Anne C. West

It’s time for another Week in the Life video from me.

This was a great week. Lots of ticks. Just not writing-wise… We do the things we don’t want to do. And don’t do the things we want to do. I think this is my huge question about the meaning of life… But alas.

I wrapped up the Keto Life 5 Day Reset Challenge! And I’m so proud of myself. I am also sticking to the basics of the challenge since my objective is to get back into shape and stay in shape, which consists 100% of lifestyle changes. I’ve rolled out daily meditation, continued daily movement in the form of yoga/pilates, isometric workout routines and skipping most days. Before Keto, I added 72-hour fasts every other week. With Keto, I’m essentially adding the calorie restriction aspect of lifestyle changes to the mix. I’m still pre-menopause, but the impact of this run of hormonal changes is brutal! Even living a moderately active lifestyle since high school and mostly healthy food choices did not prevent weight gain and hormone disasters. I lacked deliberate and mindful ageing until now. So let’s see.

We had an impromptu hiking trip on Saturday, which was amazing! If you ever visit this area, do yourself a favour and visit De Wildt Adventure Trails. There’s enough for all skill and experience levels, but the 6km and up trails are definitely my favourite.

Over the past few vlogs, I did some training. Learning Amazon Ads. And this week, I finally set up my first ads on Amazon. Years ago, there was a billboard at the entrance of a neighbouring town that said, ‘Whether you’re big or small, we all have to advertise.’ And it had the image of two giraffes next to each other, one big and one small. Most probably a parent and a little one. It always stuck with me. So I’ve allocated a small part of my budget to spend on ads from now on. Otherwise, social media, group promos and email marketing are what I’m focusing on. Speaking of which, I’ll share the promos here on the blog as well.

Yesterday I finally returned to editing Silver Murder! Finally! I would like for this cosy mystery to go live on KU before the year is out, but I have a bit to do still. You can still read the unedited edition here on the blog as part of my #BAS (Blog A Story) series. Newsletter subscribers have access to the passwords for these blog posts.

Finally, did you pick up any of my last publications? Secrets In The Sand, When Hearts Leap, The Unknown Series Boxed Set and the Wedding Vows Collections? It’s available on Amazon and through KU! If not, go and grab that and please please please (don’t let me beg! it’s ugly…) leave a review or a star rating. It really helps.

That’s it for today.

Cheers!
Anne

**Please send me an email with your feedback at anne@annecwest.co.za. Comments vanish and get missed, hence emails.**

It’s time for another Week in the Life video from me.

Spring has sprung! Happy spring to you if you’re in my valley of the world. And happy autumn if you’re in the northern hemisphere.

I spend A LOT of time on the charity project last week. And this week on KETO prep! Change is good and all but I forget how hugely time-consuming and exhausting it can be to make changes.

The charity event is happening on Thursday, and I’m excited to see the reception of what I created. It’s a spring event and I went for colour! In last week’s vlog there’s been a bit of footage of me sewing orange, yellow and blue vinyl strips together. I turned this into placemats and part of the strings as well. The stripes became just too busy, so I made the rest of the placemats out of the solid colours. Easier on the eyes. We combined the placemats with raffia and white table cloths, as well as white fresh flowers in the bottles that we plan to use as flower pots.

I’ve been threatening to get back into better meal prep, making purposeful food choices, and adopting proper healthy habits for years now. For a good three years now, I’ve been a stalker on the Keto Life 5 Day Reset Challenge, a WhatsApp Group community where we get 1 Keto recipe a day, 1 task to make better decisions, mindset, etc and a basic workout. All free. In the process, you learn to choose meals with purpose. The second meal of the day is on you, accompanied by copious amounts of instruction in the information sheets made available before each reset.

I had the best of intentions to get the editing for Silver Murder done the past week, but so it all just spiralled out of control, and here we are. Other than some planning, this is my main focus for today. I think next week’s vlog will be me boring you with editing but then again, if you know the outcome will be sweet, is it really boring?

During the past week’s vlog there’s some marketing footage. There’s a newsletter coming up which will require me some more newsletter work before the week is out and I would really love to get some social media prep done as well before the week is out. I do think, maybe that should come in during my 5pm-to-9pm tasks.

Over the past weekend, we enjoyed some socials and all sorts of non-writing-related activities. It’s not writing related but I thought I’d show you a snapshot here and there.

Finally Secrets In The Sand, When Hearts Leap, The Unknown Series Boxed Set and the Wedding Vows Collections are available on Amazon and through KU now! Go and grab that and please please please (don’t let me beg! it’s ugly…) leave a review or a star rating. It really helps.

That’s it for today.

Cheers!
Anne

**Please send me an email with your feedback at anne@annecwest.co.za. Comments vanish and get missed, hence emails.**

It’s time for another Week in the Life video from me.

There’s quite a bit of boring training footage this week. I think the most exciting thing was the charity project I’m working on. And maybe the family responsibility that entails a bit of admin stuff.

Other than that, it’s exciting to let you know that, Secrets In The Sand, When Hearts Leap, The Unknown Series Boxed Set and the Wedding Vows Collections are available on Amazon and through KU now! Go and grab that and please please please leave a review or a star rating. It really helps.

That’s it for today.

Cheers!
Anne

**Please send me an email with your feedback at anne@annecwest.co.za. Comments vanish and get missed, hence emails.**

It’s time for another Week in the Life video from me.

Preorder Secrets In The Sand, 10th collection of short stories now! It’s going live 24 August 2025. I’m very proud of this collection of cozies. They’re all standalone stories never before seen. Unless you’re part of my subscriber list.

The rest of this week’s been a blur. Lots of training. A lot of family responsibility inbetween a lot of editing. I’m exhausted just saying that.

From today I’ve got training and editing Silver Murder, the one cozy serial in my #BAS series.

That’s it for today.

Cheers!
Anne

**Please send me an email with your feedback at anne@annecwest.co.za. Comments vanish and get missed, hence emails.**

It’s time for another Week in the Life video from me.

Updating my Short Stories is ongoing. Secrets In The Sand is the 10th collection of short stories and consists of cosies set at the coast! It’s quirky. It’s cute. And I love it!

Last week I told you that Notebooks, the 7th collection in the Short Stories Series, is my 3 stars collection and it’s available on Amazon and through KU. Did I say it’s a sci-fi collection?

When Hearts Leap, the 9th collection in the Short Stories Series, is also available on Amazon and through KU.

My Unknown Series of sweet regency romance novellettes is now boxed up and ready for your read!

I hope to give my serials attention from next week, so hopefully you’ll see that in the weekly vlogs. So much to write and so little time!!! Plus of course, the energy thing that is actually more intense.

That’s it for today.

Cheers!
Anne

**Please send me an email with your feedback at anne@annecwest.co.za. Comments vanish and get missed, hence emails.**

It’s time for another Week in the Life video from me.

This week I focused on editing, editing, editing! My goodness!

The writing bit is fun. Okay, not exactly fun, but not exactly torture. Then there’s editing. This is a unique type of torture for me. It usually accompanies a lot of cringing during the first reading and subsequent rereadings of the blog post, short story, chapter, scene, or whatever I worked on. Then it’s the ‘you know what, that’s not too shitty’ phase.

Then the rewrite starts. This part I particularly detest. It’s also here where I kinda just forget I ever wrote that and leave it saved in Drive. But then, I’m pulled back to what I wrote because of the initial idea I had. Because, yes, my ideas hound me! And that’s usually where I straighten my spine, look myself in the mirror and remind myself why I’m doing this.

Hence, the week that passed…

I’m updating my Short Stories series as it is now on Amazon.

The original series was a single short story. Now it’s building into collections. I’ve updated two of the current collections with additional short stories. Notebooks, the 7th collection in the Short Stories Series, was updated with a second sci-fi short story. And boasts 3 stars on Amazon! Isn’t that wonderful!?

When Hearts Leap, the 9th collection in the Short Stories Series, boasts four women’s fiction short stories. Please give it a read and let me know what you think with some stars! It would make my ink-filled heart really happy!

The collection you see me edit with ferocity is the Secrets In The Sand, collection 10 in the Short Story Series. This cosy mystery series goes live 24 August 2025, and I have a bit of editing I want to get through.

My serials are currently being horribly neglected. And for that, I’m truly sorry. But as soon as I can get ‘me head out of me arse‘ and get this done, you’ll have serials to enjoy again! But thank you for your patience.

In the meantime, look out for the box set of my Unknown Series, currently available in single books through Amazon and Amazon KU. With it the bonus scenes in the single books as their own collection of short stories! Both are available 17 August 2025. Also, remember to grab your free short story. Follow the link at the top of this blog post.

That’s it for today.

Cheers!
Anne

**Please send me an email with your feedback at anne@annecwest.co.za. Comments vanish and get missed, hence emails.**