I've been thinking a lot about social media of late, and a friend mentioned how with all the social media platforms essentially turning into garbage, we need to relook how we reach out to the people in our circles. I've been a veteran of social media since MySpace days. I even had a Livejournal, though dog alone knows where the login is – possibly tied up with one of my abandoned and now-defunct email addresses. That being said, I've been consistently blogging on this platform since before Facebook even took off, so maybe it's time I look at that again.
While I do dabble in video content, the written word is still my forte. I'm most certainly not one of these bright-shiny influencer types who's going to slap on a face of cosmetics and do trout pouts for the camera. And now that the Meta platforms are becoming increasingly useless and unwieldy, and the least said about Twitter (I refuse to call it X), the better. I find writing newsletters incredibly stressful, and I'm not in a mood to learn anything new. So that's a no for Substack. I am thinking of perhaps dusting off my Patreon at some point, but let's be honest – I don't have the spoons for that right now.
So, if you've read this far, thank you. You can likely expect more of this from me going forward.
For those of you who are following my activities on social media, you'll see I've just had my annual pilgrimage to the Karoo. The whole world and their wife visits Cape Town during the festive season, which makes living here in Cape Town's far south quite perilous and frankly unpleasant. The roads become (even more) congested and you can forget about going to the beach or enjoying a simple breakfast in Kalk Bay.
And I get it. The Cape is beautiful. I am incredibly fortunate to live here. But there's a small part of me that remembers how quiet it often used to be, and then my heart starts hankering after open spaces – hence me braving 40°C in the Klein Karoo.
I need to give a shout-out to our hosts for this past week – Ashley and Andre over at Wolverfontein Karoo Cottages. We love staying in Zara Cottage, which is done up in wonderful boerekitsch with a heavy dollop of Tretchikoff vibes. Wolverfontein is a small patch of land boasting its own volstruispaleis (ostrich palace) near the Touwsberg, on the banks of the Touwsrivier between Barrydale and Ladismith off the R62. It's here that I can hear the silence.
To quote Samwise Gamgee, "Well, I'm back."
I can't say I've missed Cape Town, but I do rather love our little home, and I've missed all my birds and plants, and I realise I'm very lucky in that our little hood feels like a little village. So I have the best of both worlds out here. Close to the city but not *in* the city. And I do intend to motivate the husband creature for us to go away for weekends a bit more this year. Last year was hectic, to say the least.
Work wise, I still have a backlog of editing from 2024 that I need to finish. For those of you still needing work from me, I'm on it. Just approaching it sensibly and sanely. Since the implosion of Now Novel, the company for whom I did coaching, I have retained a few of my writers that I enjoyed working with, and have limited spaces available this year if you are looking for a writing coach/accountability buddy/editor person. Do reach out to me at nerinedorman@gmail.com if you think this is something you want to explore.
Writing is going apace – I'm still very much in the midst of revising book 2 of The Splintered Fool. I don't have a firm release date for The Raven's Path, but know that Toby and I are working on it. I'm also ghostwriting for gentleman whose broad vision has a nine-book science fantasy series. It's been a wonderful experience for me thus far, and I truly appreciate such a good client who trusts me with their ideas. And other than that, I'm busy writing a MG fantasy novel that I'll be translating into Afrikaans for the Lapa competition that closes on November 25 this year. I'm being a bit more clever about it by writing it in English first and translating it afterwards. But yeah, watch this space – let's see how that works out.
Anyhow, for those of you who are on Bluesky and Threads, I'm not leaving the Meta platforms, as I believe in fighting for the space I've carved out, but I am going to be more active on Bsky here on in as many of my friends are now going to be there rather than on the Meta platforms. Do come find me on Threads or Bluesky.
If you follow me on any of my social media and/or this blog, do consider showing your support by either purchasing one of my novels or sharing about ones that you've read. Go check out my work on Amazon.
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