Good Deeds Year 2, Week 7

Welcome to my second Year of Good Deeds, a challenge I set myself during April 2013. I decided to do at least one Good Deed a day for a whole year.

New Good DeedsDuring my week I’ll also being updating you on My Kindness Challenge which I’m also doing. I read about a new challenge to make the world a better place to live in. “Speak Kind Words, Receive Kind Echoes” see the inspiration on  The Kindness blog . During my learning process I’m donating money to charity for my slip-ups to make me work harder to achieve results. I earn no money from any of my book reviews, so having little to spare should focus my mind.

This week I’ve been doing the following;

June 1st – Today the two local magazines that I write book reviews for uploaded their online versions, so I sent out my promotional post and tweeted and e-mailed the authors who had books featured. Any appreciation you feel for the book review features can be e-mailed to the editor alex@fleetlife.org.uk or alex@ehd.org.uk Here is a link to my post http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-5eS

June 2nd – I’m getting better at the kind comments if I don’t rush into a conversation, but stop and think about my reply first. Today was my morning helping out at school, the first Monday back after a week of school holidays. Finished reading Gypsy by Cynthia Harrison and sent off my review.

June 3rd – Stayed on at work today and did some extra filing that I hadn’t been asked to do, but which needed doing. Went straight on to read book 2 in the Travelling Girls series by Cynthia Harrison and finished reading Sweet Melissa in one evening.

June 4th – Sent off my review for Sweet Melissa and began reading A Gunman’s Destiny by Randy Mixter. Went to see my parents and sorted a couple of computer queries. Thought I did pretty well with my kindness challenge when Mum talked about all the latest village goings on.

June 5th – Sent off my review of A Gunman’s Destiny. Went into town and bought a shirt at a charity shop rather than brand new, for a fancy dress party we are going to in a couple of weeks time. Met friends and now I need to add a £1 to my charity Kindness pot, let my mouth run away with me again! But I am learning from it.

June 6th – Had my hair cut today and left tips for the lovely ladies. Oh Goodness!  A kindness challenge! Once we’d covered my weekend and holiday plans the conversation just waited to be filled with a good moan. I had to dodge several pot-holes in the conversation and tried to disappear into my book, but eavesdropping on other clients was interesting, most were failing in areas of kindness. Am reading Archer of the Lake by Kelly R Michaels.

My son has 6 cricket matches in the next 7 days so think of me will you;

CHEF – “quick get in the car, I forgot to turn the vegetable off before I rushed to pick you up from school, I was trying to get dinner cooked early” Rally drives out of the car-park on two wheels!

TAXI DRIVER – Late to match, abandons car in a great space, later realising the front windscreen faces oncoming hard cricket balls when hit for a 6.

WASHER-WOMAN – Tries hopelessly to get grass and mud stains out of cricket whites, sends son off in “nearly whites”

SUPPORTER – Sits dutifully on the side-lines for 2.5 hours, freezing as the sun goes down and the wind blows. Misses all of son’s best moments because I was either chatting to someone else or secretly reading a book behind large dark glasses and feigning interest in the game.

LISTENER – Dutifully nods and makes appropriate noises to the post-match blow-by-blow analysis which lasts all the way home and for the rest of the day or night with rest of the family joining in. Not expected to make any useful contribution as calling the Umpire the “Referee” and asking why they didn’t use the “off-side ruling” doesn’t go down well.

BEST MUM THERE IS  – Replying to all the e-mails from the team managers, providing cricket teas when asked, finding the obscure village cricket pitch on an old fashioned paper map when Google gets lost, making sure there’s a fresh drink in the bag for each match and taking out the stale bottle days later. Washing all those sets of whites in time for the next match and being there for when things didn’t go too well.

June 7th – Finished reading Archer in the Lake and sent off my review. Rain this morning meant cricket was cancelled, we had a game last evening at a picturesque village cricket green out in the English countryside with warm sun and a win for our team. The sun came out this afternoon and I went for a lovely walk this evening and picked up litter along my way.

 

My 2014 Blogging Plans to continue supporting authors

Happy New Year

A New Year and plenty of New Opportunities for 2014. This is going to be the Year of the Indie author, with more and more people taking the plunge and putting their words and thoughts to paper or e-book. Check out Kristen Lamb’s 2014 predictions for writers I’m planning on supporting those people as well as all the millions of authors already out there as best I can. In 2013 I read and reviewed a staggering 154 books on the Goodreads reading Challenge and I shall continue to enrol again this year. What makes it great is if I am reading and reviewing a book that I’ve been asked to by a fellow author, if it helps them get exposure for their work, then I’m all for it. If you have a book or are planning on publishing one this year I urge you to open a free Goodreads account now and get networking. Read other people’s books in your chosen genre and see what makes a good book, what works and what needs more work.

So if you have a book that you’d like me to read and review, please do contact me via the link which you’ll find along the top of the blog.

This year I’m going to take part in the A to Z Challenge again in April. This is a fantastic challenge and gets some brilliant exposure for any bloggers. This year I want to make my theme be dominated by the Indie Author, so this is a heads up. For 26 days (we get Sundays off) in April I will blog each day using the letters of the Alphabet (A-Z) to promote books, using the book titles. For instance last year I used the following books “A” A Love Never Lost by Stephanie Hurt, “E” Embracing The Flames by Candace Knoebel and “Y” You Wish by Terry Tyler. So you get the idea, for more challenging letters like “Q, U and X” I’ll allow a little poetic licence as long as we can work the letter in somehow. AUTHORS CAN CONTACT ME FROM NOW ON AND PLACES WILL FILL UP QUICKLY, so start the year positively with this gift to promote your work.

My Year of Doing Good, continues into April because I started the challenge back in the spring. Author Judith O’Reilly will be joining me on the blog on Sunday 5th January. She is the inspiration behind my own challenge from her book “A Year of Doing Good” I was thrilled when other bloggers took up the challenge too and I’ve made some great new friends along the way. There are some very special people out there all making the world a better place to live in.Good deedsLast year saw the start of my “Rosie’s Good Read” page in my local magazine “Fleet Life“. It produces 5000 paperback copies which go out to households around Fleet, and it has an online version accessible from across the world. With its own Twitter and Facebook pages too, the potential to reach new readers of both the magazine and my book review page is enormous. Each month I review 5 books of my choice and I’ve really enjoyed seeing my work in print each month. With 12 months under my belt, I’m raring to go with my next draft of book reviews. The January issue is out in paperback and the online version should be out by 5th January. www.fleetlife.org.uk click on the online directory and scroll through the magazine each month. Here is a copy of my January page http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-4mz

Jan 14 Fleet Life

Back in September I joined with fellow Indie Author Stephanie Hurt and we launched our Romancing September Across the World Tour. Each day we celebrated romance books in two destinations across the world. I opened the day here in England with an author interview about the author and their work, then when the sun rose in beautiful Georgia USA, Stephanie posted a piece discussing with each author the challenge of writing romance in today’s society. Each author got plugs for their work and themselves. It was a lot of work, but produced some fantastic feedback from readers. It’s definitely something I will be considering doing this year, possibly with a different genre. If anyone has a genre they would like me to consider or who would like to work with me on a similar tour please contact me.

Romance Around the WorldI also plan to add book cover reveals and book tour promotions from authors as part of my networking to meet and support more and more authors. Don’t be shy about approaching me if you have upcoming publicity dates for your work.

That’s all from me today, just time to Thank you for reading this post and supporting my blog, Twitter and Facebook pages.

July Issue of Fleet Life featuring Rosie’s Reads

It’s July already and I’m thrilled to announce my Rosie’s Good Reads page in this months issue of Fleet Life. To view this online go to www.fleetlife.org.uk click on the online directory and find my reviews on page 36.

July Fleet LifeThis month I have included; The Doctor’s Deceit by Kathy Steinemann, The Mummyfesto by Linda Green, Reckless Rescue by Rinelle Grey, Legends of Windemere by Charles E Yallowitz and 44 Charles Street by Danielle Steel.

Rosie’s February Reads in Fleet Life

Feb Issue of Fleet Life

Feb Issue of Fleet Life

Here are my next set of published book reviews, the books that I wrote about were Mourning Sun by Shari Richardson, Promise Me by Mona Ingram, Minding Frankie by Maeve Binchy, Romancing the Crone by Gail Elaine and Kitchen Boy by Sandford Phippen. You can access the on-line version of the magazine at www.fleetlife.org.uk

School Uniform and Intech

If you need to buy school uniform, I see that George at Asda are offering 10% off when you spend £15 or more on-line. Plus free delivery to your local store. Now that’s a bargain and a time saver.

We spent the afternoon at Intech Science Centre at Winchester. (Thanks to tickets that I won from Fleetlife.org.uk) They have several new exhibits that went down well. There is a new active zone “Science of Sport with 12 activities including sprint speed, mind ball, reaction time and design an athlete. We ended the afternoon in the Planetarium watching one of the shows (there are several to choose from), and floating through the cosmos. A good trip out!