Dear all,
It’s Thinking Plainly
Limited’s third year anniversary! This time last year I was having a meal (on
my own…wipe your tears, please) in a beautiful restaurant in the town of
Alcudia, Majorca. It was only my second week away (for those who don’t know I
spent 2014 living in Spain) so I was partly worried about spending money on a
meal out so soon and partly worried about what the hell I was doing moving away at all! A glass or two of red wine calmed me down
and as I’ve said many times since coming home it turned out to be a
fantastic year and I loved my time there. However, that doesn’t take away the
fact that although it is a day to celebrate (we all love anniversary’s don’t
we and as much as I am finding it hard to believe a year has passed so quickly, it is nice that I started the company in January because it feels like a good way to kick off the year) I have to be honest and say that because I spent last year away there isn’t a huge amount I can say by way
of published achievements for 2014. It was a productive year in terms of getting ideas together though; it was very much a year of thinking (stop it… plainly… couldn’t help yourself could
you) and getting my head back into a decent way of working again, and as much
as I made a lot of progress with ideas, drafts and notes; the real work starts
this year. So instead of talking about last year I am going to take this
opportunity to talk about the year ahead.
First of all I am very pleased
to announce that Alfred Duff has finished the second book set in his fantasy
world of, ‘The Warspite Series’ and we have published it on Amazon this week.
‘The Witch and the Dark Arts’ is available now and is free to download today. A further blog post about the book in more detail will be coming soon.
Secondly, Alfred has been busy working on the third book in the series and it
won’t be long before you can find out the latest in the world of the ‘Old
Globe’. Announcements soon!
Amazon UK: amzn.to/1u0GLDg &
Amazon US: amzn.to/1wRj2GK
I am also pleased to say that
Rufus Garlic has been working hard on preparing a whole series of flash fiction
that is in the last stages of development and we will be releasing several
stories a week on the website Wattpad, soon. Details to be posted on our
social media sites. He has also been working on continuing his successful
series of short stories on Amazon and new titles will be announced shortly.
So it seems that although I was
being a lazy beach bum, my two colleagues kept up a hard working pace!
I have already told you about
what I am up to now I am back in previous posts so I won’t go on again here.
Suffice to say I will be keeping you up to date on my second blog about the
progress of my novel and I will be posting on my social media sites when my new
short stories are ready (still aiming for one a month…)
What I will take a minute to share with you is what this three year anniversary means to me in terms of my personal vision. Simply a brief reflection on the time since I started the company and took more seriously the idea of trying to develop my writing skills.
I am happy with how things
have gone that is for sure. I am more than happy, I am very proud and very
excited for the future as well. I never thought this would be a quick project.
I had no delusions of overnight success or indeed success at all! I
knew I would work hard and stick at it and that was enough for me, success was
something I didn’t care to think about. I still don’t. There are many reasons
why people write and as I have learnt more and more about the business of self
publishing over these last few years I have understood my reasons for wanting
to write in a clearer and more defined way. Before, it was a hazy theoretical guess.
I knew I wanted to write, but recently – and my year away was a big part of this
– I have come to terms with the reasons being... well, hazy and theoretical! That’s
because my reasons haven’t changed and to be frank they are hazy. What I want for the future is not easily explained but I can tell you what those reasons aren't, and never were - It is not
about money, fame, recognition, reputation, media attention or those such things. It is a very simple premise but harder to define: I want to produce a piece of work that I can
be really proud of. Such a straightforward idea but when you examine that,
and I have I assure you, it is a complex statement. I don’t want to dissect it
here and now, today is a day for celebrating and I am looking forward to a pint
of beer in my local pub with Alfred and Rufus. What I will say is that to
produce a piece of work can take a very long time indeed… after many trials and errors, many false starts, many wrong turns and many poor pieces of work... and that is why I am
more than happy to admit, and in fact, I want it to be known, three years is
nothing. It is the merest blink of an eye when staring off into the distance of a
long, long race. It is only the drawing of breath as you warm up… we haven’t
even started yet. There is so much to do and I have so much to learn and so
much to develop.
For now I will raise a glass. I may not be
where I want to be for another three, thirteen or even thirty years but I’ll keep on
going and I hope those of you who stick around with me, with Alfred and Rufus,
with Thinking Plainly Limited will enjoy the journey with us.
Enjoy your Sunday everyone J
Take care,
RGR
Please join me on all my
social media pages:
Blog 2: https://rgrankine2.blogspot.com
And Author Profile Pages to
keep informed of the latest releases:
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