Category Archives: Blogs

April 26, 2012 · 1:22 pm

A Reflective Moment

This afternoon I have been catching up on emails and Facebook. I have yet to click on Twitter and was in two minds as to whether to write a blog post today. You see, for nearly a month now I’ve had a bit of a break due to pressures of my other work. I was wondering how I was going to pick up the threads and launch back into Social Media with my original enthusiasm, and whether to wait until Monday.

Then I read this blog post I subscribe to called:

The Book Designer: Listening

It prompted me to think about my audience, the purpose of my blog posts and the style. Feeling like a nervous swimmer just dipping her toes for the first time into the cool sea, with hesitation I clicked open my blog, and to my surprise people have still been reading my blog posts, even in my absence. How gratifying! This slight boost to my confidence, was all I needed to click on ‘New Post.’

Hello again! I’m back!

And what am I going to be writing about in the next month?

  • I will continue with my theme of interesting stories of early flight especially related to the Solent area, both before and during WW1
  • I will tell you about colourful characters in this world of flight
  • I will continue with the occasional topical post of the day
  • and finally I will update you with some exciting news about my next novel ~ coming out very soon!

My news of today though, is that on Monday I spoke about Alderney, my family history and my writing to a lovely group of ladies in Ampthill. I thank them for their warm welcome and here is a picture of them before our most enjoyable lunch.

Ladies who Lunch in Ampthill

Let me know if there is anything you would like to know about my writing, research, family history, in fact anything related, within reason! I will do my best to reply if I can, but I certainly look forward to your feedback here on my blog, your comments on facebook and on Twitter.

I’m listening again:-)

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March 26, 2012 · 1:28 pm

Inspiration for my novel writing ~ The five elements influencing my blog

There are now five major influences on my creative writing although these are ever evolving:

  1. My Family History ~ My quest to find out that my great-grandmother who was born on the island of Alderney and, not out of choice, relocated to Woolston Southampton.
  2. The island of Alderney itself. It is wild, beautiful and like no other and each time I visit I come to love it more.
  3. Woolston, Southampton, which holds many happy memories of visits to grandparents and holidays as a child.
  4. Social History ~ learning, and to a certain amount predicting, how events in history had an impact on everyday lives.
  5. Early Flight ~ With my uncle and grandpa working at Supermarine before the war, until it was bombed and they were relocated. Once I started my research I became fascinated by those early pilots; their daring in venturing into the unknown.

I have written a great deal about one, two and three above and so my next two blogs will focus on four and five. You can see these influences in the cloud of topics to the right hand side of this blog and, for those of you who like things neat and structured, I apologise. I can only follow where my heart leads me and I am glad many of you have enjoyed and shared my thoughts.

My ideas for future writing are beyond these five elements, but all seem to share a common thread.

What are the influences in your writing?

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February 23, 2012 · 5:08 pm

Are you Receiving Me? – Do you need to worry about generating comments?

Of course I enjoy people taking the trouble to comment on my blog but, just because there are none left on the actual blog post each time, I am still cheered by the way people respond in other ways and other factors:

  1. Statistics – Now that I am using Hootsuite to schedule tweets, (thanks to a member of my writer’s group for letting me know about that gem!) each post is read by between at least 50 to 100 people, sometimes many more. It’s great that WordPress gives me all of this information.
  2. Many people just like to tweet a response. That’s brilliant because their comments come to my email so that I can respond when I am next on Twitter.
  3. Others find it easier to comment on Facebook. That’s lovely too, because I put all of my posts on my Diana Jackson’s Author page on Facebook and it’s like a running time line of activity.
  4. Then of course I get emails too if someone has a particular comment to make for my eyes only like the author who responded when I left a blog saying that their book was one of my favourite books of all times. It was a thrill to hear from him! Then there have been several people who have let me know how they found my blog via a Google search. That’s fantastic to know. Their remarks are treasured even more because someone has made an effort to get in touch.

So am I right not to get worried about getting comments actually on my blog?

Should I do something about the fact that the ratio of comments left per post is only 1 in 3?

I don’t really think so because as long as there are people out there enjoying what I write and I still gain pleasure in writing posts  then it continues to be a positive channel to release my thoughts and hone my skills as a writer.

What do you think?

 

 

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