TUESDAY 5 JANUARY
I went out at lunch time yesterday with the prime directive of buying Hubby something nice for Valentine's Day. When we were in Bournemouth a couple of weeks back, we came across the most extraordinary chocolate shop called Hotel Chocolat, where the chocolates were probably the most expensive I have ever seen and young ladies were walking about in smart uniforms, giving people really nice free samples of their wares -I was offered a piece of 75% cocoa-mass chile chocolate and it was absolutely gorgeous! Whilst we were there, Hubby bought me a small toy dog with a Hotel Chocolat swag bag and told me it was for Valentine's Day, which was really sweet of him since we normally don't give one another anything more than a card for February 14th, and then treat ourselves to a nice meal out. But of course, I can't let him give me something without returning the compliment and I thought - Bingo! I'll get him the DVD of 'The 300' which we saw in the cinema about a year ago. Then, whilst wandering around HMV the other day in Croydon, we came across it as one of a Buy-Three deal - so that went out of the window because it was too good a deal to miss.
When I woke up yesterday morning I thought, I will nip out at lunch time today and get him something else and, dutifully, at 12.50, I hopped onto a tram and hopped off at Centrale. I wandered through Croydon looking at this and that then had the brainwave of looking in Smiths to see if there are any biographies he'd be most likely to read (as they are the only kind of books he will read). I was okay till I was almost leaving the shop. Having decided there was nothing suitable, I was just thinking of where else I could go when I spotted something which, on impulse, I bought. The only problem is that it is for me and not for Hubby! Personally, I blame W H Smith. They obviously hadn't stopped to consider that a writer could walk in and see the most delicious gift package entiled "My Story" and not be able to resist it. Basically it is just a gorgeous hard back book to write in - the cover of which has "My Story" scrolled across it in calligraphy and a sweet little paperback giving you tips on how to write your memoirs for posterity. It is not often I do something so unbelievably girlie. In our house the shopoholic is my husband! And it is now one less day until Valentines and I am no closer to buying something for him! I may have to have another go tomorrowe.
What I did finally manage to do yesterday evening was meet up with Illustrator Ashley for a quick conflab on the new book - or more specifically, the illustrations for it. It was very nice. We met straight after work in Caffe Nero's in George Street, had a hot drink, then spread our papers out across two tables and tossed a few ideas about. It was terribly bracing to be doing what writers do and forget for an hour that I still have to work as a PA. We came up with a few things and I am going to email Sarah the Publisher shortly and update her. Ashley the Illustrator has promised to have the cover artwork ready before 18th Feb which is when Sarah the Publisher wants it and I have come away inspired and fired up again. Watch this space for futher details.
Just quickly before I go, I just have to mention that we had a small Coming Out party last Saturday for Youngest Grandson. When we originally arranged it, Mother was going to attend, but she has been swept into deepest darkest Camberley to recuperate after her accident the other week and sent her apologies. It was probably better that way. I daren't think what would have happened if Grand-daughter had, in innocent joy, gone to leap onto her great Granny's lap and caught the injured shin with her toes. I have promised Mother we'll arrange another tea just for her when she is better. Middle Sister couldn't make it but Youngest Sister did and she brought along Lovely Brother-in-Law, 19-year old Neice and 10 year old Nephew. Everyone had cuddles with Grand-daughter and Youngest Grandson and 10 year old Nephew found himself very much the object of Grand-daughter's affections when she trailed around after him all afternoon and had him rolling around the floor like a two year old himself! It was really nice and Youngest Grandson was on his very best behaviour.
I think that's it for now so I better go - stuff to do. Catch you next time. Hopefully with a present for Hubby to tell you about!
Showing posts with label WRITING. Show all posts
Showing posts with label WRITING. Show all posts
Monday, 4 February 2008
Thursday, 31 January 2008
ITCHING
Hello one and all. Pleased to tell you that my mum is okay after her accident. She has got a long way to go before she completely recovers but she is getting there. Super Aunt is taking her home to Camberley next week to help her recuperate and I am sure she'll be fine, but it was a scare, there is no doubt about that!
So here it is - the great writing update. I am starting to pick up my pen again. I just seemed to lose my way in the word maze for a few weeks and I have been struggling to focus on anything. Today however, I have managed to enter two poems for children for a competition and uploaded another to WriteWords which is the best writer's site I have ever come across. It is my intention - misguided or not - to enter at least one competition every month this year. I know the books are keeping me busy but I need to keep my finger in as many other pies as possible. On Monday this week, I was chuffed to receive six copies of the first book through the post and I am hearing that more and more people are ordering it - one school has ordered 18 copies for their library - which is terrific. The second book is written and just needs finalising. I have been trying to see Ashley the Illustrator ever since Christmas and finally confirmed a meeting with him straight from work last Thursday - which I then had to cancel because of a certain person's fight with a bus forty times bigger than she is! I have been ringing and texting him all week but he hasn't come back to me yet so I shall just have to persist. Sarah the Publisher wants the cover artwork for the second book by mid-February so I have got no choice, I shall have to persist. I actually got an email from Amazon the other morning, asking me if I wanted to pre-order the second book due for publication on 8 September; which is somewhat surprising news to me that's very welcome at the same time.
Sarah the Publisher did say she wants some puzzles and Factoids to appear at the back of the second book and I am delighted to announce that I have succeeded in producing a wordsearch puzzle suitable for 5 - 7 year olds after the nth attempt, so it's a start. The Factoids shouldn't be difficult to find. If I can get Ashley the Illustrator to do a Spot the Difference puzzle I think Sarah the Publisher will be quite happy with that. Then I will have to knuckle down and get the third book actually written. I know that certain High Street supermarket chains have said they'd like to sell the whole series so who knows - maybe more than a few dozen people will eventually know about Yucketypoo!
As far as long term plans are concerned, I am still looking for a part time job to enable me to spend more time answering my calling, plus I am determined to get an agent this year. A famous agent who handles adult books recommended I try a famous agent who handles children's books - but I was very put out by her lack of interest; she didn't even want to know when I told her who had recommended her. I have said on the WriteWords site that I wouldn't recommend any other writer approaches them unless they are J K Rowling, Philip Pullman or Jacqueline Wilson. I told her the first book had already been published and that two more had been commissioned and what did she reply? That she does not have sufficient confidence in my 'manuscript' to accept me as a client. And this despite the fact I sent a copy of the book to her. Ah well! Her loss. I'll find someone else.
I must admit I am feeling pretty fired up - so it is appropriate that, as I sit here and write my blog, Bruce Springsteen is on the radio singing "I'm On Fire" - good on you, Bruce. me too!
Catch you later!
So here it is - the great writing update. I am starting to pick up my pen again. I just seemed to lose my way in the word maze for a few weeks and I have been struggling to focus on anything. Today however, I have managed to enter two poems for children for a competition and uploaded another to WriteWords which is the best writer's site I have ever come across. It is my intention - misguided or not - to enter at least one competition every month this year. I know the books are keeping me busy but I need to keep my finger in as many other pies as possible. On Monday this week, I was chuffed to receive six copies of the first book through the post and I am hearing that more and more people are ordering it - one school has ordered 18 copies for their library - which is terrific. The second book is written and just needs finalising. I have been trying to see Ashley the Illustrator ever since Christmas and finally confirmed a meeting with him straight from work last Thursday - which I then had to cancel because of a certain person's fight with a bus forty times bigger than she is! I have been ringing and texting him all week but he hasn't come back to me yet so I shall just have to persist. Sarah the Publisher wants the cover artwork for the second book by mid-February so I have got no choice, I shall have to persist. I actually got an email from Amazon the other morning, asking me if I wanted to pre-order the second book due for publication on 8 September; which is somewhat surprising news to me that's very welcome at the same time.
Sarah the Publisher did say she wants some puzzles and Factoids to appear at the back of the second book and I am delighted to announce that I have succeeded in producing a wordsearch puzzle suitable for 5 - 7 year olds after the nth attempt, so it's a start. The Factoids shouldn't be difficult to find. If I can get Ashley the Illustrator to do a Spot the Difference puzzle I think Sarah the Publisher will be quite happy with that. Then I will have to knuckle down and get the third book actually written. I know that certain High Street supermarket chains have said they'd like to sell the whole series so who knows - maybe more than a few dozen people will eventually know about Yucketypoo!
As far as long term plans are concerned, I am still looking for a part time job to enable me to spend more time answering my calling, plus I am determined to get an agent this year. A famous agent who handles adult books recommended I try a famous agent who handles children's books - but I was very put out by her lack of interest; she didn't even want to know when I told her who had recommended her. I have said on the WriteWords site that I wouldn't recommend any other writer approaches them unless they are J K Rowling, Philip Pullman or Jacqueline Wilson. I told her the first book had already been published and that two more had been commissioned and what did she reply? That she does not have sufficient confidence in my 'manuscript' to accept me as a client. And this despite the fact I sent a copy of the book to her. Ah well! Her loss. I'll find someone else.
I must admit I am feeling pretty fired up - so it is appropriate that, as I sit here and write my blog, Bruce Springsteen is on the radio singing "I'm On Fire" - good on you, Bruce. me too!
Catch you later!
Thursday, 13 September 2007
GRUMPY OLD WRITER...
I have decided that being in a full time job when you would rather be at home writing is a specific kind of purgatory! My job is getting worse by the day and wears me out emotionally and physically.Every moment spent there, feels like another wasted moment, and each one of those carries the weight of all the other wasted moments. By the end of every day, I am wrecked! Not a pretty sight on the best of days, I can tell you!
Things are happening. Two days ago, I received a copy of the press release that Sarah the Publisher is going to release shortly about the first book. And yesterday, I was contacted by the editor of an ezine called My Pet Friends asking me if I was still interested in contributing as it had been some weeks since I first expressed an interest in doing so and hadn't been back in touch. I have another publisher interested in some inspirational poetry who has suggested I put a collection together. All of this takes time and time is what I am so sadly lacking in on a day to day basis. This blog is a good example of what I mean. When I started it a few weeks back, my intention had been to write every day - but you can see from the eratic state of the dates that it has only been a couple of times a week. Although - BIG round of applause here please AND a roll of drums - I am actually writing this on my laptop at home at ten in the evening rather than squeezng it into my lunchbreak at the office. So it looks like I got that right last week even if I got everything else wrong.
On Monday next week, Hubby and I are off to the north-western isles of Scotland for a two week break. We are doing a coach and ferry tour which takes in a four or five of the islands, so this will be my last blog till I get back. One thing I am planning to do, is to get more organised when we return. I am going to move the ancient, giganticus computer I bought in the year 2000 into Hubby's hobby room, which is where the home office is already based, so that my desk here in Successful Writer's Study is less cluttered. I am going to get my head down and get the next book in the series written for Sarah the Publisher and then, maybe in the new year, I can look at cutting my hours down - because working less hours would better than working full time and writing whenever I get a spare second (at the moment, I am writing at bus stops, on trams, first thing in the mornng or well into the night and still finding it is not long enough to do everything else).
I also want to do a lot more talks next year at schools, writing circles and clubs, and to do that I need to sell mself (not on street corners obviously- per-lease, I'm fifty!) and get myself more into the public domain. So any other writers (or readers) logging on, take note. I am an experienced speaker and I am never happier than when talkng about my beloved writing.
Unless I am complaining about being cooped up in a stuffy office day after day, geting grief from almost everywhere and feeling like a moth trapped in a jar, of course. I quite like grouching about that.
Maybe there is something in being a grumpy old woman, after all. Now - where's my sacred bar of Greens Maya Gold .....
Things are happening. Two days ago, I received a copy of the press release that Sarah the Publisher is going to release shortly about the first book. And yesterday, I was contacted by the editor of an ezine called My Pet Friends asking me if I was still interested in contributing as it had been some weeks since I first expressed an interest in doing so and hadn't been back in touch. I have another publisher interested in some inspirational poetry who has suggested I put a collection together. All of this takes time and time is what I am so sadly lacking in on a day to day basis. This blog is a good example of what I mean. When I started it a few weeks back, my intention had been to write every day - but you can see from the eratic state of the dates that it has only been a couple of times a week. Although - BIG round of applause here please AND a roll of drums - I am actually writing this on my laptop at home at ten in the evening rather than squeezng it into my lunchbreak at the office. So it looks like I got that right last week even if I got everything else wrong.
On Monday next week, Hubby and I are off to the north-western isles of Scotland for a two week break. We are doing a coach and ferry tour which takes in a four or five of the islands, so this will be my last blog till I get back. One thing I am planning to do, is to get more organised when we return. I am going to move the ancient, giganticus computer I bought in the year 2000 into Hubby's hobby room, which is where the home office is already based, so that my desk here in Successful Writer's Study is less cluttered. I am going to get my head down and get the next book in the series written for Sarah the Publisher and then, maybe in the new year, I can look at cutting my hours down - because working less hours would better than working full time and writing whenever I get a spare second (at the moment, I am writing at bus stops, on trams, first thing in the mornng or well into the night and still finding it is not long enough to do everything else).
I also want to do a lot more talks next year at schools, writing circles and clubs, and to do that I need to sell mself (not on street corners obviously- per-lease, I'm fifty!) and get myself more into the public domain. So any other writers (or readers) logging on, take note. I am an experienced speaker and I am never happier than when talkng about my beloved writing.
Unless I am complaining about being cooped up in a stuffy office day after day, geting grief from almost everywhere and feeling like a moth trapped in a jar, of course. I quite like grouching about that.
Maybe there is something in being a grumpy old woman, after all. Now - where's my sacred bar of Greens Maya Gold .....
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