I’ve decided to take part in the Equus Education Blog Hop about your career.  My answers can be found below!

a. What is your horse related career?
Equine writer. It’s possible to make a living from writing horse informative articles, horse non fiction books and resources for teaching, and horse fiction stories.

b. Where in the world can we find you?
Wangaratta, Victoria, Australia.

c. Is your horse career able to be carried out in part online?
Definitely. It can be mostly online from writing on a computer, to publishing online and selling articles/books online.

d. Do you need a qualification to do your job?
No. It helps to have a good grasp of the language you’re writing in, including spelling and grammar. Plus a background in horses is important so that you’re not making facts up!

e. What’s the best thing about your job?
There is so much to learn about horses and so many things you can do with them, you can write about almost anything and find a way to make money from this. Whether it’s horse health, horse breeding, horse care, horse riding or horse stories, it is possible to write about and earn.

Hi everyone!  I am excited about a new novel that I’m working on and wanted to share some excerpts with you to give you a feel for it!  So I’ll post an excerpt every two weeks, following on from the one before for a little bit.

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It was a nice place where Ben worked. Good physical work, great views and accommodating bosses. He definitely couldn’t complain. And to be honest, if he could, it tended to be toward the end of the season when he’d had enough of clients, but that didn’t matter – he was moving on in a short while by that stage.
The business – Happy Trails – focused on providing just that; trail rides that customers could truly enjoy and have a good time on. It was seasonal work, running through the spring and summer months with a break in February due to the heat, then back on for the autumn months and slowing down over winter.
Generally this meant one of two things for Ben – he did maintenance odds and ends in the early mornings and late evenings of February and then went back to taking clients out over autumn, or he headed off for a break and a scene change at another job an hour down the road until spring came around again.
Ben enjoyed his work with Margaret and Peter – the owners and managers of Happy Trails – but he also enjoyed that he could go off and carry out another job for a spell before coming back to the busy but laid back environment of trail rides. He’d been working this way for the past five years and nothing had changed much over that time.
Margaret and Peter worked hard to keep any staff that they liked – encouraging them to travel and gain other skills in the off season – but always maintaining that there was accommodation, food and a job waiting for them when the riding season started again. Ben liked it that way. He knew where he stood, and he knew the people he worked with.
There was one other regular trail guide – Jake – and a handful of part timers who helped care for the horses and occasionally came out on a trail ride with clients. As much as you had to be ready for anything with horses – you never knew what the day would hold even though you could plan what you would like it to include – Ben was averse to change.
He found he could handle random events that occurred with his equine friends – a sudden lameness, a client falling or a horse running away with him – but he wasn’t the same with people. He liked them to be predictable – and more often than not – he liked them to leave him alone.
Even though he dealt with strangers six days a week, he felt no obligation toward them other than a safe and enjoyable ride. He didn’t need to build up an ongoing rapport with them or become their best friend. He could just answer questions; tell them about the horse they were riding and point out the highlights of the surrounding countryside.
That was enough for him. In fact at this point in time, it was all he wanted. He couldn’t shake the feeling that things were changing though. Ben glanced up from the girth he was tightening on Red, a trusty chestnut gelding often used in trail rides on the farm.
He’d noticed the female figure flitting between the large vegetable garden and the main farm house a few times over the past couple of days. He figured she was a relative of Margaret and Peter’s, or something equally as boring. It didn’t really matter; she was just another figure that was showing up from time to time and therefore a part of his day. Granted, she appeared to have something about her from a distance. But what appeared good from far away often had faults that were obvious up close.

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Well that’s the end of teaser one!  Stay tuned for another excerpt in two weeks!