It can be fun, being invisible.

Sometimes the invisibility of ageing women can be a nuisance. I speak, the room whirls round me, then the same words come out of the mouth of a man and everyone drools. But there is little point in foot-stamping; that changes nothing.

(I recall talking with Paul, my mentor, about this - and he was appalled. He'd never noticed older women . . . I rest my case.)

It has evolutionary advantages. The only logical reason for women to live so long after the end of their child-bearing years is to raise children. So - say your village is attacked; if those caring for the children are invisible then a few dead men matter less.

And it has its advantages. For instance, earlier this year I drove down the west coast of America. I found myself in a little cafe in LaJolla, sipping a cappucino, while three women at the next table seemed totally unaware of my scribbling in a notebook, looking up every now and then to check who was speaking. And here, roughly, is a transcript of a corner of their conversation. I shall call them A, B, and C.

A. 'Well, I had this job, in Silicon Valley, and it was so paid, well you know what they pay there, thousands, hundreds of thousands. We had this wonderful house, in the mountains; it was just darling. But then they effectively asked me to choose between work and family (she shrugs), so here we are.'
B. 'Oh, that's such a wonderful story!'
C. 'Oh, and you are such a wonderful mother.'
(They talk about the wonderful things they are doing with their children.)
B. 'I've gone back to school, so I can help little B with his math.'
A. 'Oh, that's so cute.'
B. 'And I've given my daughter a diary, so she can record the way she feels.'
C. 'Oh it's so important that daughters feel good about themselves.'
A. 'Oh self-esteem is the most -'
B. 'I talk with my daughter about her feelings all the time.'
A. 'I want to go to meditation with my daughter.'
C. 'Meditation is wonderful. The pregnant mothers I work with, they do this meditation together, and go into this womb-like trance, and then they all stay connected to each other, sort of embraced by the process.'
B. 'Isn't that just beautiful?'

And so it went on. (In my notebook I commented that this was another reminder of the things that obsess us when we are removed from the necessity of foraging for our own food or keeping ourselves safe.) I have yet to weave this into a short story, but I can't help feeling that all this mutual adoration hid some serious envy. I'm not sure I believe A's tale of deciding to leave Silicon Valley for her family; and, if it's not true, why does she feel a need to make this up? What is B's daughter really writing in her diary? And what do the pregnant women in C's medication class think when in the throws of labour?

On a lighter note - a lad on a bus intended me to hear this: he clambered on with a large musical instrument, bumped into everyone on his way to the back seat, and the turned to his friend and shouted for us all to hear, 'Have you heard, like, Verdi's fucking requiem; it's fucking great!' (I think he wanted me to be shocked.)

So - what have you overheard recently? And does it find its way into stories, or simply simmer in the pages of your notebook?

What do you look for in a website?

I take your point. I need a website.

The next question - what to put on it.

So, just supposing you're wandering the internet, in a random fashion, what makes to stop to look at a website? What is genuinely interesting, and what is filling pages for the sake of it?

I know what I look for. If it is someone who genuinely interests me, I'll flick through the 'about me' page - just to see if they are telling me how wonderful they are or if they can come across as flawed like the rest of us. I might look at what they write, what they read. If they travel I drool over photos.

I don't care about exercise regimes/diets/strange health ideas. I don't care what car they drive/house they live in, or even when they prune the roses. I'm not good anyone telling me what to do.

But I want to make my site welcoming for everyone. It is not simply a reflection of my whims and fancies, but a place that responds to those of anyone who might drop by.

So I'll tell you of the ideas I've had, and I've be grateful if anyone can chip in with others:

• I probably need an 'about me'. It will all seem too random otherwise.
• A page of travel photos, which I can change from time to time - just to whet the appetite of anyone wondering if he or she should follow in my footsteps. 
• A sample chapter - the first - from the book. With a link for anyone who wants to buy it - yes, people have been buying it!
• A page of travelling thoughts - things I learned along the way that I wish I'd known before I left, but didn't seem relevant for the book. Such as how to manage one's washing (walk on it in the shower). (Except the time I arrived at a hostel in New Zealand with a rucksack of filthy clothes which I had saved for their machine. I slipped into the only skirt and shirt that weren't walking on their own, put the rest in to wash, and then went to breakfast. I've often wondered what the energetic young people alongside me would have thought if they'd known the wrinkly in the corner had no pants on.)

I think I'll keep my thoughts on the MA for this blog, because my ideas around that will evolve, and the blog seems a better vehicle for recording change than a webpage.

So - over to you. What do you look for in a webpage? 

In case you were wondering, I'm still doing the MA.

It was a few weeks ago when I blogged about the challenge of online seminars. I was, initially, frantic - how would I ever keep up with the waterfall of ideas. I was the old lady in the corner, thinking, while everyone else was typing away throwing ideas and witticisms into the ether.

No, I haven't given up. And I'm even beginning to learn. But it's been a challenge.

The first task was to give myself permission to 'say' nothing. So I only contribute to seminars if I have something I really need to say. That, at least, took care of the anxiety.

So, I'm surviving. But if I'm simply surviving, then there is little point to doing an MA. I want to learn. And I am. Though rarely in the seminar itself. My learning takes place afterwards, when I can wallow in thinking time, unravel the ideas that have swum around the internet-seminar for the past couple of hours. Constructs such as 'narrative tension' begin to make more sense when I've let them swim in my head for a while. I begin to see that setting can act as a container for a story, and is not simply the backcloth. (Frey, in his book 'How to Write a Damn Good Novel' talks about setting as a crucible. I like that idea; I want to live with it for a while and see how I can use it in my writing.)

Solitary thinking can be so productive. For a start, when having a conversation with myself I am always right. New ideas pop up from somewhere and I can claim them all for myself. New ideas, like feathers, float about somehow, until (sometimes) the sink into something coherent. And then I can risk feeling smug that I am so clever, what with my originality verbal dexterity.

You're right. Ideas need airing in company. And our seminars, with their flood of comments, are no place for unpicking complications, or even delving into ideas in any depth. I could use the course forum; but no-one else uses in this way, and I'm not brave enough to be the first to put my head above the internet parapet.

So how can I possibly know if my thoughts are original, or useful, or even right? I can't, of course, though I would argue that there are few rights and wrongs in writing. But the reading and talking has opened up different ways of looking at things. And that has to be a start, surely?

And you - do you have your best ideas when you are on your own, or do they grow in discussion with other people?

Marketing. Please don't yawn, I need you.

So, I've done it. Produce the book. And you can even buy it here. (If anyone can tell me how to put pictures and clever links on the side of this blog so that it looks inviting and not just gobbledegook web address I'd be grateful.)

I must, I am told, market this book.

That's business-speak. It wears the jargon of business. Which is, of course, terribly important and without it the country would be in a dreadful state because no-one would buy anything and then where would we be ... Honestly, I'm not suggesting it's not important. But, from my perspective, it's, well, a bit boring.

But I am stiffening my shoulders. Trying to behave as if I'm not at the back of the class passing notes. I must learn. I have a book to sell.

And I have friends who know about these things - and even care about them. So I've had a lesson.

Marketing, I'm told, is about product, price, place, and promotion. I must think about each in turn - without resorting to the wine and chocolate and who-really-cares-about-this-stuff option.

Product: I have the book. Well, ebook. It's in the real world now. Well, the eworld. I've done the very best I can with that, and I am proud of it. It is the right book for me. (But, whispers businessman, it doesn't matter what you think. Is it the right book for your readers? As if I know the answer to that.)

Price: I've read blogs telling me not to underprice the book; it will look cheap. I've read blogs telling me not to overprice the book; people will not buy it. There is obviously no right answer. So I've plucked a sort-of-middle price out of the air. My current plan is to leave it at that - some writers seem to fiddle around with the price. Do they not have better things to do?

Place: Amazon, and Smashwords. I must be realistic. The local bookshop might be persuaded to take a copy or two, but it's unlikely to reach the front tables of Waterstones (unless I pay them enough, and even then it may not sell unless I stand on my head and dance in an effort to draw attention to it. Maybe not dancing while standing on my head ... you take my point.).

Which brings me to promotion. Yawn. I tweet, I facebook, and I blog. I am thinking about building a webpage (note - thinking. That's enough for now). I comment on other people's blogs, though only when they interest or entertain me. Surely that's enough? No - apparently. I have read advice suggesting I should join forums - on Amazon, on Kindle, on travel sites, on writing sites - really? To say what - to witter endlessly about the book, which will surely bore everyone. To join in general writerly conversations? Which are fine for a while, but I have real writing to do. Besides, so many of them repeat themselves, and there is a limit to how many times I can recommend that writers read a lot, only to be shot down by someone with wobbly grammar insisting that he or she has never read a book and doesn't mean to stop now.

So - realistically - what do you think I should do now? Carry on as I am, or join in some sort of internet-frenzy in order to sell a few more copies? (I know, I've made it obvious what I want you to say. But if you disagree, please say so. Maybe I'm being a bit bah-humbug about all this.)

When is a book not a book?

Well, I did it. I fought the Kindle formatting and won.

You don't need to know about the blood, sweat and blasphemy that went into sorting it all. (Though I will, here, say a huge thank you to Anna, a daughter, who kept her head when I was in danger of losing mine.)

And, should you have a Kindle, you can even buy it by clicking here!!

I will get the linky-thing working at the side of the blog over the next few days. Hopefully that will also link to the smashwords version - yes, I'm even doing battle with their (different) formatting requirements, and believe that, too, is almost cracked. I'm just waiting for - I think it's some sort of review, and then they give me an ISBN and I have to do something mysterious with that, and then the smashwords version will also be available.

Smug - of course. Not only have I done the travelling, I've written the book, and mastered the technology. Worth a little smugness, just for a day or two? Even some celebratory wine? (Yes, please join me in that. Especially my little band of loyal followers who drop by every blogpost and have cheered me so much these past few weeks. I've raised a glass to you, too - you have definitely helped keep my spirits up in those bleak moments when I wondered if I was ever going to get the hang of this. Thank you all.)

Ah, but this is not the whole story, is it? I am still waiting for the proofs of the 'real book' to come from createspace, and there are bound to be mistakes in that (I rushed it), so there will be more amendments and waiting. It may well be the New Year before I have the final, polished, version to offer you.

And so - my ebook, that lives in the ether and cannot be held or smelled or leafed through - it is real? It has no substance, no body, fills no space. I'm in an odd limbo, knowing my efforts already exist in the contents pages of a Kindle or few, and yet with nothing to hold - nothing, if you like, to show for it.

So - does anyone else experience this odd existential questioning when the ebook is there for all to see, but there is still nothing for anyone to hold?

Did someone tell me this would be easy?

Oh groan.

First - all the formatting for createspace. I did complicated things with copying and pasting and retyping bits to get rid of the wretched lines. Reread it. Yippee - nearly there.

Don't rush, advises Catherine Ryan Howard (find her website here). This is not the time to throw it all together. Make sure it's right first time. You'll only end up with a rubbish proof that you've paid for, and then you'll have to redo it to order a better proof which you will also have to pay for. What's more it will take time - the book has to be shipped from America.

Don't rush. What planet is she on? I know she's right, but let's be realistic. When you're that close to getting the show on the road all you want is to tick the right boxes and get it going. So yes, I rushed. And am now sitting back, waiting for proofs that will need changing and I know it will cost time and money but ho hum, I was impatient and that's just how it is.

While you're waiting, she said, you can be getting on with formatting for Kindle.

She warns me to make plenty of coffee.

Right, I was sitting comfortably. Delete all formatting from the document. No fancy lines, no additional spaces, no tabs, no surprises that Word dropped in when you weren't looking. Then, begin again. Indent paragraphs. (No tabs - repeat, no tabs. I got that - there are no tabs. No extra spaces - got that too.) I checked it, checked it again, saved it. Saved it again.

And opened the kindle website. Registered. Uploaded the cover - this was going well. Uploaded the book. Wait a minute or two while kindle recognises my masterpiece and rearranges it for their readers. Now, check out the book - this is almost done.

A page appears on the screen that looks like a kindle - and I could go through it page by page.

How did those tabs get there? Those line spaces? How come it read all my old formatting which I'd deleted - rediscovered tabs and lines? How can it see things which don't exist any more?

I checked my document. No - that was fine. I really hadn't let one single tab, one stray space, survive. I tried again. Stupid, really, trying the same thing twice. And no, it didn't work the second time either. Fortunately it was late by then, and I had the sense to shut the computer down and head for the wine.

There's been an awful lot of swearing in this house since then.

Thinking-soup

Don't get me wrong. I am enjoying working with two huge projects (beginning the MA and getting the book-show on the road) at the same time. It's just that sometimes I feel a bit disintegrative.

The MA head needs to read, reflect, re-read, make a note or two and carry on reading. It is a quiet, creative process and takes time. And I love it - though it isn't always easy. My mind seems to find new ideas in quiet spaces; I notice things between the lines in a way I don't when I'm simply reading for fun.

Meanwhile, the book is at the typeset stage. It needs reading for mistakes. My head is looking, not for ideas (please not ideas - this book is, basically, finished!), but for sentences that don't scan. Or the confused 'thats' and 'thans' and 'ifs' and 'its' and 'it's'. The lonely lines at the top and bottom of pages. It needs a logical, more detached, clinical approach. I cannot let it get under my skin - not now. This is a mechanical process and I am trying to approach it as such.

Which means I am asking my head to switch from clinical to reflective mode, like brain-skipping. And, though it's rare that I move directly from one task to another, they may be separated in time by nothing more divisive than a cup of coffee. I am aware that my thinking is beginning to feel like a sort of cognitive soup - a soup with bits in coalesce in an almost unidentifiable way. (Surely we've all tasted soups like that - they might have begun life as vegetables, but who knows what they are now?) When I wake in the morning one or other book is at the top of my thinking agenda, but in a floaty way. It will neither make itself knows as an identifiable problem, nor sink to the bottom so something recognisable can appear.

I will, I tell myself, get used to this. And my book will, before long, be on its way, with a real cover and read pages and (gulp) real readers? Which will clear the decks a little.

But in the meanwhile, I'm drowning in thinking-soup. Anyone have any ideas how to start swimming?