Why You Need Your Head Shot

MY ZOMBIE DOG has officially launched for the Kindle version and the paperback version will be along soon! To celebrate, you still have about 10 days to win a KINDLE! This is open international, so get your entry in! It's very easy, you can buy the book (love you!) or blog about the book or blog about this competition. You also get an extra entry for tweeting.

Go HERE to find the entry form. HURRY, ends 31st March (Aussie time).

Now about author head shots. Do you have one? Is it professional looking or some family pic that gets blurry if you try and make it any bigger than 5cent coin? It doesn't matter if you're published or not, you need to create an image that you want people to associate with you. 

If you can go and get a professional head shot, then good for you, but if you can get a professional look nowadays even with your iPhone.

Don't want a double chin? check out this professional photographer's advice on how to look your best in that head shot:

It's all about the Jaw from Peter Hurley on Vimeo.

Lighting is also important, outside is good, or use a floodlight shone up and towards you to light up your face. Most indoor lights hang from the ceiling so it tends to leave shadows under your nose and chin.

The smile? There's lots of different opinions, some people swear you need to show teeth and others prefer a more demure smile - you know which looks best on you. If you do go for the closed mouth smile, just part your lips ever-so-slightly so you can blow out a breath while smiling, this stops your lips from looking tense and your smile from looking fake.

My biggest weakness is getting bored with my pic. It's best to keep something familiar because it becomes branding. Here's a pic I had taken last year, now to get those books in the background I had to casually lean my arm on the fireplace shelf, which required squatting to be the right height!

But this is what I usually look like in photos (Zoe is a lap dog wannabe):

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Pirate's Kidnapped my Imagination

Today I woke up at 4am with a burning desire to return to something left dusty and waiting for so long (no not that). OK it may be that I awoke so early because after having dental work done on me yesterday, I ended falling asleep before my kids bedtime.

I have housework to do, I have three pieces for uni to write, but I need to do something for me. I want to return to The Pirate Girl (yet to receive a better title) and start writing again. I suspect that my friend 'Inky' may have something to do with this (all budding authors should check out her site, I've never met anyone who gets more words on page within their deadline).

I've been quite fortunate in my life to have an enjoyable one, with most 'bad times' serving as life lessons or inspiration. When I want to try something in life, nothing significant has ever blocked me; this is probably why I've an eclectic career background. What I value most in my career (and indeed my home life) is feeling like I am making a positive contribution, feeling needed.

I desperately want to teach young people because I can identify a need amongst students. This is why I was a little disappointed to find out I will be prac teaching at a college this semester. Give me the troubled kids, the naughty kids, the ratbags that have been convinced nobody wants them there. Let me show them I do want them there and I value what they have to offer. I guess part of me wants to mother the students, and I'm sure that's the last thing they want. So I will get enthusiastic about attending a more high-brow school and see what I can offer these students, maybe I will learn from them.

But for today I want some me time. Time to do what I enjoy most: write. Here is the opening to The Pirate Girl, which I expect to span three novels aimed at 10-13yr olds (and maybe more).

The ocean is a wild and untameable beast. She is cruel with a passion and has been known to snap a ship effortlessly, while playfully pulling her victims down toward her belly. No man can overcome her, but there are men who attempt to endure her. The brave, that seek to prove she will not stand in their way, the desperate, so afraid but with no other option than to sign their soul over to the sea. And then there is another kind of man who takes on the bitter salt air, ferocious winds and forceful swells. This is the man that loves her. It is her darkness, the defiant stand she takes against anyone who tries to control her, even her sweet promise of death appeals to him. As you would expect, these men mostly travel under the flag of a pirate.

And yet, one small girl, off the coast of Ireland, in the year 1542, shared the same uncultivated passion for adventure and mischief and saw the sea as her friend.

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