all, we have it easy, don’t we?
Don’t we spend all day sitting around, making up fantasies in our heads? Aren’t we lucky to do what we love for a living? Shouldn’t we be grateful for what we have?
Yes and no.
Most writers don’t spend all their time writing. I know I don’t.
Painted by Leonid Pasternak; uploaded by Crisco 1492 (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Leonid_Pasternak_001.jpg).
I’m a student in my final year of a degree. I work one day a week in an HR office. I run a wrestling blog. And I write for this blog.
I wear a lot of hats and juggle a lot of responsibilities. And it’s not easy to cope with them all.
Mind you, I am grateful for the good things I have.
Image © OpenIcons (http://pixabay.com/en/smile-smiley-happy-yellow-face-98458/).
I’m healthy. I have a loving family. I’m doing a degree that I care about. I have wonderful friends. I have so many good things.
But that doesn’t mean that things don’t get difficult sometimes. And right now, I am struggling with life.
Am I giving up? No. Of course not. Things won’t always be hard. They will get better in time.
But at the moment, things aren’t easy. And I can only do my best.
~ Penny
Related Post: Word Count Wednesday: 19th November 2014
Want to get in touch? E-mail me (pennygotch@gmail.com), message me on Facebook, send me a tweet (@pennygotch) or leave a comment!
Available Books
Filed under Sunday Scribbling
Hello and welcome back to the Sunday Scribblings!
Base image © Sembazuru (http://www.flickr.com/photos/sembazuru/6974372/). Edited by Penny Gotch (http://www.pennygotch.co.uk | https://pennygotch.wordpress.com).
Let’s talk fanfiction.
I’m an author. And I support fanfiction writers.
Why wouldn’t I? I’m one myself.
I’ve been writing fanfiction since I was twelve years old. That’s over a decade of writing stories about other people’s characters.
But surely that’s plagiarism, isn’t it?
Well yes and no.
You see, fanfiction inhabits a legal grey area.
Image © Emmanuel Huybrechts (http://www.flickr.com/photos/ensh/6204837462/).
Yes, the people who create it are using characters that belong to other people without permission.
But we’re not making money from the things we write. So we’re not technically breaking the law.
So why do we write fanfiction?
Because we love the original stories. It’s all about love.
So that’s why fanfiction isn’t bad. But I’d like to go a step further.
I think fanfiction is good for us.
When we write fanfiction, we can focus on putting together a plot. We can experiment with new formats of storytelling. And we can do things we would never dare do in an original piece.
In other words, it makes us better writers.
Painted by Leonid Pasternak; uploaded by Crisco 1492 (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Leonid_Pasternak_001.jpg).
It’s practice. And not only that, but we get feedback from the community.
From kudos to comments, people tell us what we’re doing right and wrong and it helps us get better.
Fanfiction makes us better writers. And I don’t see how that could be a bad thing.
So support fanfiction writers. We are the novelists of the future.
Oh, and “Under the Tree” is still on sale! E-mail me at pennygotch@gmail.com to order!
~ Penny
Related Post: Monday Musing: Where Does the Time Go?
Filed under Book Sale, Sunday Scribbling
I’ve been quiet on this blog since the autumn began. The Summer of Writing 2014 has ended, and that left me at a bit of a loose end.
But now I’m back and ready to blog.
You’ll be seeing updates twice a week on Sunday and Wednesday from now on.
So what’s Sunday?
Base image © Sembazuru (http://www.flickr.com/photos/sembazuru/6974372/). Edited by Penny Gotch (http://www.pennygotch.co.uk | https://pennygotch.wordpress.com).
Anything I want to write. My writing process, my week at university, my published works: anything I think is worth telling you about.
And today, I’m bringing some big news.
My poetry book “Under the Tree” is on sale!
For the next two weeks only, you can buy a copy for 20% off the recommended price of £5.
That’s just £4 per copy.
And as an added bonus, I’m offering free P&P to anywhere in the UK.
But why am I putting this book on sale, you ask?
Because it won’t be available for much longer.
Yes: this is your last chance to buy “Under the Tree” in its current form.
After the two week sale is over, you will not be able to get the paperback of “Under the Tree” anywhere.
There are just four copies left. Can you give one a good home?
Image © Penny Gotch (http://www.pennygotch.co.uk | https://pennygotch.wordpress.com).
Want to order a book? Want to request some samples of my poetry before you buy? Just want to say hello?
Then drop me a message in the comments, on Twitter (@pennygotch), on Facebook or via e-mail.
And remember: you’ve only got two weeks before the “Under the Tree” paperback is gone!
~ Penny
Related Post: Launch of “Under the Tree”
Filed under Book Sale, Sunday Scribbling
