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One Year On

8 Feb

Roughly a year ago I gave up my boring office job and released my first novel, Leda. I intended to take stock after one year and see how the old writing career is going. So how does it look?

I would like to be able to support myself entirely by writing but that still seems to be a distant goal. As well as looking after my niece I’m currently back at the office, albeit only temporarily to cover staff shortages. (It seems I am indispensable. 😉

On the positive side, out of a print run of 500 copies Leda has so far sold over 350. I think that’s not bad for the first year (a Christian children’s publisher agreed) and sales are holding up steadily rather than tailing off. Someone, somewhere must be buying this book.

Then the best news of all: I have a book commission from the aforementioned Christian children’s publisher. All being well my children’s biography of St Augustine should be published in the early part of 2014. So I may still be skint, but at least I feel like I’m getting somewhere in my impecunious career.

Coincidentally, the weekend that I am looking back on my year is also Chinese New Year. For this reason my latest collection of short stories, A New Year’s Trio, will be free for Kindle download from now until Tuesday.

It’s also my seventh wedding anniversary in a few days, a significant milestone but more memorable for me than for my husband, it seems, since he accidentally booked a boys’ holiday to Spain over it. Oh well, I suppose there’s always next year.

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Primed for a Laugh

11 Jan

Prima FebruaryThis month’s Prima features my story “A Recipe for Disaster”. It’s a very short, funny little piece about a couple working in their short-staffed restaurant after a very busy evening when famous food critic Clive St John decides to make an unexpected appearance.

“This month’s” Prima is of course February, due to the logic of magazine dating. The cover is as in the photo, and my story is on page 144. Prima is priced £2.99, and this month you can also get a Maybelline mascara, free but for P&P, meaning that it practically pays for itself.

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Shadow’s Dawn by H K Miller

8 Dec

Shadows Dawn coverI must plug this book that my cousin has just released on Amazon, not just because he is my cousin but because it is good.

I can’t tell you about the plot arc properly because I haven’t read it right to the end (something I will put right very quickly) but I’ve read large sections of it to help edit it and I can tell you that the boy can write. I’ve suffered through too many badly written books to take that lightly.

It’s a fantasy novel set in a time when humans live in primitive hunter-gatherer tribes while the elves are far more civilised, but a threat is going to force them to work together. The characters are more real and earthy than in many fantasy novels – they’re irritable, they get drunk, they worry about the future not just of the world but of their tribe’s food sources. It’s got a bit of bite and realism that makes the story matter, avoiding the “so what?” reaction that can greet world-shattering crises in fantasy novels.

If you like fantasy, and you have a couple of quid to spare (I know it’s a recession, but you can stretch to £1.93), download Shadow’s Dawn, and let me know what you think.

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Foreign Encounters Released

25 Oct

Foreign EncountersThe Writers Abroad anthology Foreign Encounters has been released. I have a short piece in it called “Sounion”, which is rather good and atmospheric if I say so myself.

Foreign Encounters is available from Lulu as a paperback for £7.44 ($9.99, hence the strange UK price), and profits go the the charity Books Abroad which provides school books to poor countries.

The anthology will probably come out as an ebook at some point, too, if you prefer your books that way.

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An Ex-Ex-Pat Writes…

14 Aug

Foreign Flavours, the anthology from Writers Abroad, is now available on Kindle. All the contributors either were or are ex-pats. I Foreign Flavours Anthologyused to live in Albania, and my piece in the anthology is about Turkish coffee. It’s part recipe, part cultural and historical introduction to Albania.

I just heard today that I will have a piece in the new Writers Abroad anthology, too. The anthology will be called Foreign Encounters, and will take the theme of relationships around the world. My contribution is a non-fiction piece is called “Sounion”, which features a bit of Greek mythology. Look out for it in October.

‘Running for Cover’ Published

24 Jul

Running for Cover by K C MurdarasiJust a quickie, to say that I have uploaded a free short story to Smashwords. It’s called Running for Cover, and concerns an injured athlete trying to escape the Olympics by retreating to an isolated Derbyshire village. Topical and free – what more could you ask for?

It should be available in Amazon soon, and other ebookshops later, but you can get it in a wide variety of formats at Smashwords, including Kindle, and PDF (good for reading on computers).

Any comments or questions about this story? Please feel free to contact me using the message form to the right.

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Office Life (and Death)

18 Jun

This is a semi-exclusive for readers of my blog. My new ebook of short stories, Office Life (and Death) is available now from Smashwords and Amazon. In due course it will be available in all ebook stores, and at that point I’ll announce it to all and sundry. For the time being, though, I’m just announcing it to some and sundry – including people who are reading this.

There are five stories plus two pieces of flash fiction, and they concern the nine-to-five grind, although taken from a bit of a strange angle. There are fatally efficient PAs and mysteriously ambiguous companies, as well as an inquiry into the Company Policy on Screaming.

It costs about £2 to download, and you can get 50% off at Smashwords until the end of July with this code: TZ56S. You can also enter a competition to win £50 (ooh!) by forwarding me your receipt. See the Office Life (and Death) page for details.

If you enjoy it (which, of course, you will), do consider writing a nice review on the site you bought it from. But more important than that, do just go and buy it. If you’ve ever worked in an office, and have a sense of humour, you’ll find it decent value for a quid or two.

Albanian Approbation

20 Apr

It is with some relief that I have received the first responses to Leda from Albania, one from an Albanian and one from an American living there. The American lady thought it captured life in Albania, while the Albanian lady mistakenly thought it was a true story, which certainly seems to confirm its realism. They also both liked the book.

It’s reassuring because, for one reason and another, I wasn’t able to have the manuscript read before it went to press by anyone who knew Albania intimately. This left me with the lingering dread that, even though I wrote most of Leda while living in Albania, there would be something in the novel so outrageously wrong that Albanians would find it ridiculous – which would rather undermine a novel that purports to inform the reader about Albania. That dread is now put to rest.

An aside: If you think “approbation” in the title is an inappropriate word for a post about people approving of my book, you probably need to look up the definition. It’s a word that’s more misused than used correctly, to the extent that I think it is doomed to change its definition and mean exactly the same as “opprobrium” (with which it is confused). In that case, this post may have historical value; it may be the final place on the internet where it is used to mean approval rather than disapproval. You read it here last!

Book Touring and Village Craving

23 Mar

I am back from my mini ‘book tour’, taking in three venues in Sheffield – CLC bookshop, All Saints C of E and Sheffield High School. All the events went well, for which I am grateful to God, and a little bit embarrassed about my preceeding lack of faith.

My trip was nearly derailed before it started, however, due to the route I took to get to Sheffield. I unwittingly got on the slow train from Manchester instead of the fast one. Time wasn’t the issue because I had plenty to spare, but the slow train goes through the Hope Valley, the location of some of the most beautiful scenery and most charming looking villages in Derbyshire.

One of them is Edale, a lovely place all nestled below impressive hills, just asking to he climbed, and with an inviting pub right next to the station. Half the train seemed to get off there, people with rucksacks, maps and smiles, and even though I was due in Sheffield, it was as much as I could do not to follow them off the train and into the pub.

Duty prevailed, of course, as it always does with me, but I’ll have to go back to Edale sometime. Maybe I could set a story there and then I’d have to visit for ‘research’. In the meantime I’ll just add it to my list of astonishingly achievable life’s ambitions.

 

Update: I haven’t set a story in Edale yet, but I have set one in the charming fictional village of Haddleford. It’s currently free at Smashwords.

Running for Cover by K C Murdarasi

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Leda Grows Legs

7 Mar

I’ve just been looking at all the places my novel, Leda, appears on the internet, and it’s quite surprised me. Not only is it available in Australia and New Zealand (with free shipping, apparently), it’s also in the e-catalogue of Jefferson County Public Library in (I presume) the USA.

It feels quite strange seeing my book fending for itself in the big, wide world. The first hundred copies or so were sold directly so I knew who bought them. Now I just see numbers on a screen and have no idea where they’ve gone. I haven’t seen it in physical bookshops yet (well to be honest, I haven’t looked yet) but I expect that will be quite a weird experience, too. It’s strange enough seeing books by Robert Low in Waterstones, and he’s only a friend’s husband. (He writes war sagas – vikings, Robert the Bruce and so on. Not for haemophobics, but a good read for those with strong stomachs.)

I know that eventually, for Leda to be a success, it has to be bought by lots of people who don’t know me. They may know a little about me (I’ve had articles in the Glaswegian, Yorkshire Post and Housing Scotland Today, so far) but I can’t turn on the emotional pressure with these people I’ll never meet, to persuade them to buy. Leda will have to stand on her own two feet – or fall. I’m pretty confident she’ll stand. She’s a tough wee girl.

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