Welcome to my little corner of the internet, I hope you stay awhile. I will be slowly building up my presence and if you like what I’ve started, feel free to reach out? Although I’m an introvert, I really want to meet like-minded people.
The title of this page is a bit of an homage for my dear old Dad, who was my most fervent supporter in every area of my life and something he always said. I still miss him every, single, day.
My name is Ainsley Caine, I’m a new-ish author and I’m just about to finish my first novel. It is a romantic suspense story based on a dream I had a number of years ago. I’ve tried to write it a few times and haven’t ever succeeded, either I’ve been too busy with kids, work, or I’ve overthought the premise… You may relate?
I’m in the final edits of the book after first having had an editorial assessment (thanks Caroline), line-editing (thanks Faith) and my awesome sisters as my first beta readers. My close friend Kell (wom) who was also a beta and an incredible encouragement in my writing over the years.
I’ve been embracing the opportunity to write part-time in-line with my full-time corporate contracting role, I feel blessed to have the time in my middle-age to indulge in my craft. My beloved husband is incredibly supportive of my creative endeavours (I also paint). He is also a creative person and a brilliant photographer who focusses (pun intended) mainly on landscape and animal snaps.
I LOVE learning and have become a bit of a course addict, with full memberships to Skillshare, Masterclass, and others including; the Self Publishing Formula (Mark Dawson), Publish and Thrive (Sarra Cannon) and Creativindie (Derek Murphy) – definitely not a prescriptive list either 😉
All these forums bring different perspectives and I keep going back to each for ongoing inspiration and support.
In the corporate world, I was in product/service delivery and used the agile style of working to reach objectives. I liked the mix of adaptability and structure agile affords and the way hands-on management could keep the work-flow moving. Planning helps keep me focussed on the task at hand, I have always been easily distracted, so the addition of agile tools helps me to ‘age quod agis‘ as they say in latin – or, to ‘do what you are doing‘ and focus on the task at hand. For someone who was not allowed to sit near a window during class, using agile and other organizational methods, keeps me on task with my daily/weekly and monthly planning.
With the use of a Kanban board, planners, and sprints (also advocated by Sarra Cannon), I use some of the mechanisms which supported my way of working in the corporate world. I have found they can also prove useful in a home-based work environment.
As I write this I’m sitting in my home studio which is a gorgeous self-contained timber frame cottage in our suburban back yard. It seems the only positive thing to come out of Covid was the acceptance of the more sensible working from home arrangements. My Myers Briggs personality type is only 4% of the population, and it suits me way better to be plugged into the ether and not face-to-face – well with the exception of video conferencing.
Hope you enjoy my site, reach out to contact me – I’m genuinely happy to discuss most things, especially writing-related subjects!
