blogging – Sarah T Wright

Heavenly Cupcakes!

To celebrate World Baking Day I decided to channel my inner Nigella.

I swapped my pen for my wooden spoon and got to work in the kitchen.

Fifteen minutes later, I was looking less Domestic and more Dishevelled Goddess after having furiously beaten all the ingredients together in a big bowl.

How on earth did Nigella make baking look so sexy? Disgruntled Goddess questioned as I dolloped the uncooperative mixture into the cupcake cases.

Once baked, I seductively sashayed over to the oven (because that’s what Nigella would’ve done).

Opening the oven door, the heavenly smell of freshly baked buns filled the kitchen.

All that was left for me to do, was to drizzle on the icing sugar and voilà!

Angel inspired buns to go with my angel inspired book.

Angels in Film

I’ve written a book about angels that I would LOVE to see made into a film!

While I’m waiting for Steven Spielberg to call, I thought I’d share some of my favourite movies about angels.

I absolutely ❤️❤️❤️ ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’!

‘Every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings’ second-class angel Clarence Odbody.

As a little girl, I did my best to help swell the angel population of heaven by riding around, repeatedly ringing the bell on my bike.

Then there is ‘City of Angels’.

Seth is an angel who falls in love with a mortal woman and wishes to become human so he can be with her.

And in ‘The Legend of Bagger Vance’ Will Smith plays a guardian angel who helps Rannulph recover his game of golf and his life.

I am hoping the next Hollywood blockbuster movie about an angel, will be ‘Anna’s F-Plan’.

If you are a fan of any of the films above, then I’m sure you will love ‘Anna’s F-Plan’. A fun-filled, feel-good story about an angel, who is sent to help a young golfer in despair. There’s a lot of flirting on the fairways, love, light and laughter as Anna goes on a journey that reminds her, it really is a wonderful life.

But you’ll have to read the book to see if a bell rings at the end and Anna, like Clarence, gets her wings!

What is your favourite film about angels?

Bookstagram Tour

Anna’s F-Plan went on a Bookstagram Tour earlier this month.

Cartoon girl driving car and book review

I was delighted with the wonderful reviews it received!

Cartoon of girl driving car and book review

Thank you to my publishers, Cranthorpe Millner for organising this book tour and a huge thank you to all the lovely bookstagrammers who took part!

Publication Day!

About the same time that I started writing Anna’s F-Plan I started my ‘Peaks, Polaroids and Prosecco’ challenge. So a peak, a polaroid and Prosecco was the perfect way for me to celebrate my Publication Day.

I was so excited as I stood at the foot of the very first mountain I had climbed in the Mournes.

We set off on the short climb to the top.

Two years ago, I had huffed and puffed, staggered and stumbled my way to the summit and today was no different!

There had been too few peaks as I was preparing for publication. My lungs, legs and muscles were all suffering as a result of too much time spent sitting on my bottom editing but I bravely battled on, until finally I reached the top!

Where gale force winds were blowing.

I wanted my book to fly off the shelves, not off a mountain!

It was October 25th. I had climbed a peak, taken a Polaroid and popped the Prosecco to celebrate the publication of my book.

It was the perfect day!

Book Authors’ Bible

How do I get published? I asked God and Google for help.

My plea and prayers were answered when up popped the Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook on the screen in front of me.

The quote on the front cover promised to unlock the door to the world of publishing. Hallelujah!

It was full of hope and helpful articles on how to submit to literary agents and publishers, whose names and addresses were all listed.

This was fantastic!

All I had to do now was choose which lucky literary agent/ publisher was going to have the privilege of publishing my book.

Decisions, decisions….

Path to Publication

Writing a book is like climbing a small mountain. It is tough, challenging. It takes time and a great deal of effort. When you finally make it to the top, all you want to do is plant a flag, rest your weary bones on the nearest available boulder and pop the Prosecco!

Unfortunately, that is when you find out that writing your book was just like making it to base camp. You still had Everest to climb!

A naive, newbie novelist, I was about to set off on the next stage of my author’s journey on the path to publication.

Finally finished!

After writing my book I took a self-congratulatory tour to Smugsville. Where I continued to pat myself on the back and praise myself for having finally finished my first novel.

I had written 90,000+ words. That was a lot! I’d arranged them into neat little sentences that I then had turned into paragraphs and proceeded to position perfectly on over 300 pages.

I was an author! Yay!

Soon I would be a New York Times best-selling author!

Soon I would be hanging out with JK Rowling.

Soon Stephen Spielberg would be on the phone wanting to buy the film rights.

Very soon I realised that for any of that to happen my book had to be on a bookshelf, in a bookstore and not on the desk in front of me!

Very, very soon I realised I had no idea how I was going to get it there!

Peaks, Polaroids and Prosecco

Last year I set myself a ‘Peaks, Polaroids and Prosecco’ challenge. Admittedly, the only challenging part of it was the peaks. Drinking Prosecco and taking polaroids was easy.

photos of hillwalking, cairn, stile, mountain top

I had never climbed a mountain before. I had climbed a ladder. I had climbed a flight of stairs but that’s where my expertise ended.

My energy and enthusiasm would more than make up for my lack of experience, I told myself as I looked at the enormous peak in the distance and thought how easy it was going to be to reach the top.

FYI there was nothing easy about it. I huffed and puffed, clambered and crawled, stumbled and staggered up to the summit. I wanted to give up and go back many times. I whinged and wailed that I couldn’t do it but finally I made it.

‘I’m a mountaineer!’ I threw my hands in the air, triumphant, victorious.

‘No, you’re not,’ my partner, who had been so supportive and encouraging on the way up, told me, ‘you’re a hillwalker.’

I ignored him. The lack of oxygen at the top of this 600m beast was clearly affecting his brain. I had climbed a mountain, therefore I was a mountaineer!

I felt like Sir Edmund Hillary and wished I’d brought a flag with me. Instead I took a polaroid for posterity of me standing at my first peak.

black and white view from summit, cairn, walking boots, stile

Writing my book was just like climbing my first mountain. It was challenging, tough and there were times I thought I would never make it but patience, perseverance and persistence paid off and Prosecco was popped!

New Year Resolutions

It’s the first day of a brand, shiny new year. I’ve finally fallen out of bed and bleary-eyed, I’m sitting in front of my computer, typing my first blog post of 2022. Not because I woke up full of inspiring words that I wanted to share with the world.

To be honest, I woke up full of aches and pains and feeling a little queasy. Don’t worry, it’s not Covid! It’s a mild case of PC/NYO.

‘And what is that?’ I hear you ask. It’s Post Christmas/ New Year overindulgence.

Yes, I have been stuffed with turkey, filled with festive spirit and now I’m feeling fat and dreading a January of deprivation and disappointment because no doubt I will fail to keep any of the resolutions that I made last night, while still indulging in all the lovely things that I’m no longer allowed today!

But I am blogging, which is on my list, so yay!

My first resolution is to blog more because apparently, if you blog more, you connect with readers and they help you become a best selling author, which is number two on my list. So, lovely readers, I need your help. Please follow, so this fledgling, future, New York Times best selling author doesn’t fail. (Well, a girl can dream!)

And if you can also help me lose 3 kilos (half a stone in old money), stop eating Tayto cheese and onion crisps and prevent me falling off the ‘dry January’ wagon, that would be amazing!

I’d like to wish you all a very Happy New Year and I’d love to hear what resolutions you have made for 2022.

Looking forward to hearing from you and to a fabulous year ahead!