Three small things to do to cheer yourself & other writers up, and help children at the same time. by Anne Booth

National and international politics and the weather, and the rather lovely but lonely occupation of being a self-employed children's writer, can be a bit overwhelming and depressing at times, so I have been trying to do positive things to stop me feeling down.

One small thing for me, is that if you buy a children's book of the month at my local Waterstones, you get a free hot drink. If you are a member of the Society of Authors you get a discount too. So this means you can buy a book and support another writer, read a lovely new children's book (if you need professional justification, tell yourself you are sussing out the market, even if you actually just really love reading lovely new children's books!) AND have a hot drink, getting you out of the house and into a café where you can read or write. All win-win.

THEN you can (if you can bear to) pass on the lovely new children's book to your local school library, in this time of slashed school budgets.

I must admit that I don't only buy books of the month. I use my Society of Author's Discount and buy and read all manner of lovely children's books, and pay for my own coffee! These are a few I have recently read and really loved and passed on to my local primary school library yesterday. I am excited to hear what the children think of them. They are all great and I recommend them as reads.

I also bid for and won a LOVELY picture book on the annual Children in Need auction set up by Paddy Heron on twitter. I got it signed and dedicated to the same school for their library, but I read it first and it is simply gorgeous. I might even have to get my own copy one day as the words and pictures are charming, and King Otter is so lovable.

https://www.simonandschuster.co.uk/books/King-Otter/Jane-Porter/9781471173387


The other thing that has really cheered me up has been my PLR statement this year, which will pay money into my bank account in February  - thank goodness for libraries and PLR  and what a relief, in a self- employed period when I am out of contract but working on books I do hope my agent and publishers will like. Which reminds me, that if, in this out of contract period,  I don't have enough money to buy as many as children's books as I would like, I can always go into the public library we are lucky enough to still have, and borrow fellow authors' books. I can also request newly published books. This will keep the library busy,  enable me to still keep on top of what is being written and also hopefully will help the PLR statements of my fellow authors. I am so grateful to those people who borrowed mine! So I must go back to the library and do that this week.

I hope you all have a great day. What is cheering you up as a writer in these difficult times?