A bit about me – why do I write?

I’ve always loved writing, even when I was a child. But, I was never encouraged to do it. In fact, twice that I know of, something I was writing vanished when I was out at school or somewhere. Stuck on the bonfire no doubt. 😕 

Still resisting what my mum wanted me to do (follow her into an office job as a shorthand/typist) I chose to go to catering college for two years and worked in catering for a while. I did end up in an office, because I needed regular working hours for my next career, and I worked in financial services, but I wasn’t really happy.

Move on a few years and I had a supportive husband who funded me to go to university part time. I was balancing being a mum, a wife, working and studying. My hope was with qualifications I could progress in my then career as an adult education tutor and do more for my children. It didn’t quite work out as I hoped, but I enjoyed studying, and writing essays and dissertations fanned my spark of wanting to write, into a flame.

By then, my sons had grown up creating lives and families of their own, so my husband encouraged me to follow my dream, and write a manuscript for a book. So I did. I still lacked courage to research publishing it, and for a few years it sat on my hard drive. Life moved on with tragic events to deal with.

Long story short, I now have my debut story published and the first two books of a series out there and available. I’ve the third in the series written and I will get the fourth done soon. It’s my work in progress.

So that’s why I write. Because I have to, I’m driven to do it.

All I hope is that I find readers who enjoy reading my work and I’m going with the theory that the more books you write and have available, the better the chances of finding readers becomes. 🙏🏻 🤞🏻

January Promotion – The Heart Guides You Home

Happy 2025, I hope you have a great year!

If you enjoy contemporary romance stories you might like my Little Beliton series. I write stories about characters who have true to life, maybe relatable experiences, such as past life baggage to resolve and move past towards a future happier path.

I’ve put Book One, The Heart Guides You Home, on a promotion price of just 99p for January on Kindle. And it’s available on Kindle Unlimited.

Take a look: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Heart-Guides-Home-Little-Beliton-ebook/dp/B0CLLFT6DF

If you enjoy it, Book Two – Learn and Move On, is published. A third is written and a fourth is a work in progress, so I really hope you get hooked and want to red more and get to know about the Little Beliton community.

The Little Beliton Series

This is my series of books set in a mythical remote village on Dartmoor. When I write my stories I have the geography of the village in my mind where I’ve pulled together several real places.

In The Heart Guides You Home, Marc arrived in Little Beliton for his great aunt’s funeral and to deal with her estate. He’s already got a lot to deal with and some memories to reconcile. He meets Lucy who lives in the village who’s not exactly had an easy life either, but had the benefit of Marc’s auntie to help her. Despite instant attraction they each have to work at resolving their own problems to be able to move on together.

Promotion: For January 2025 you can buy the Kindle version of The Heart Guides You Home, Book One of The Little Beliton series for just 99p. (It’s also on Kindle Unlimited). If you decide to buy it, I hope you enjoy it.

Learn and Move On is the second book in the series where we meet morec characters in the village and focuses on Maggie, Lucy’s mum. Maggie has to come to terms with how much of a disaster her life has been so far. She doesn’t want to repeat the mistakes she made with Lucy for her young son Marty. The village community support her and Maggie meets Peter who has come to the village and tunes into a sense of belonging. Maggie introduces him into the community and resists giving into her feelings for him. Peter is aware Maggie has issues to work through and becomes good friends to Maggie and Marty first before they both give in to the feelings of love.

August Bank Holiday Weekend

The weather forecast isn’t great so if you’re into reading contemporary romance you might enjoy one of my stories:

Take a look at my website: carolinescottcollins.co.uk

They’re all on Kindle Unlimited too!

Do you like e-books?

I’ve been considering marketing activities for my books. I make sure they’re available as paperbacks because there is something nice about holding a tangible book—especially if you’re a writer ;o)

I also make my books available as ebooks and have them available from Amazon Kindle and from today if you’re a Kindle Unlimited member, they’re available there too.

So if you’re into contemporary romance you might like to try them.

A Charming Bequest

The Heart Guides You Home

Learn and Move On

Bank Holiday coming up

With the Bank Holiday approaching, do you need some reading? Do you enjoy contemporary romance?

You might like to read the two stories published so far, of my Little Beliton series—a remote fictitious village on Dartmoor. Each story focuses on a character (or two) with some problems to solve, but it’s rather like a soap opera where the next book features different characters and the others are still around as friends (mostly).

First two in the series are published and available from Amazon (paperback or Kindle). The third I’m still editing while I deliberate on writing a fourth! It will come…

If you give them a try, I hope you enjoy them and I’d be very grateful if you would leave a review and help me spread the word.

Have a great weekend!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Heart-Guides-Home-Little-Beliton-ebook/dp/B0CLLFT6DF

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Learn-Move-On-Little-Beliton-ebook/dp/B0CVQQZSRJ

The Little Beliton series Books 1 & 2

#carolinescottcollins

#indieauthor

#contemporaryromance

#writingcommunity

Appearance revision

I’ve just changed the banner photo on here. I’d had the other picture since I started this blog and decided it needed a refresh. This photo was taken at Venford reservoir, Holne on a lovely walk circuiting it.

All I can say is, I love where I live, it inspires me … moors one day, coast the next. ☺️

Joys of spring

I love seasonality and currently we’ve got a fresh, excessively wet spring but the spring flowers, such as the bluebells have flowered anyway, to cheer us up.

I have a little clump growing under a hedge, that was only planted about ten years ago, but I didn’t plant the bluebells and they’re becoming a chunky clump each year. Remarkable!

It goes to show that Mother Nature takes care of herself 😊

My writing journey

From a young age I wanted to be an author. My dreams were dashed, at least twice, when manuscripts I was working on writing in notebooks vanished, while I was at school or out somewhere. I never saw them again—thrown on a bonfire, I guess.

My confidence was shattered and for two to three decades I didn’t attempt to write again, until I went to university as a mature student in my 40s. Writing essays and dissertations fanned the glowing spark into a flame, which was further fanned into a small fire when I worked as a Virtual Assistant for an elderly writer. Through him I met a few more writers and I plucked up the confidence to have a go.

I read about NaNoWriMo and had a go. I don’t join groups; so I created a spreadsheet to motivate myself and over a stretch of 30 consecutive days I wrote a manuscript. My “reward” was going with my husband for a nice sunshine holiday.

My debut novel manuscript was written; I realise now, that is an achievement in itself. I edited it and put it away several times. I printed it out and it languished in a folder under my desk (and on my hard drive) while my life fell apart. I already had a bad attack of Empty Nest Syndrome and it got much, much worse when my husband died. Every hope and dream evaporated in an instant.

What now?

Skip forward a few struggling years to the era of lockdowns and I was in a deep depression, totally alone and wondering if life was worth living, when I read about creating a “life purpose” rather than one big goal.

I retrieved my MS and read and edited it again, and … to cut a long story short, I published my debut story, A Charming Bequest. I cannot tell you how proud I felt holding my first printed book. It’s all my own work. Everything—the story, the voice, editing, cover design.

Next, I read how to do marketing the “right” way to attract readers. I’m an introvert and shy, so my chronic self doubt kicked in. Should I change the cover artwork? Rewrite the back cover blurb? Keywords? etc. Then I read advice that it’s best to leave it alone and move on—focus on the next story and don’t “invest” in marketing until you have at least 6 books published, but probably more like 20.

To any potential readers, please cut me some slack. You buy a book for the story, don’t you? I still think they’re good stories—I’ve read worse.

I set to work and next I wrote a series of three (possibly more to come), The Little Beliton series. So far I’ve indie published two of them:

◦ The Heart Guides You Home in November 2023

◦ Learn and Move On in February 2024

(The third one I’m still editing.)

I’ve identified my life purpose—to be a prolific author and build a readership—fundamentally, finding readers who enjoy them.

If you want to have a go at writing – do it, but be warned it’s a minefield. It’s certainly not a ‘get rich quick’ career. Most authors, even very well-known authors, struggled to get known.

I’ll keep writing and learning and doing my best to improve. If you try it, good luck!

#writingcommunity

#indieauthor

#carolinescottcollins

Book covers

Some people say that prospective readers judge a book by its cover. Is this always true?

Most of the time I don’t give book covers much attention and books with a stunning artwork doesn’t necessarily match the quality of the story anyway. Let’s face it, you buy a book to read it, not stare at the cover.

I will admit that so far I’ve designed my book covers myself, which is probably a mistake because some critics who don’t care whose feelings they hurt will probably say something nasty about them.

Here they are—scenes from the stories:

For more info see http://www.carolinescottcollins.co.uk

Yes, art is my hobby, but I don’t think they’re that bad. Maybe one day, if I get some return on what I’ve invested to publish my books I can investigate engaging professional help. For now, these are them—warts and all. Perhaps I should have gone for the old style books with a plain cover and just the wording?

Please be kind.

# carolinescottcollins

# writing community