Monday, 23 December 2013

I’m ready to go. My Kindle is loaded but what about the online thesaurus!?!?

Today was my last official day of employment. If you have read my previous blog, I explained how I have made the decision to move on. I also explained how I would go on to discuss the reasons in more detail once I have actually finished, but I have changed my mind. As the saying goes, if you have nothing nice to say then say nothing at all. I know saying that in itself sounds somewhat bitter but it’s the final double-jab I will throw, promise, let’s just say I have had some great times there and met some amazing people that I hope will always be part of my life, and I’ve had some bad times and wish some people a lonely painful death (too much?) I’m no different though, the majority of people in the majority of jobs experience the highs and lows of developing a career, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t, and that’s just the way it is, for me the last two years have been rough but instead of explaining anything, I am simply going to forget and move on. That’s it. Adios. Time to start writing properly…

Kindle loaded…

I leave for Spain shortly and as yet I haven’t fully worked out the internet connection situation. This was deliberate. Firstly, I absolutely didn’t want any connection in the place I am staying, I’m going out there to write and to live a quiet life for a while, there was no point in having distractions as I may as well have stayed in the UK. However, there is a drawback to that. Although I’m not of the generation that has been brought up with the internet being seen as a fundamental human right, I have been brought up with computers and technology around me and when I was 18 or so I bought my first computer that had internet connection and ever since I have been used to using it as a normal part of the day; you check emails, you book cinema tickets, you use Facebook and so on…but also, as I have recently been reminded, I use it as a constant reference and research tool. Not only while I was studying for my literature degree as a formal ‘studying’ tool (not cheating…come on now) but as part of every job I have had and every interest, it is just there. In the context of writing, whenever I need to check a spelling that is not automatically picked up by Word, do I get up off my seat and pick up my dictionary? No, of course I bloody well don’t and now do I feel silly! I actually became a little bit hot and flustered the other day when I went to my ‘reference’ shelf (I am so organized sometimes it makes me feel ashamed, as if I need to take up day time boozing…or rather…increase my daytime boozing) and attempted some old school physical research. It’s been a while. It was very nice actually, a reminder of the way things used to work, struggling through countless books to find the right one and so on. Let’s be honest though, it doesn’t half take a long time. Well compared to what we are used to now that is. Online, it takes just a few clicks, a few words of text and bang, there you are, problem solved.

So here’s something to embarrass myself with, take a look at these:

I won this at school, I still use it.

This was a school prize (ooouuu, get me) in 1994, again, I always reach for it in times of bad signal.

By comparing against the size of my hand, you may, like me, question the use of the word, 'Pocket'.

It feels almost criminal I don’t use these anymore, but here’s the thing. They are too heavy to take with me! I’ve heard this argument many a time over the last couple of years on various forums that are discussing eReaders. For the record I love both paper books and electronic books, they will both be around for a long long time yet. But without digressing, in terms of weight, of course it is fantastic that a Kindle can hold so many books (more of that later…) because it is simply not practical to carry around so many items when travelling. Next year I am facing that problem, I can’t take with me several kilos of text and reference books, but at the same time my Internet connection may not be nowhere near what I currently take for granted. So, in a way it’s an adventure. It’s going to test me, I am going to have to think things through and not just consider that every obscure idea can be instantly researched.

And what the hell am I going to do without this!

Back to my Kindle…over the last couple of weeks I have been on Amazon’s Kindle Store several times because next year as I said on the last blog I have the chance to catch up on the pleasure of reading. I haven’t read a fraction of what I should have over the last few years so I am really looking forward to having the time to get through…well, get through the over 300 titles I have now downloaded! Let me list a handful of the authors for you:

  • Kingsley Amis
  • Anthony Burgess
  • Evelyn Waugh
  • Honore de Balsac
  • V.S Naipaul
  • Johanna Spyri
  • Cormac McCarthy
  • Frances Hodgson Burnett
  • Thomas Pynchon
  • Jerome K Jerome
  • Vladimir Nabokov
  • John Milton
  • Dante Alighieri
  • James Joyce
  • Anna Sewell
  • Ayn Rand
  • J.G Ballard
  • Virginia Woolf
  • David Foster Wallace
  • Graham Greene
  • Alexandre Dumas
  • Kurt Vonnegut
  • Italo Calvino
  • H.G Wells
  • Jules Verne
  • Laurence Sterne
  • Joseph Conrad
  • Anthony Trollope
  • Rudyard Kipling
  • Roald Dahl
  • Edith Nesbit
  • David Hume
  • D.H Lawrence
  • Albert Camus
  • Herman Melville


Now the list doesn’t have much by way of this century I know, but I have a lot of those on my bookshelves and I’m not purchasing duplicates. I should say too that the vast majority were free eBooks or priced very low, I couldn’t have afforded to buy the latest versions of all of them, with introductions, forewords, bibliographies, etc. etc. With the exception of a handful they are just the plain text versions. (Which by the way is amazing, how fantastic for people who want to read that they have access to so many books, I remember when I was younger how desperately I was to get my hands on some of these, and yes, I went to the library, but the inspiration and motivation having this sort of access must give to young readers and potential writers is huge, and I think brilliant) Also, there a lot of short stories in there, author’s tend to have a backlog of short stories that people have never heard of, not everyone of course, but a lot do and it’s been great to get those and I hope I learn a lot from them. And yes, I don’t think for a second that I will get through all of them, it’s a classic exercise that most people do, download tonnes of stuff that will forever remain on 1%, however, I do have a year to myself and even if I don’t finish everything, there is a lot to learn stylistically from even just an opening chapter.) There are a mixture of classics and modern that I have wanted to read for some time now but I have no order of preference or any plan on how to attack that list, I’m simply going to start at the top and work my way through, I’m a few chapters into ‘The Old Devils’ by Kingsley Amis and it’s already made my fingers itch to get typing.



I would like to take a moment to say thank you to everyone who has wished me good luck for next year. You have been very encouraging and it has meant a lot to me. As much as I am excited I will miss my friends and family and the nerves are building up. I hope that I can be as focused once I’m out there as I feel I want to be, I want it to be a productive year, not for any other reason than for its own sake, I just want to get some work done.

I was flicking through a quotations book I have the other day, and there was something from George Orwell’s collected essays that caught my eye. I haven’t had much fun the last couple of years, it has been a tough period for me, but the sense of fun and adventure I know is still inside me, it’s waiting to come out again. I want to be able to express myself through writing with absolute honesty and integrity, and perhaps being away for a while, and having nothing to focus on except my work, will help me to do that, to recapture that sense of awe of the world and allow myself to enjoy the day with silliness. I don’t believe that child life is the ‘only’ real life, we experience real life every day, but we can forget what we want to be, and what we want to feel, so the quote made me feel connected to the child in me but appreciate the adult I am…and I’m taking it as a challenge for 2014.

 “The child thinks of growing old as an almost obscene calamity, which for some mysterious reason will never happen to itself. All who have passed the age of thirty are joyless grotesques, endlessly fussing about things of no importance and staying alive without, so far as the child can see, having anything to live for. Only child life is real life.”

RGR
www.thinkingplainly.com


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Sunday, 24 November 2013

My birthday present to myself: Quit the job and move to Spain.

Dear all,

Sorry it’s been a while since I have blogged. I have been meaning to and meaning to…but…you know how it goes.

I should warn you, I’m going to do some uncontrollable chatting here, I’ll do my best to keep it coherent but it may meander. It feels like I have a lot to say, but it’s probably mostly headlines, let me get the initial news out of my system and then perhaps I can do further blogs later. 

So…

Part One – Change

1. I have resigned from my job.

2. I’m going to move to Spain for a year.

I have been at my current place of work for nearly nine years but the last two have been pretty miserable. Now the thing is, my last day is the 23rd December so I haven’t actually left yet. I don’t feel it’s right to talk about it until I have gone. I won’t be mentioning names or anything like that regardless, but it just seems a bit unfair to talk about why I have decided to leave when I still have a month to see through. So this one is definitely a blog for the New Year, let’s catch up about it later. For now, let’s just say that it was a good job but I wasn’t happy there anymore.

Number 2 then.

I spent my 20s paying off the debt I managed to accrue from moving out of home at 17 and having a somewhat insouciant attitude with money (well, not entirely without merit, I did some good with it.) Then, so far, my 30s have been all about saving. I turned 34 last week and I have managed to save up a decent amount of money. I have no debt; I have no responsibilities at all in fact! And there is the key to it. A couple of years back, I had a girlfriend, I was enjoying my job, I was looking at options of buying a property and it was all going in the right direction. Then life took one of its somersaults it unpredictably decides to do every now and again and I find myself in a different position. The girlfriend decided her life was better without me in it, the job took a good left-right left-right combination to the jaw and when it finally came to being serious about house-hunting I realised I couldn’t afford to buy square root of bugger all. The thing that you have to appreciate is that I live in London and like many cities and many economies, there are always options, but you have to be careful. You can sign up to something that hurts you more than it helps you and did I really want to tie myself into a serious amount of debt when I wasn’t happy in the other areas of my life? Possibly trapping me into being somewhere and doing something I may not want to? You can look up all the statistics you want, you can compare yourself to a thousand different metrics, friends, family or just your own expectations. But when it comes down to it, you have to answer to yourself with brutal honesty, so I saw it like this. I have money saved, not enough to travel the world and live carefree, but enough that I could take a year out and think things through (frugally that is) so what is stopping me? The thought that I will shortly be in my mid 30s without a job, without a pension, without a home, without being married, without having kids…without having stability. Now you can read that last sentence like a worried and anxious parent who is concerned their child is throwing away their career…or you can read that sentence like Austin Powers who has just realised he is single again. Pessimist or optimist?

I didn’t think of it in either way if I am honest, but I did ask myself some very searching questions.

1. Was I serious about writing?
      2. Did I believe in myself?
3. Did I feel like an adventure?
4. Did I feel I needed to take a positive step in my life?

I answered all of those: Yes.

5. Did I enjoy my job so much that I couldn’t think of life without it?
6. Did I enjoy my job so much that I was happy with it taking away my time and energy from writing?
7. Did I love money so much I couldn’t give up my decent salary?
8. Did I see myself working until 65 (67, 68, 69…70!) in the same field of work?
9. Was I scared of trying something new?
    10. Was I scared of failing?
    11. Was I scared of starting all over?

I answered all of those: No.

Then I gave myself a whole bunch of ‘what if’ questions and tested myself over and over on how serious I was. Over the course of just a week, I finally made my mind up.

What if…I quit my job and used up my savings to live in Spain for a year? What if I lived on my own and wrote every day? What if I spent a year living healthily and exercising every day? What if I spent a year working on Thinking Plainly Limited without interruption? What if I just did it?

Well I am just doing it. My last day at work is the 23rd December and I fly out to Spain 8th January.

Part Two - Hopes

So whether you want to pat me on the back and say what a brave thing to do, or perhaps you want to give me a slap around the face and tell me how foolhardy I am being; here is what I am hoping for.

At the top of the list of course has to be the hope that I write every day. It’s not really a hope though is it! It is a promise to myself. A guarantee. A self-imposed directive. I must write! There is absolutely no point at all in doing this if I don’t work the hardest I have ever worked. Not in the same sense that you work hard for your company, or your boss, your family, your partner or whatever it may be, but in order to prove to myself that I am capable of doing what I think I can, then I am going to have to push myself hard every day.

This is where I need to stop and explain something that is niggling at me. I’ve just been telling you how the last couple of years have been tough blah blah as if I’m the only one who has ever gone through a difficult period, and in one respect it looks as if I am giving up on my current life because it hasn’t turned into the life I thought it would be…well that is sort of true. I am giving up. I am changing direction. I’m not where I thought I would be. However, I do not want to sound like a spoilt naïve don’t-know-how-lucky-I-am western developed world arrogant middle class pretentious kid. I know how lucky I am. I was born in one of the most privileged cities in the world, I had a good education, I had a mother who did everything she could for me, I always had support in whatever I wanted to do, I have had nothing but minor health issues, I have always had employment and I have always had friends. I’m not throwing that away in a fit of temper because I was dumped, or because my job has become more unpleasant, or because I can’t afford to buy a nice big house in the country. For anyone reading this who has followed me over the last two years you may be wondering what the hell I am complaining about! I set up Thinking Plainly Limited on the 17th January 2012 and therefore just a matter of days after packing my bags for the continent I will be celebrating the second anniversary of my own company. I’m fantastically proud of that and if I were to look at that alone, the last two years have been amazing! I have self-published, I have published others, I have met fantastic new friends and learnt more about the process and the business of writing than I ever could have imagined. I have more reason to be hopeful about the future than ever! AND THAT IS THE POINT! It is not because I am ungrateful for the life I have and it is not because I think I am owed a life better than anyone else. I just want something different.

So, yes, I saw myself working at my current job for many more years to come, at one point I saw a life long career there. Yes, I still love London. Yes, I still love my friends and family. But my circumstances have changed and instead of working around them and adapting to a new version of my current life, I am going to fold my hand in and ask for a new one. It’s only a year for goodness sake! It will probably go in the blink of an eye, who knows what I will feel like in a year’s time, what other influences will have affected me, what other opportunities or disasters may come my way. There is nothing wrong in giving something a try is there? It is almost guaranteed that if you offer up a suggestion like this to someone who is older than you, their first response will be to say something along the lines of, ‘I wish I had done something like that.’ They will encourage you to try, and to experiment as they often regret not taking a leap of faith themselves, and so all I am doing is taking them at their word and putting myself in a position where when I (cross-fingers!) turn 50, 60, 70, 80 years old I can be satisfied with myself that I tried. So should I come back in a year’s time, broke, unemployed, without a single page of writing to my name…but a smile on my face, I hope that’s good enough!

(But I won’t I promise you, there WILL be lots of new stories.)

So back to the hopes, thanks for keeping with me.

I hope that time out of London will give me the opportunity to slow my life down. I find it hard to accept that my last self-published story went online in July 2012. I have thoroughly enjoyed working with the new Thinking Plainly authors, Rufus Garlic and Alfred Duff however, that has been enormous fun and a fantastic learning process that has made me a better writer and more focused on the business of writing than ever before, so I have a lot to thank them for. It has taken up a lot of time but every minute has been worthwhile. It is more that I have found it increasingly difficult to get home from the day job and still be able to clear my mind enough to sit down and write. It just doesn’t happen anymore. As a result I haven’t been able to finish anything.  My mind is cluttered. Having time away from everything I hope will empty my mind of anything not related to my writing.

I hope that alongside the writing itself, I can also focus properly on the business side of things. For instance, I haven’t concentrated any time on marketing this year at all, I haven’t developed my accounts with Kobo, Scribd and other platforms, I haven’t developed my knowledge of Google advertising and social media strategies, I haven’t developed…well, let’s just say I have a lot on the business side that I want to take more seriously and I hope this will give me the time to research and learn.

I hope to READ! Remember that! Ah, those wonderful days when you could float away with a book and not have the next day’s meeting on your mind, or the report that still needs to be finished pushing its way into your personal time. It has been years since I have devoured novels one after the other just for fun and enjoyment. I want to get back to that. My ‘to-read’ list has been disgustingly untouched and only grown over the years so I need to do read again!

I hope to become a calmer person. This is something everyone can relate to I’m sure but especially when living in a busy city like London you can allow the pressures of daily life to erode you somewhat. I don’t like the fact I can be quite a rude person when I am on the rush hour train, I can be irritable, unpleasant, withdrawn. I don’t like having to sit on a train, squeezed into an uncomfortable position, for up to an hour just putting my life on pause until I can unfold myself on the other side. I can’t take listening to people’s music devices playing too loudly out of their earphones, and sometimes, just straight from their phones or whatever. I can’t relax, I can’t settle. I don’t like how people talk about such private and personal information openly to a carriage full of strangers, freely swearing and cursing even when young children are present. I don’t like how people are so disconnected from personal-responsibility that whether it is a 45 year old businessman in an expensive suit or a 17 year old jack-the-lad in tracksuit and hoodie, everyone just discards their newspapers, empty (or still full) coffee cups, banana skins, chocolate bar wrappers and whatever else they have on them, straight onto empty seats near them or simply to the floor. People do not care anymore at all. They expect someone else will come along and tidy up for them. Someone, more often than not, from another country that has arrived to Britain to work hard for a better life and be part of a progressive liberal society, ends up picking up the litter of people who seemingly don’t care about anyone outside their immediate circle of family and friends. It’s like watching a distorted sense of upstairs-downstairs class and race snobbery every morning and evening.  That’s just one example. I could go on. I don’t want to get stressed anymore watching people disrespect their environment, their community and society in general. At the moment, I see it on a daily basis. As a result, I have become a bitter person. And I repeat. I love London. I just feel that a bit of space and time alone will help me feel compassionate again. I would like to be able to walk the streets, travel on public transport, drink in the pubs, eat in the restaurants without having a built up irritability ready to be triggered by the smallest of impolite gestures.

I am hoping to blog properly! As regular readers may have noticed, I haven’t been posting as regularly as I should have, and as I want to. I just find it hard to fit it in. Not only do I want to blog more often but I want to be a better blogger. If I can have the time to blog more then I would like to include my experiences in Spain, a sort of travel diary I suppose (although I won’t be travelling much, but you know what I mean), how I am finding it being alone and how my writing is going, perhaps to talk about other aspects of my life that are the background to my writing, maybe I can include thoughts on my influences, my interests, my struggles with writing, with my health, with depression, with money, with all the things that have made me, me. I have focused on writing specifically in the past because that is the community I want to be part of, but with more time, perhaps I can widen that so that it is a personal blog that doesn’t have to separate the aspiring writer me, with the me that makes up everything I am.

I hope to enjoy living in a different country! It seems obvious doesn’t it? It’s not though. People can find it very hard to integrate into another society. I’m only going for a year but I don’t intend on just sitting inside all day. I want to learn the language. I want to do lots of walking to experience the country. I want to cook their cuisine. I want to be part of their community. That doesn’t mean I am going to neglect my work. If I am serious about wanting to get a lot done then I expect to be at my laptop writing for several hours a day, writing can be an unsociable business, but I am not going to isolate myself. When I mentioned above why I feel I can be a less-tolerant person than I like to be, than I know I am, because of the strains of living in such a highly populated busy city, I know those same pressures apply to people all over the world. I don’t expect those to simply go away, but I do want to experience life without them for a while, I want to not always be in a rush.

Part Three – Keep Reading!


I want anyone reading this to know I am not rich. Once my savings go, that’s it. No one is going to bail me out, I don’t have a family trust fund waiting to mature, I don’t have a job waiting for me…I don’t have anything in fact! I have enough to last a year if I live on a very tight budget. I need to eat and drink with restraint (which is good because another thing about living in a busy area like I do is that the temptation to live off fast food has finally broken me. I used to exercise every day and cook. Now I rarely even go for a walk and eat take away food constantly. As a result I have put on a lot of weight this year and I am deeply unhappy about that) and enjoy the simple pleasures of walking rather than spending ridiculous amounts on going out. I don’t even think about it when buying a pint of beer in the pub and it costs £4 or £5, buying a very average sandwich for the same, it’s normal. The amount I spend on things that I don’t need to really upsets me and I want to get back to living a much simpler life. I’ve lost my self-control when it comes to that and I want it back. I hope I have come across okay in this blog, it’s far more personal than any I have written before, and it will only become more personal in the future, so I’ll say just one last time that I am a very average normal personal that wants to be a writer, wants to share my experiences and wants to take a risk.

Thanks for reading this, I hope you will keep reading my blog next year and keeping in touch with what I am up to (including those promised new short stories!) Don’t forget to follow me on all my other social media sites too. I have no idea what the Internet connection situation is like where I am going and how easy it will be for me to be active on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and all the rest of it, but either way, here’s hoping I get a lot of work done!

One more thing…don’t ask me about 2015…I have no idea!


Take care everyone,



RGR

P.S: Please join me on all my social media pages:
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Sunday, 27 October 2013

Wait for my birthday :)

Dear all, the last few months have been an up and down time for me (well last two years really...!) and I haven't blogged as much as I would have liked to, but I have lots of news and lots I want to share with you so this is a quick update to say I haven't disappeared! There is so much I want to tell you about my personal progress, Thinking Plainly's development, the people I am working with and the plans for 2014 but due to time pressures I think I am going to save it all up for one big blog in November, it's my birthday on the 19th, so I'll make sure I take time out to write a proper piece, and then hopefully as you will find out from that, January and 2014 will be a much freer time for me to post regularly and devote quality time to writing. Thanks for your patience and all of your support following me on my blog so far!

Take care everyone,

RGR


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Monday, 23 September 2013

Jade Kerrion Guest Blog Part Two: Author Interview

Please enjoy a guest blog author interview with Jade Kerrion who's here to talk about how she got into writing and her latest novel, Perfection Challenged.
1. Do you recall how your interest in writing originated?
I started writing at the age of thirteen when my school essays were returned to me with a bunch of “A”s scrawled over the top. Teenagers are impressionable. Being much more impressionable than most, and believing that my teachers knew what they were doing, I figured I was destined to be a writer. It’s only taken me tens of thousands of hours of work since then to be halfway decent at writing (and I’m still learning each day), but one has to start somewhere.
2. When did you start taking writing seriously?
In November 2010, my husband challenged me to stop writing for fun and to start writing as a career. National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) 2010 was the trigger. I spent that month writing Perfection Unleashed, my debut novel.
3. How many books have you written?
I released Perfection Unleashed in June 2012. To date, I have published six books; I’ve just released Perfection Challenged, the conclusion of my seven-time award-winning Double Helix series. I have another novel, Eternal Night, a paranormal romance/fantasy set in the future (sounds odd, doesn’t it?), scheduled for release in 2013.
4. What was your journey to becoming an author like?
Rocky, as most journeys are. For a while, I explored traditional publishing, but then decided I was too much of a control freak to take to traditional publishing. I preferred having creative control over my writing, artistic control over my covers, and process control over my publishing schedules. In the end, self-publishing made the most sense for me. That said, I do have a foot in the door of traditional publishing. McSill Literary Agency represents Portuguese rights for my Double Helix series.
5. Is there anything specifically that helps you write better/inspires you?
I think I’m past the stage of needing inspiration; writing is more of a compulsion now. In general, I have a compulsive personality; people like me should never get exposed to alcohol, cigarettes, or recreational drugs—we’re easy prey. Years ago, computer gaming and writing used to go hand-in-hand for me. My characters from my computer games inspired my writing. Since then, however, my characters have taken on a life of their own and thus, I have been freed to happily obsess about them without needing the occasional computer gaming boost to sustain them.
6. What's the hardest part of writing for you?
The hardest part is stopping. After multiple rounds of self-editing, several weeks of working with my editor, and several rounds of proofreading, I have to put the manuscript away and say “done.” I think it is entirely possible to edit forever, but at some point, you have to stop and send the book out into the world.
7. Do you have a specific writing style?
Third person past tense? To be honest, I’m not sure I know the response to this question. Some people say my style is much like one author or another (which would be an interesting feat, considering I’ve never read some of those authors.) Broadly, I’d say that my style tends to resemble serials or movies. I grew up writing fan fiction, and got accustomed to writing sections of chapters that almost inevitably ended on a cliffhanger just because that’s the way fan fiction is usually consumed on online fan forums. In addition, I write the movie I see in my head, and not surprisingly, people have commented that reading my books is like watching a movie.
8. Who is your favorite author?
Neil Gaiman is pure genius in his storytelling ability. I’m a huge fan of his Sandman series.
9. What are your favorite books and what genres do you prefer?
Science fiction and fantasy are my favorite genres to read and write. I’ve especially enjoyed the Belgariad and Mallorean series by David Eddings. To unwind, I settle down with a sweet and satisfying romance, preferably Nora Roberts. I also enjoy thrillers, especially some of Robert Ludlum’s novels.
10. What is some good advice/tips for young writers/aspiring unpublished authors?
Success in any new career takes time. Be patient. Invest in yourself—understand your strengths and weaknesses as a writer and be committed to continual learning and constant growth. It is said that it takes 10,000 hours of work to become an expert in a field. That’s approximately 5 years of full time 8-to-5 work, and you need to be prepared to make the investment of your time and resources for the long haul.
11. Advice for getting rid of writer's block?
I think writer’s block is just an excuse. Writing is a discipline, like going to school or work each day, like exercising and eating healthy. It’s just something to have to do because it’s an expectation for achieving your career goals as a writer. Maybe that particular scene isn’t working out the way you want, well, work on another, but work on something. Thomas Edison said it best, “Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration.” Today, you may not have the 1%, but you sure can muster up the 99% because that is under your control.
12. A favorite quote of yours you'd like to share?
Neil Gaiman’s character, Death, from the Sandman series, utters my favorite quote, “It always ends. That’s what gives it value.” That quote reminds me that what makes any experience, even life as a whole, valuable, is the fact that it ends. Because it ends, every moment is that much more precious and beautiful. Savor it.
13. What would you be if you didn't become an author?
Well, I’m already several things. In addition to author, wife, and mother, I work full time in an education company in the area of business and learning strategy. I enjoy my job very much and don’t have any intention of quitting. People often ask how I find time to do everything I do. My response is always the same, “You’ll always manage to find time for the things that matter. Oh, and I don’t sleep much.”
14. Can you share some info about your current work with us?
Danyael Sabre’s hard-won normal life shattered the day Zara Itani freed the genetically engineered perfect human being, Galahad, from his laboratory prison. Three years have since passed. Danyael has survived months of brutal torture and the grind of quiet despite without losing the core of compassion that makes him the most compelling and infuriating man Zara has ever known.
Danyael’s greatest challenge, nevertheless, lies ahead of him. In Perfection Challenged, Danyael is forced to confront his own mortality and Galahad’s hate. At the end of his road, will he remain true to his convictions or sacrifice all to protect the woman he loves from the man who hates him?
15. Do you have anything specific that you want to say to your readers?
Only that I’m thrilled you’ve enjoyed my novels. To every one of you, thank you for sharing this journey with me. Your enthusiasm, support, and love for my characters are the reasons I keep writing. I hope you keep hanging around. The best is yet to come.
“The best of the four books…the perfect ending to an amazing series.”
Perfection Challenged, the thrilling conclusion to the multiple award-winning, bestselling DOUBLE HELIX series, is finally here. Grab your copy today. If you've never picked up the DOUBLE HELIX series, keep reading for a special offer on the six-time award-winning novel, Perfection Unleashed.

perfection-challenged-600x800PERFECTION CHALLENGED

An alpha empath, Danyael Sabre has survived abominations and super soldiers, terrorists and assassins, but he cannot survive his failing body. He wants only to live out his final days in peace, but life and the woman he loves, the assassin Zara Itani, have other plans for him. Galahad, the perfect human being created by Pioneer Labs, is branded an international threat, and Danyael is appointed his jury, judge, and executioner. Danyael alone believes that Galahad can be the salvation that the world needs, but is the empath blinded by the fact that Galahad shares his genes, and the hope that there is something of him in Galahad? In a desperate race against time and his own dying body, Danyael struggles to find fragments of good in the perfect human being, and comes to the wrenching realization that his greatest battle will be a battle for the heart of the man who hates him. E-books available at Amazon / Amazon UK / Apple iTunes / Barnes & Noble / Kobo / Smashwords Paperbacks available at Amazon / Amazon UK

PERFECTION UNLEASHED Perfection Unleashed

"Higher octane than Heroes. More heart than X-Men." Recipient of six literary awards, including First place in Science Fiction, Reader Views Literary Awards 2012 and Gold medal winner, Science Fiction, Readers Favorites 2013. FOR A LIMITED TIME, E-BOOKS AVAILABLE FOR JUST $0.99 (Discounted from $2.99) E-books available at Amazon / Amazon UK / Apple / Barnes & Noble / Kobo / Smashwords Paperbacks available at Amazon / Amazon UK / Barnes & Noble / Book Depository Connect with Jade Kerrion: Website / Facebook / Twitter
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