self publishing – Mkingdon's Blog

Birthdays and Books

01/04/2018 by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

Welcome to the shiny and new looking blog. A lick of paint and a shifting around of the furniture was overdue so here we are, looking all different.

From time to time, I do wonder what I’m doing with this blog. When I look around the internet at the Disney “blogging community” I seem to be doing pretty much everything wrong. It would appear that I should be an early thirties Mum of at least three kids with names like Gunner and Zeke and my profile should proclaim that I am a social media strategist, which I think means you use Instagram and have more than 100 followers.

Anyway, I do what I do, writing the same stuff for the same loyal folks and it’s all good. It seems I am missing the opportunity to “monetize” my blog and allow it to fund my lavish lifestyle, but all of that sounds like a load of work that I don’t have time for.

I clearly shouldn’t go looking at what other folks are up to with their blogs, it’s just a distraction. I’ve never really considered myself a Disney blogger in the sense that most seem to, as they don’t drone on about everyday stuff in the glorious way in which I can and do!

Speaking of funding my lavish lifestyle, Facebook memories reminded this week that it is now five years since I self-published my first lot of trip reports.

Book Image — Mkingdon’s Tales of Family, Food and Florida

It launched in a blaze of typos and spelling mistakes but God bless you, many of you bought it, promoted it and gave lovely feedback. Though some members of the Disney forum community may never believe it, the intention was not to make money from that exercise. You will notice that I have not retired to a beach front Florida location yet.

The idea at the time was to do a few things…

Save my trip reports somewhere a little more permanent than a forum site on the internet that I had no control over
Learn how to self-publish a book as I had been toying with the idea of writing a novel and I needed to know how hard/easy it would be to get that self-published. I did eventually write that novel, All This and More, so you should buy it immediately.
Be discovered by someone willing to fund my permanent residence in WDW and write about it for loads of money.

As Meatloaf once said, two out of three ain’t bad.

Anyway, if you bought it, thank you. The fact that is has nearly eighty reviews, almost all of which are five stars, is both incredible and very much appreciated.

Elsewhere in my Facebook memories, it showed what I already knew. I have always been slimmer and younger than I am right at this moment, but also that this time of year is a cavalcade of family birthdays. My nephew George, my niece Sarah and of course Louise all have a birthday over the course of two days in late March.

We went out for a lovely meal on Wednesday to celebrate Louise’s. It was our first meal out with Freddie and he was great. He enthralled the waiting staff, played and laughed his way through the entire thing. This augers well for the many dining experiences planned for Florida later in the year.

I have been off work this week and it’s been glorious. I have done very little indeed and therefore it qualifies as glorious. I took the very deliberate decision to do as little as possible and force myself to relax. I do find that hard to be honest. My type A, get stuff done mentality is my enemy. I constantly battle my brain’s need to feel as if I have “done stuff” before I am allowed to do nothing. Doing nothing of course has included a tip run, some tidying, some admin tasks I’ve been putting off and walking the dogs, but beyond that I have been using the couch and streaming services in equal measure.

I have watched all of The Looming Towers on Amazon Prime, which was excellent and much better than I was expecting, and having had my “Whitehouse drama” taste buds whetted, I sought out the original in the form of The West Wing and I devoured Season 1 in a few days. Season 2 is going much the same way.

With Easter upon us, and Happy Chocolate Day to you all by the way, you never know, the weather may be turning , the nights getting lighter, and in terms of what is most important, we are entering the home straight in the run up to our holiday. It’s roughly twelve months since our last trip so by the time we go in August it will be exactly far too long between trips and I think we are all feeling it. Rebecca, having not been with us last time, is suffering more than most as I think this is the longest period in her life that she hasn’t set foot on WDW property.

Right, I’m waffling now, a symptom of me not planning out my blog posts, which is something else I’m not getting right. Next week, there will be a “haul post” where I walk you through everything I got from Asda in the big shop. This will be linked to my Pinterest, YouTube channel and Friends Reunited account. Please, click, share, follow, subscribe etc etc.

Oh, that reminds me. During last week I saw a news article telling of some waste of oxygen YouTube “star” who was arrested at WDW. Sigh, this intentionally provocative, self promoting, desperate for views and clicks shite is everything that is wrong with social media and YouTube specifically. There’s some belting content to be watched on there, but these types need to be stripped of their smartphones, broadband and human rights until they learn their lesson.

Till the next time…..

All This and More Old Age

09/11/2014 by mkingdon, posted in All This And More, mkingdon

It’s been a while since I politely rammed one of my books down your throats so please open wide!

My first novel, All This And More is on offer for a short while at a silly price of just 99p. Had you so far resisted the urge to indulge in the finest work of literary genius since Katie Price’s (auto) biography, then this opportunity is one you should not be passing up.

I’m not sure what else you can buy for 99p these days that would give you hours (or minutes) of entertainment, so as an investment, you know it makes sense Rodders!

I am still battling to make any sort of real progress with the next one. Life and work especially is just very, very busy and this is rather annoyingly getting in the way of me doing much writing. I am quite indignant that nobody has yet offered me a million pound advance to go and sit on my balcony in my newly acquired Florida property overlooking Vero beach, whist I ponder over my latest plot twist and how many pancakes to have for breakfast. To make that happen, you should feel obliged to invest 99p in my dream, read the thing, leave me a glowing review and then petition every single person in the UK book business to sign me up and sort me out. Thanks.

Last week seemed to manage that impressive combination of going really quickly, and seeming an age from one weekend to the other. It’s probably an age thing to be honest. There are unavoidable and irrefutable signs that I am not the lithe coiled spring of youth that I once was. I am having to hold reading matter at arm’s length to get it into focus, I no longer seem able to lie in, long after the days of my children having me awake at silly hours of a weekend and, to top it all, I find my finger finding the preset button to take me to Radio 4 more often these days.

Don’t get me wrong I can still tolerate minutes of Radio One from time to time. You will be aware that I am totally awesome and down with the kids, attending gigs for the likes of Panic! At the Disco, and getting that important exclamation mark in the right place. However, it is unusal for me to last more than once record nowadays, just ask Louise! Radio Two is a safe bet of course, but some bits of that irk me, as at times it comes across as the audio equivalent of a Women’s Institute Meeting in rural Surrey. For example, the Friday drive time all request thing hosted by Simon Mayo (who I like a lot) appears to be dominated by people called Camilla proclaiming it wine o’clock before taking India to the Gymkhana the next day. I also wonder, when faced with the entire musical output of several generations and endless genres, everyone who gets through seems to pick one of the same six songs!

Anyway, Radio 4 is becoming a larger part of my ever-expanding commute and I often revel in its bizarre randomness. It is like a whole other world sometimes, and in the daily “comedy” slot at 6.30, slap bang in the worst battles of my journey home, I have yet been caused to smirk never mind laugh, but still, I continue to listen, feeling somehow soothed by the noises, like some sort of near term baby in the womb of my Peugeot.

Old age is a weird thing. As they say though, it does seem much more appealing than the alternative.

I have again done zero holiday planning and to be honest almost zero holiday thinking such has been the hectic nature of this week, including another visit down south to Head Office. I learnt, whilst there that our Christmas do is confirmed for Minehead. Yep, Minehead. If you were looking for the venue furthest from my home address that would be it. It involves a country house, shotguns, archery and some drinking. What could possibly go wrong? I am lucky enough to work for a company that pays for all this, so I am not moaning at all. I just hope my aged bones can cope with the alcohol.

Right, I have to complete the making of our tea, having bashed this post out whilst cooking it. Impressive I know. Enjoy your week!

Till the next time…..

A Year Older, Probably Not Wiser.

29/12/2013 by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon, Walt Disney World

OK, I think today might be Sunday and so it is blog time.

Much like everyone reading this by now I am fed up of eating, almost allergic to chocolate and (this might just be me) having to live in my dressing gown and that one pair of pants that fit.

Christmas was good here, and I hope yours was too. It doesn’t matter that I have two very grown up girls of sixteen and eighteen, we were still woken at around 7am by Rebecca. She sent a tactical text from her bed asking if she could get up, and we agreed as long as she was the one to go and wake Emily. We’re not stupid.

As tradition dictates I go downstairs first and switch lights on, and most years find some festive music to play whilst they open their presents.

As tradition also dictates Rebecca has all of her presents open within thirty seconds, and Emily takes around an hour. The presents this year and in recent years have changed of course from the impossible to open dolls, with most of them now being clothes or make up for Rebecca and this year almost exclusively being Disney or One Direction related for Emily.

It is always nice to surprise them though, and we managed to do that with both of them. Rebecca had mentioned months ago that she wanted a (fake) fur jacket she’d seen, so Louise had sourced one of those, and Emily had been trying for weeks to get hold of a CD, which of course was WDW related, but not available in the UK on iTunes or in physical form.

I almost broke the internet tracking it down, and despite the best efforts of US Customs it arrived just a few days before Christmas.

It contains pretty much every song from the theme parks.

Of course the festive music I had earlier found was immediately replaced with this. Now, suspend your disbelief for a second, whilst I tell you that with a trip to WDW in 2014 being out of the question I have been doing quite well in blocking any such thoughts from my mind. You’ll notice I haven’t really mentioned it here for a while?

Well, I even did quite well listening to the theme parks being present in my front room until one song came on. I cannot explain why this one song gives me an aching and physically painful yearning for WDW but it does. It isn’t even a song you might immediately think of when trying to guess what it is. I suppose it is because we have spent some (a lot) of my birthdays in World Showcase and this just takes me right back to those lovely times.

Between this CD and the Frozen soundtrack, Emily has been fully Disneyfied in her listening habits recently.

I got some cracking gifts too. This year was the first year ever that the girls got Louise and I presents. They got Louise a perfume she had expressed a liking for when out with them, and I got the latest Call of Duty game for the XBox. Louise also got me a decent shaver, as I think she was fed up of me leaving for work looking like a burns victim with half a loo roll stuck to my face after another bad wet shave experience.

Once all the presents were done (Louise had wisely got hers a little while ago when out shopping, and I got her a handbag and a scarf which were just what she wanted! I have such good taste.) I made our traditional breakfast of Eggs Benedict.

Soon after that family started to arrive and the rest of the day was a blur of more presents, cooking the meal, Eggnog and in Rebecca’s case too much Christmas spirit. She ended the day not feeling too well at all. We’ve all been there I suppose.

We were hosting my Mum and Dad and Louise’s Mum so the numbers were manageable. The meal itself was a success. Louise did all the hard work of peeling everything and getting it on to cook, and then I took over whilst she got ready and just kept my eye on stuff until it was ready. There was a minor incident with the roast spuds but I like them a little extra crispy!

The day whizzed by as usual, as have all the ones since to be honest. We sit here a few short days away from a new year now, and at the risk of being like every single TV show you will see between now and then, I suppose it is time to reflect on the year that has gone.

As it will have been for everyone else it has been a mixed one. To varying degrees we will all have had crap bits, and we too have had our fair share of knock backs, upsets, bad luck and down right kicks in the goolies, but in the grand scheme of things we still have much to be grateful for, even if I forget that sometimes.

On the positive side this year just gone has been full of landmark events, and even though I’m bound to miss some here are the ones I can remember.

Louise passed everything she needed to and got onto the second year of her nursing course at Uni. As we expected, her returning to study has been a challenge in many ways. Financially of course, but also of our organisational skills in juggling busy lives, shift work, endless coursework and a hectic household. We’re over half way now, and I’m sure we’ll look back when it’s all over and laugh. Won’t we?

Both the girls took exams in the summer, Emily passing her A levels and Rebecca getting enough passes at GCSE level to get onto the course of her choice at college. We have to be happy with that! Rebecca of course also had her prom.

Shortly before her prom she turned sixteen. Hmm, this year has been chock full of important events. No wonder I’m knackered.

A short while after that in the summer Emily passed her driving test. As weird experiences go, having your daughter driving is right up there. Whether she is grabbing the keys and heading off on her own or if I’m sat in the passenger seat desperately trying not to break for her, I still haven’t got used to that.

On a personal note I did something I never thought I would. I wrote and self published two books. It still feels odd to say that, but it is true. I didn’t actually write the first one this year, other than trying to make it more readable and less error strewn, but you know what I mean. Mkingdon’s Tales of Family, Food and Florida and Mkingdon’s Going Limp in Orlando Tour 2013 were supported by you kind folks to a level that I could never have imagined, and I need to thank you all again for that.

The release of the latter led to a bit of a kerfuffle and a rant on my part, which led to two things. That blog post got a huge number of views and the fallout from that kicked me up the backside sufficiently to get on and do something I have been threatening to do for years. I have now actually written my first fiction novel, and am in the process of reviewing and editing it. Whether it is good, bad or indifferent, having it done and released (soon) will be something I should probably be proud of in itself.

Of course, another major landmark this year was Emily’s 18th birthday in July. Attached to that of course was her surprise trip to WDW as her present. The build up to the reveal was very stressful, but I have to say it was worth it. The way in which that panned out and her reaction is something that will stay with me forever. If you haven’t seen it, or want to do so again then have a look at that post here.

August of course saw us go on holiday to WDW. Emily spent most of it in tears, but they were happy tears. We did the Keys to the Kingdom Tour and loved it, and if it were possible this trip and that tour made Emily’s love for WDW even greater. The rest of us quite like it too!

The rest of the year was probably a blur of me moaning, Pick n Mix, things going wrong in the house and rants about crap TV. But then again that could be any year. I know I will have forgotten some major happening this year and I’ll remember it as soon as I publish this post.

We know that 2014 is going to be a challenging one for us with Louise coming to the end of her course in early 2015, but we know that it will be worth it once she is qualified, earning and done with most of the studying. I can assure you though that we will NOT be going on holiday next year. You have my word! Again.

I’m sure 2014 will be the usual mix of ups and downs so here’s hoping we can roll with the punches. I hope your 2014 is everything you want it to be and more, and I wish you and yours good health and happiness throughout it. Thank you for your interest, support, comments and patience with the Mkingdon output, and when the time comes to release the new book into the world I hope it doesn’t disappoint too much.

From myself, Louise, Emily, Rebecca and Oli, have a great 2014.

Till the next time….

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this: