Friday 27 April 2012

That's life - wonderful and peculiar

I begin to wonder whether ups and downs in human life are nature's deliberate attempts to either make or break you. I'd much rather stay on the "make" side, thank you. So, what happened? Well, I kind of didn't follow my promise of heavily promoting my new Construction Management book through my social media accounts. I did mention it once or twice but that's not self-promotion in its true sense. So, I decided to do this yesterday using my Twitter account. Mind you, I only sent out one book-related post.

It took Cesar Abeid from Remontech, a Canadian Construction Management company, a minute to respond and ask me whether he could interview me for his really well received podcast. I thought he was joking. You know, one of those automated spam posts or something. No, no, no, he is a real person! I talked to him today and he humbly presented the idea behind his podcasts. It's absolutely fabulous and it only took one (ONE) tweet. He will interview me on Thursday and believe it or not, he was thanking me! Hello, it's me who should be grateful and I am, I totally am.

Anyway, not being used to this I thought that was sensational. But then I read another tweet a couple of minutes later. It was sent by @beas_bloomsbury. Bea basically asked for some help with their kitchen floorplan and offered cakes as a form of payment. Anyone who knows me would understand why I replied to her within a split of a second. Come on, it's CAKES we're talking about!

I checked her website and then realised: Bea is a celebrity patisserie chef who a few years ago turned down the offer to be a head chef at Nobu London. She now owns her own Bea's Bloomsbury on several locations (including Chelsea and Maltby st.). The patisserie has been praised all over the world. Surreal, I'm telling you. I need to survey her main kitchen on Saturday and she offered to treat us at Maltby st. Market. I am thrilled! The update follows but in the mean time, thanks Bea for your kind offer!

Oh yes, and I am still editing my novel. It's getting together really nicely and all these revisions and delays are totally necessary. I guess it will be finished by the end of May and published on Kindle in June. Watch this space!

Thursday 19 April 2012

Self incredulity or whatever

Wow, I haven't posted anything since March. What can I say, the whole of the spring term was incredibly busy and then there was Easter. We visited our parents, my father managed to catch pneumonia and I was intentionally offline for the most part of the Easter break. Intentionally, yes, because I got sick of hundreds of e-mailed demands per day. Everyone wanted something so I simply cut myself off. On the other hand, being with my family meant a world to me.

In the mean time my copy-editor returned the book giving me plenty to work on. Though, I am happy with the feedback - I need to address a few points but overall the work is publishable (apparently). I confess the delay, I confess that much more needs to be done to raise the quality of my first novel and I confess, I began doubting myself. It's one of those periods filled with disbelief that I could ever publish a book.

Ah well, I read a dozen of posts by J. A. Konrath and Googled a few more unbelievable Kindle success stories. It's all to revive the spirit and it's all to stimulate dreaming again. Am I back? Well, no, I always need a week to get back to my best performance after holidays but boy I enjoyed not sitting in front of the buzzing machine with a screen.