Blog Archives - First Quarter '06
March 2006
[Monday March 27, 2006] Obsession!
Must...stop...obsessing. Must...stop...visiting my own site to see if the hit counter has gone up. (Yeah, I know; I'm the one sending it up.) Three days after going live, and I still can't sleep properly. Still dreaming about Google. Am I turning up on Google? Is anyone Googling me? Is all that money I'm spending on ads worth it? What if they do click on me, spend nine seconds on my website and then leave? What if they click on me, groan, roll their eyes, suck their teeth and then leave?
What if I threw a party and nobody came?
This is stupid. I've got to give it up before I drive myself nuts. Stop checking the damn hit counter. Stop checking my damn web stats. Stop fiddling with my keywords. These things take time. Breathe, Ros, breathe!
[Friday March 23, 2006] Live at last!
Finally I am up and running. After more than a month of work on my website, which saw me giving up sleep, sacrificing time with my little ones, weeping, tearing out my cuticles, compulsively overeating and generally being a real crab with just about everybody, it's actually online. Here's to a renewed relationship with my readers, after a long, dry period when my site was down and I was isolated from them in far-off Trinidad. Now we can talk any old time we like. Ain't the Web grand?
[Thursday 23rd March, 2006]
Just had one of those heart-stopping experiences that make being a writer all
worthwhile: I just happened to stumble across the cover of my new novel, my yet
unpublished novel, on Amazon. It is the closest thing I have gotten to
that first moment when I look down and see my baby's face for the first time.
It's beautiful! It really, really is. What a great piece of artwork.
Wanna see it? Bang!
A thing of beauty is a joy forever. I can't wait to hold it!
[Thursday 17th March, 2006]
Almost ready to go online for real. Just waiting on the cartoon I commissioned for my header, and then bam, ready to roll. Getting awful stage fright. What if nobody visits my website? Kind of like throwing a party, and nobody comes, huh!
I know that not living in the US has me at a huge disadvantage where publicity is concerned, because it's not that easy to pop down to the nearest bookstore and hold a signing. That has always been a drawback for me. I realize that advertising is going to have to be key for me, in spite of what it'll cost me. I've begun to look around for good sites that might offer advertising space, where I might be able to set up some links.
Not that that would be a magic wand, but I know that over time, and with hard work, I will be able to build a community here, where people can come and chat with each other, comment on books they've read, and what they'd like to see. That's my long term goal.
[Tuesday 7th March 2006] Achoo!
Down with the Carnival flu, which runs rampant every year right about now. What do you expect with a few hundred thousand people partying in close proximity to each other for days on end? Hubby sick, kids sick, and here I am, playing Florence Nightingale. Question is, who's going to look after me?
Not to mention how much this is going to set my website work back...
[Wednesday 1st March 2006] Ash Wednesday
Ah, what a Carnival!
I'm so tired I don't know how I'm going to make it through the day. Ash
Wednesday is always one of the hardest days of the year to get through, if
you're one of the sticks in the mud like me who actually go to work. For
the party goers, the Carnival doesn't end at midnight on Tuesday like it used
to. There are humongous parties going on at beaches all over the island,
with thousands of people flocking there to cool of and listen to more Soca
music.
As a Carnival person to the bone, I have to admit that family constraints have made it harder for me to participate as much as I used to, but I still try to do something. This year, I had the strange feeling of looking at the festivities through the eyes of my characters. In Then I Found You, there was a scene that takes place early on Carnival Monday morning, at the crack of dawn, during the J'Ourvert (day opening) celebrations, when people slather themselves in things like mud, clay, paint, grease, oil and (yummy!) chocolate, and go dancing in the streets, following huge trucks loaded with eardrum shattering soca music. It's wonderful. You feel so carefree, with the cool morning air blowing in your hair, and the scent of all that excitement, all those happy people dancing by....
I think next year I am definitely taking up the mantle once again, and playing "Mud Mas".
February 2006
[Friday February 14th 2006] Carnival Friday!
It's Carnival Friday! One of my favorite times of the year. The
country has virtually shut down from now until Ash Wednesday. Tomorrow I
will be taking my toddler to the Children's Carnival street parade, the one I
described in Then I Found You. There will be tens of thousands of
children dancing in the street in their costumes, parading for hours, keeping
hydrated on snow cones, just biding their time until they dance across the main
stage at the Queen's Park Savannah (where I had Kenya and Damon engaged in a
serious make-out session on Carnival Sunday night.)
I'm always happy to see the children "play 'mas" as we call it, because then it lets me know that my country's cultural heritage is in good hands. Here's an old shot of me at age six, dressed up as a Senorita,. I was Queen of a band designed and produced by my mother, called 'Ole!' Even at that age, I loved the drama.
[Friday, February 17th 2006] What a Week!
It’s been a long and exhausting week, but not a bad one at all. I’ve spent the last few days scurrying around trying to get my website going again. Haven’t had much luck, except for a bit of copy and a pretty new template. My last few websites were designed by hand, in Notepad. Let me tell you, those days are long gone.
Had good news, though. Arabesque, now owned by Harlequin, has made me a very nice offer for two new romances, my 11th and 12th novels so far. Of course, I said yes. My life is so full these days, you wouldn’t be able to slide a bamboo leaf in edgeways, but I will always make time for my writing.
[Wednesday February 15th 2006] Kidnapping most heinous
After allowing a busy work and writing schedule (and new-found motherhood, twice over) to distract me from propping up my ailing website, I decided with renewed gusto to get back in to the game and revive the poor, suffering thing.
Imagine my horror when I learned that roslyncarrington.com had been snatched right out from under my feet by some nefarious character who has now registered it as his own. A nauseating feeling indeed, to see your own name being claimed by someone else, and knowing that there’s nothing you can do about it. Sort of like finding out that your underwear has been stolen from the clothesline.
It would appear that the skunk has my domain name up for sale; but I’d be damned if I negotiate with the likes of him. Instead, I have registered a new domain, scribble-scribble.com. I sort of like that name.
