Now that the year is winding down, it is a good idea to access how you did in whatever part of your life or business that comes to mind.

When it comes to writing, aka my business, I go over my marketing calendar to see how I did as far as time and effort.

It is a simple calendar. I mark daily, I try anyway, how I did. By doing this I get a good overlook on how I am doing and if I am progressing forward. I also mark if I worked on any of my manuscripts, if I did any editing, or if I start any new book.

This year I did pretty good in posting about my brand, having more guest posts on other sites, and having more interviews. My books made it in the top 100 multiple times on Amazon. It made it and in the lower 50 many times.

Marketing one’s books and brand is tedious and takes a lot of time, especially away from writing. But it is a necessary part of being an author.

When one compares to where one started at the beginning of the year, it is a way to see what worked and what didn’t. It helps me to proceed for the next year.

It could help you progress better than the year before. That is my goal.

Good luck to you all in 2021.

A few weeks ago an amazing author interviewed me. She just recently placed it on her site. One can be interviewed in a number of ways. You can get handed the questions personally or in email to which you submit back the answers. You can actually be interviewed by phone and the old fashion way which is face to face. When I first started writing I was fortunate enough to get interviewed by a number of amazing people. But apart from that I received negative feedback from people saying or maybe not believing that if it was not face to face than did it really count? Was I making it up to try to make me look more important? Technology in this case is a wonderful thing. I have been interviewed for various writing pieces, I have been interviewed through email and also by phone. I have done face to face which was fun to do. I have been interviewed for a magazine that is published in Europe and also magazines closer to home. No longer do you have to be stuck with just a face to face interview. So to those who have dismissed or disbelieved me and had no problems telling me or others well times have changed.

Without further ado I will leave a partial bit of the interview below with the link after if anyone wants to read more. Sandra, thank you for taking the tine to make this happen. As an author she has just won a really cool writing award so I am grateful she asked me for this interview.

Author Interview – Sharon C. Williams

My interview guest for the month of August is Author, Sharon C. Williams. Sharon is a children and YA author. She also writes short stories which have been included in a couple of anthologies. I hope you enjoy her responses to my interview questions. Welcome Sharon and thank you for participating.

About Writing/Books/Being an Author

1.When did you first realize you wanted to write?

Oh gosh I started writing later in life. When I talk to other writers and I hear that they been writing for years I feel like a newbie. In 2010 my husband told a good friend that he felt I wrote well. And what better way to let me know than to tell my friend who he knew would tell me. LOL. So I took that to heart and worked on my first book at the end of that year. It hit me like a ton of bricks. I fell hopefully in love with the process of creating something out of thin air to create a world, characters and plot lines that embraced me as much as I embraced it. I imagine if my husband had not started the ball rolling I would probably never would have started. I am grateful he did. This is now who I am. I am an avid reader and now with that an author who can’t imagine not ever not wanting to write.

2.Who is/are your favourite author(s)?

My go to authors are Stephen King for starters. We are from same place plus I do love horror in the way that he does it. I inhale anything he writers. Agatha Christie to me is still amazing her books never go out of style no matter how much time passes. I started reading Bently Little since I saw on one of his covers a high recommendation from Mr. King. Taking a chance I fell in love with his story telling and have read to date the majority of his works. My new favorite now is Michael Grant who has penned the Gone series which is a YA series. I am enjoying this series, I am on the last book that is out, though two more have not yet been released.

3.What is your favourite thing about writing? What is your least favourite thing writing?

I love that you can write anywhere you want on anything you want. It is so freeing and invites you in to forget about stress, forget about that pain or forget about anything that is taking you away from being the best that you can be. Writing is just freeing and I love it. To dive into a new piece of writing is so exciting for even when I feel I know where it is going to go. There are times it decides for me and I let it. It is kind of hard to describe to those who don’t write, you know? It is thrilling, exciting wonderful and amazing that is how it makes me feel so why would I want to do anything else? What I like the least is the editing part. I mean yuck. LOL I know there are people who are editors and they love it and that is wonderful you should enjoy it. But that will never be me. The revisions, editing, rewriting and doing that so many times until you feel it is good to go is a long tedious process. I’d rather just sit down and write and that is why I write free style. I know authors who edit as they write, I can’t do that. It stifles my creativity. And we get that enough when we are editing. Why do it while I am writing?

4.Where do your ideas come from?

I find they come from just about anything. I love prompt books and a good portion of my short stories in my anthologies started as a word or picture prompt. It is different now that I am an author. I look at things with the purpose if I can use it for a writing piece of any kind or length. I love that. It keeps my mind busy and active.

5.I’ve often found that creative people have more than one talent, what is yours?

I am an avid photographer and have had lovely reviews on some of my photographs. I do calligraphy, I still need to work on it more, but it is so relaxing and what you get is something really cool that you can give as a gift. I also knit various items such as scarves, blankets and home-made slippers which I also gift. I love puttering with my plants and enjoy seeing them grow. Life is so full of things to try out and explore. I am always looking for the next thing to try to learn.

6.If you could jump inside of a book for one day (as an observer) what book would it be?

There are just too many to choose from for as an avid reader I go through a lot of books. If I had to, it would be anything from Agatha Christie or Stephen King.

The rest of this interview can be found here:

https://sandrajjackson.wordpress.com/2018/08/25/author-interview-sharon-c-williams/