A Blog with a Difference

Hello there, and welcome to my very first blog on “A Little Bit of Blake”! Now, it’s not the first blog I’ve ever attempted, but hopefully this will be the first blog I stick at. Several years ago I started a blog on my website, but I was a brand-new author and completely clueless about how to promote myself and my books. I had no internet presence to speak of, so had no way to drive footfall to my website. Eventually, I grew discouraged at the lack of response, at that feeling I was whispering into the void, and gave up.

Time passed, I published a few more books, became a little more experienced and decided to have another go at this whole blogging lark. This time I started a blog on Goodreads, figuring I might get a bit more traction there, but again, quickly grew bored and the lapses between blogs grew longer until finally I had to admit to myself it was going nowhere and abandoned that one as well.

But now, a few years, a few books and a lot more friends and followers later, I’m going to have another try and this time I think it might stick, because I finally understand what I want my blog to be about.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m an author, I write and publish books, so a good proportion of my blogs will be about books – both mine and other authors – and the whole writing process in general, but that’s not all I am. I’m a single mother, I’m a busy working woman, I’m a reader and reviewer, I’m a complex and multi-faceted person who is interested in a wide range of far reaching topics. Most of all, I’m someone who appreciates that life is sometimes wonderful, sometimes not so much, that it is complicated and hard and difficult. That every day we all get up, shape up and try to make the best we can of what’s been given us. Yet life is also amazing and diverse and best of all, funny. That’s what I want to blog about, life and everything that it entails.

Once a month, sometimes more often, I will have a guest on my blog who has an interesting story to tell. Not just authors, but people from other walks of life as well. People who’ve done something amazing, have faced the darkness and fought their way back to the light. People who are giving everything they have for something they believe in. People – wonderful, diverse, real people with honest tales of real life. That’s what I want my blog to be about, you guys! So, if you have a story you think might be of interest to others then please get in touch and maybe you could be a future guest. If you’ve done something amazing, or are doing something fantastic, then likewise get in touch.

I do hope you’ll stick around. I can’t guarantee you’ll always be interested in everything I blog about. I can’t promise you’ll find my guests interesting, but I can promise to do my best to entertain and enlighten you.

And of course I will talk about this crazy writing journey that I’m on, the ups and downs, the funny bits and the soul destroying bits, but this will be different from the normal authors blogs in that I won’t preach or tell you what you’re doing is wrong. I’m not really the best person to give advice as I’m still pretty much fumbling around in the dark myself. What I will offer is support and encouragement, and the knowledge that you are not alone. That whatever you are going through, I’ve probably been through it as well, or at the very least know someone else who has.

So, what do you think? Worth a look? If I’ve piqued your interest even a little, then why not check my blog every Sunday to see what my week has been like and check out my latest guest. I’m always open to suggestions for any topics you’d like me to explore, or maybe you’d simply like to comment on something in the blog that has touched a nerve with you.

Next Sunday is Father’s Day in the UK and I’ll be looking at the very sensitive subject of how to handle it if your child’s father is absent from their lives. This was a real issue for me when my daughter was younger, and I’ll talk about how we handled – and continue to handle it – together.