Tag Archives: #newblog

Meet the Writer 2025 – pt 2

Posted on June 24, 2025 | Leave a comment

Oh good question! Being settled at my writing desk after dinner with my favourite playlist on definitely helps. Thinking through what I plan to write while I’m out walking also helps. If I’m not in the mood to work on my current book baby, I’ll write something else but I try to always write something daily

Music, the beach, love….

These are the themes at the heart of all my book babies so far along with believable characters for you to fall in love with.

Oh this is a cruel question.

In all honesty, I’m happy at having written my own. I’m me so why would I want to have written anyone else’s? I might only earn pennies in royalties most months but I’m proud to have written my own books and to have told my stories

A friend shared the photo below on their Facebook feed as I was starting my writing journey 12 years ago and it struck a chord. It’s been my mantra ever since.

I think the answer to this depends on where you consider to be unusual. I’ve written at work in my lunchbreak, on trains and planes, in the airport, on the beach and in cafes too. All felt normal to me.

to be continued….

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Silently Watching As The Rose Moon Wanes

Posted on June 17, 2025 | Leave a comment

Disregarding the risks, the dark angel landed lightly in front of her mausoleum. The previous enchantment that had held her captive there had long since been lifted but she still scanned the area for magical wards as a precautionary measure.

“Careless, Son of Perran,” she muttered under her breath. “Very careless.”

Once inside the tomb, Anna wove a seal around the entrance to keep her safe from prying eyes. With a click of her fingers, she lit the wall sconces, the flames instantly creating some flickering light and dancing shadows. Looking round, she saw that all of her hiding places had been discovered and most of her possessions taken, with the exception of the few things strewn across the floor.

With a sigh that reeked of melancholy, the dark angel sat down on the stone bench seat and drew her cloak around her. After the events of the past few months, she needed time and peace to think. She had fed before returning to her home but knew that the remnants of her meal would soon be discovered, limiting her time for contemplation. It had been a tempting thought to make her victim a vampire to give her some company, but she lacked the energy to nurture a fledgling and the patience to train one. Instead, she had left the fisherman’s body floating face down in the small, isolated loch. His passing resemblance to Jem was what had attracted her to him, his blood satisfying her thirst.

Reaching into the folds of her cloak, Anna pulled out a purple leatherbound book and smiled to herself. She had hidden her grimoire inside herself when she had first been captured. One swift spell had prevented it from falling into Meryn’s meddlesome hands. Over the years, she had worked hard to enhance the spells that were recorded in her mother’s grimoire, creating her own strain of dark magic. Now though, she had no one to pass that knowledge on to… except for Luna.

Gifting the baby her mother’s spell book had been a risk, a necessary risk. Eventually little Luna would grow up and inherit Meryn’s grimoire, Trine’s if she had one plus her own. Assuming the little girl worked on her own grimoire too, it would make Luna the most powerful vampire with magic powers that the world had ever seen.

Now all she needed to do was figure out a way to be involved in the little girl’s education.

On the eve of the summer solstice, Meryn prepared to take her leave. She had stayed on at the beach hut after Michael had departed to help Trine and Jem reinforce the enchantments around their home. The three vampires had combined their powers and created wards in the surrounding area that would trigger if a vampire or any creature capable of magic came near. They had even gone as far as creating protective wards out in the river. As a result, the beach hut was as impenetrable as Stefan’s castle.

“Do you need to go?” asked Trine quietly. “We’ve room. You could stay here for the summer with us.”

“And who would keep an eye on your father if I stayed?” laughed Meryn, reaching out to hug the younger woman. “We already agree that you would all winter with me. Come for Samhain. There are some lessons for you to learn that will help you to teach Luna the arts.”

“You are not teaching our daughter magic,” stated Jem firmly. He was holding Luna balanced on his hip and the baby was reaching out to pull at his wings.

“Jeremiah,” began his mother just as firmly. “Your daughter has magic flowing through her veins. She needs to be taught how to master it before it controls her. Both you and Trine need to be taught how to teach her.”

“And if we refuse, mother?” he challenged.

“Then the little girl you are holding in your arms could grow up to be more dangerous and out of control than Anna.”

“But she’s a baby,” protested Trine.

“How do you think that doll fell off the shelf onto the floor yesterday? Or how did those soft play cubes find their way into her cot?” countered Meryn. “Luna is a natural witch and a natural vampire. The Cinque Famiglia bloodline is powerful. She’s already testing her powers. She can’t help it. Its instinctive to her.”

Both Jem and Trine turned to star at each other, both terrified by what they were hearing.

“I’ll see you in time for Samhain,” continued Meryn as she opened the door. “If you need me before then, send for me.”

Before either of them could reply, the older vampiress stepped outside, closing the door behind her.

A huge crow sat in the trees to the east of the beach hut. It was perched high up in the branches out of sight as it watched Meryn disappear into the night.

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Dear Meta Gods….

Posted on June 2, 2025 | Leave a comment

Dear Meta Gods

I am writing to you today to express my displeasure at the anti-social behaviour of your bots and algorithms.

I should perhaps backtrack and thank you for your early Christmas gift that you presented me with on Christmas Even 2024 when you shut down my page, The Myles Kennedy Fan Page, for impersonation.  You never even left a right of appeal open to me. The clue to the page’s purpose was in the name. The page had been running for well over a decade with 68000 plus followers without any issues or complaints. How can a clearly labelled, long standing page suddenly be shut down for impersonation? Oh…because you said so.

I sought support from your Help Center, but it should be renamed the UnHelpful Center as it there was no help to be found there.

I reported the problem via your Feedback options within the tools available to me daily for five months in an attempt to find some help and again found no help there.  Report A Problem should perhaps be renamed Pretend the Problem Isn’t There.

While the original page remained suspended, in an attempt to still provide updates to the Myles Kennedy fans and to show support for the man himself, I began to rebuild. I created a new page, called MKFP v2 and clearly labelled it as a music fan page. In the “about” section I clearly stated that this was not an attempt to impersonate Myles.

Last week I surrendered and gave up trying to raise the dead in an attempt to get help for the original suspension issue.

I amended the name of MKFP V2 to Myles Kennedy FanPage V2 and your spy bots didn’t object or reject the name as they had when I initially set the page up. The name change was allowed. Again, the clue to the purpose of the page is in the name yet within 48 hrs, you shut it down again for impersonation. I had one chance to ask for the decision to be reviewed.  I chose the most appropriate option you presented me with, “my page has been misunderstood” but you rejected this and again removed all right to appeal the decision.

Something I find strange though is that the dozens of fake profiles and fraudsters who attempt to impersonate celebrities or lure fans to third party sites to extort information and money from them appear to comply with your Community Standards as you seldom remove them when they are reported to you.

You should perhaps consider renaming your social media platform as an anti-social media platform.

So, I’ll end this by thanking you for destroying more than a decade of love and support for an outstanding musician and for depriving thousands of loyal fans from receiving updates and tour information and from sharing their memories of shows or their love of the songs.

Yours

A Disillusioned Page Owner and Admin

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Meet the Writer 2025 – part 1

Posted on May 14, 2025 | Leave a comment

For the third year in succession, I recently took part in Beth Kempton’s Meet the Writer online challenge. Fifteen prompts/questions over fifteen days that will hopefully give you a bit of an insight into my creative world. As before I’ll split this across three blogs.

I love creating and developing my characters and getting to know them. I love creating their world. In my current work in progress, I’ve enjoyed losing myself in my fictitious view of the San Bernadino mountains. It gives me somewhere to escape to as I write and takes me away from my day-to-day mundane world. I hope in time my readers will enjoy escaping into the mountains too.

Much as I love to sit outdoors and write, this is my usual cluttered creative corner. My traditional writing desk sits in the corner of my living room. I upgraded to this a few years back. Before that I sat at my kitchen table to work.

Evenings have evolved to become my writing time. I endeavour to carve out a couple of hours a night during the week and take what I can manage at the weekends. I journal daily and keep a diary so there’s some form of writing involved in every single day

I love writing in any season but as the days grow warmer and the nights are lighter, I love being able to write outdoors.

If I’m writing a novel I need 5 identical notebooks so that the first draft is all in books the same. I like turquoise, pink or purple ink to write with unless I’m writing my Silently Watching vampire angel tale. I’m that case the notebooks and ink should be green. Poems and blogs I tend to write in pencil. I also need Alexa or some source of music nearby

to be continued….

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Continue the Story…Dawn (flash fiction)

Posted on May 6, 2025 | Leave a comment

She jumped from the train, rolling in the dust before coming to a stop. A sharp pain shot through her right ankle. Breathing heavily, she reached down and rubbed it as she flexed her foot. It didn’t appear to be broken. With a groan, she clambered to her feet, testing her weight on her throbbing ankle gingerly. Her backpack had come to rest about a hundred metres back down the track. Seconds before she jumped, she had thrown it out, knowing that her desire not to lose it would give her that final boost of confidence to make the leap.

Her heart was still pounding as she limped back up the track to retrieve it. As she hoisted it onto her back, she looked around her. Nothing but fields to be seen for miles. Field after field after field stretching across the flat landscape towards the horizon. Squinting into the early morning sunshine, she thought she could make out a road in the distance. With no better plan in mind, she headed down the shallow scree slope beside the tracks, climbed the barbed wire fence and set off through the field. Keeping to the boundary so as not to damage the crop planted there, she walked in the general direction of the road.

As she walked, she felt the weight of her past begin to lift. True, she was only twenty-three, but she had lived and endured more in her short life than most folk twice her age.

The fresh new day stretched before her as she mentally created a new identity for herself. The person she had been was gone. She’d left them on the train. Her future lay ahead beyond the fields.

“Dawn,” she thought. “My name is now Dawn.”

Letting the shadows fall behind, she kept walking.

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The Measly Jar of Motivation – The Journey

Posted on April 28, 2025 | Leave a comment

She had been walking forever or at least that was how it felt. The sun shone down on her path as she walked trail after trail. Each crossroads she came to had a signpost pointing four different ways. The only problem was that all signs led to the same destination. The only difference was the difficulty of the route. How was she meant to choose?

Her stomach grumbled with hunger. She had long since forgotten the taste of a favourite meal.

Putting one foot in front of the other, she kept moving forwards, letting life’s shadows fall behind her. Some of the paths she chose proved to be easier than others. Did some part of her subconscious deliberately self-sabotage and choose the more difficult ones as punishment for a crime that wasn’t hers? She always had been too hard on herself.

A long straight uphill path stretched before her. One more climb. Did she have it in her to reach the unseen summit?

Cresting the hill, she finally saw it. A small cottage with a breathtaking view over the water, surrounded by a white picket fence Cheesy but true.

Opening the gate, she trudged wearily up the path towards the peacock blue painted door.  Suddenly she became aware that there was a key in her jeans pocket. Had it been there before? There was a painted sign to the left of the front door revealing the name of the cottage- There. It made her smile.

Finally, she had made it.

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Ten years ago today……

Posted on April 15, 2025 | Leave a comment

Ten years… a whole decade… since my first book baby, Stronger Within was published for Kindle. (The paperback edition followed a few weeks later)

It feels truly surreal that ten years have passed since that day.

I chose the date carefully. (I’m a bit weird about dates) The 15th April would have been my Wee Gran’s birthday. It was also the date that The Big Green Gummi Bear proposed to me. It was a date that felt as if it augured well.

In all honesty, I was absolutely petrified about self-publishing my first-born book baby. Was I about to make myself a laughingstock? What if no one bought it? What if everyone who did then hated it? What if they all thought it was rubbish? What if….

Looking back, it took me more personal courage than I knew I had to release that book, but I also knew that by taking the plunge that I was making my lifelong dream come true.

Ever since I had been a little girl, I’d dreamed of being an author one day and seeing my name on the cover of a book. I made that dream come true.

Stronger Within’s story began almost two years earlier on 8 May 2013 when I bought a notebook and pen on the way home from work then after dinner that evening, sat down on my front doorstep in the early evening sunshine and began to write. As I wrote page after page over the coming weeks and months, I had no idea that this story that I was writing was destined to become my first book.

One of my biggest fears, one that I have worked hard to conquer, is a crippling fear of letting people read what I write. It’s a terrible fear for an author to have! It was months before I told anyone about what I was attempting to do. Thanks to the belief that a few close friends had in me, I was persuaded to type the story up and share it with them. They loved it! Even the friend who on the face of things should have hated it, loved it. Their love and faith in my storytelling gave me the push I needed to venture into the world of self-publishing. It was a steep learning curve!

If you’d said to me on 15 April 2015 that ten years down the line, I’d have seven novels and a poetry anthology for sale worldwide via Amazon and that they’d all have multiple glowing reviews, I would never have believed you. I’d have thought you were insane to even think I could achieve that. Seven novels? Me? Never….

Yet here we are and that’s exactly what happened. My eighth novel is in the pipeline too. It still feels completely surreal…I am a published author who has sold books in several countries around the world!

Over the years people have asked me how I do it. I’ve been asked countless times about how I find the time to do it. I’ve been asked why I do it.

The how is that I sit down somewhere, whether that’s at my desk, or the picnic table or the doorstep with a notebook and a pen and I write the story one word after another.

The time I carve out to do something that I am passionate about. If you care enough about something you will always find time in your day to do it. Some days it’s a few hours and on others it’s a few minutes.

The why is a bit more complex to answer but the short version is that it gives me somewhere to escape to.

Writing to me is like oxygen. I can’t imagine a day without it in one form or other.

I’ve always said that if it ever begins to feel like work then that’s the day that I put the lid back on my pen, close over my notebook and put them down.

If you’ve spared some of your hard-earned pennies to purchase one of my books, I thank you.

If you’ve read it and then taken the time to leave me a review online, I thank you.

If you haven’t read any of them yet, then I’d encourage you to give one a try. You never know, you might enjoy it. Lots of other people have so far.

For me the end goal here isn’t to seek fame and fortune. (Ok a little bit of a fortune would be nice, I’ll not lie.) There are very few indie-authors who earn enough from their books to make a living. Without a word of a lie, at the time of writing this, my estimated royalties for the month are £1.56/$2.00 – not even enough to buy a cup of coffee. I write for the love of telling the story and if by telling that story I evoke an emotional reaction in my reader whether it be laughter or tears then my job is done.

They say everyone has a book in them so if you fancy finding the book in you, buy a notebook and a pen, find a sunny spot, sit down and begin to write. You never know where that dream will take you.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you to each and every one of you who has supported my creative journey over the last ten years, especially to my Infamous Five.  I couldn’t do it without your love and support and belief in me.

Love n hugs

Coral

PS If you’ve not checked out any of my book babies yet, here’s the links-

Silver Lake series

Amazon.com links –

Stronger Within – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00VXDSC1M  FREE TO DOWNLOAD TODAY

Impossible Depths – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01C0GS30K

Bonded Souls – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XSQHG71

Shattered Hearts – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07ZY8ZSDM

Long Shadows – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08RR1FGLG

Amazon.co.uk links  –

Stronger Within – https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00VXDSC1M  FREE TO DOWNLOAD TODAY

Impossible Depths – https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01C0GS30K

Bonded Souls – https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B06XSQHG71

Shattered Hearts – https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07ZY8ZSDM

Long Shadows – https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08RR1FGLG

Riley

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B9SWP6K3

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0B9SWP6K3

Ellen

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07FYHKR44

http s://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07FYHKR44

Beginnings – poetry anthology

Beginnings – a collection of poems – Kindle edition by McCallum, Coral. Literature & Fiction Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.

Beginnings – a collection of poems eBook : McCallum, Coral: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store

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The Measly Jar of Motivation – Breakfast time!

Posted on March 12, 2025 | Leave a comment

The Measly Jar of Motivation has thrown out two phrases that scream “Breakfast!”

Breakfast is a meal I’ve had a difficult relationship with over the years. I’m not great at eating first thing in the morning. A big, cooked breakfast would be totally wasted on me.

Those followers of this blog who know me personally might be somewhat surprised that hot coffee is not the first thing I need every morning. At a push, I can make it to lunchtime without my caffeine hit but I cannot function without my orange juice. It’s a vital component of my morning routine. I love the taste of oranges although I would never sit and actually peel and eat an orange. I hate finding “bits” in my OJ so its smooth/pulp free all the way for me.

After OJ then comes hot coffee – hot, strong and black. I can’t stand cold or even cool coffee. I like my Americano piping hot.

As for food… well, that’s either a toasted cinnamon raisin bagel or hot buttered toast. If I’m in the office, it’s a cereal bar.

On a Sunday, I like to have a more leisurely start to the day and treat myself to some crispy pancetta with my cinnamon raisin bagel and my coffee. We all have our weaknesses…

Last summer, when I returned to visit Rehoboth Beach, I became a regular at a local diner. I also became a creature of habit despite their extensive breakfast menu- OJ, coffee and a short stack of pancakes. Delicious! I can’t wait to go back this summer for more of the same.

So, what’s your breakfast guilty pleasure?

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Shieldmaidens – an acrostic poem

Posted on March 8, 2025 | Leave a comment

Sisters in spirit not blood

Holding space for each other

Insights previously unspoken shared

Engaging in rite and ritual

Love overarching all

Dancing and singing as one

Making friends for life

Always supportive

Instantaneous hugs offered

Dreams and secrets shared

Ethereal connections formed

No expectations, just love

Sisters in spirit not blood

Happy International Women’s Day

(top image sourced via Google – credits to the owner)

(bottom image – credit to the owner CMC Photography)

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An uninvited AI guest…..

Posted on January 29, 2025 | Leave a comment

A new icon popped up on my laptop uninvited recently. You’ve probably seen it on your laptop too. Co-pilot….

Did I ask for an AI assistant?

Do I have any need of an AI assistant who seems hell bent on helping me write a sentence?

NO!

This uninvited guest is a threat to human creativity, in my humble opinion.

As a self-published indie author, this uninvited guest is also a silent threat to my career as an author.

I publish via Amazon’s KDP platform who have a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to AI assistance so why would I want this “co-pilot” functionality anywhere near my creative work?

And can I remove it from my laptop? No, as far as I can tell. I have managed to turn it off but to be frank, I do not want it there even sleeping in the background. Suggestions on how to evict this uninvited guest gratefully received!

I’m not claiming to be the best author in the world but one thing I will guarantee for as long as I can string a sentence together, it will be my words, my sentence, my paragraph, my chapter and my manuscript and not something dreamt up or proposed by some uninvited AI bot!

Now, where’s my fountain pen and ink?

(image sourced via Google – credits to the owner)

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