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Wednesday 30 June 2010

Becoming a student

I have FINALLY bitten the bullet and booked a writing course.  This will be the first writing course I've signed up to (if you exclude the one day freelance course I did) and I am super excited.  I had originally planned to take a Novel and Short Story writing course with The Writers Bureau but then I decided to take a look at the OU.  Not sure why I hadn't looked on their site before really.  Anyways I am going to take the Start Writing Fiction course which is a three month course starting in October and it is with the aim to start writing short stories better than I do as I feel I tend not to have any discipline or follow any kind of structure.  My writing becomes quite confusing as a result and I know it could be a lot better given some more help and advice.  I will see how it progresses and then who knows, I may even study for a Diploma but right now I am itching to get started and can't wait until October.

Saturday 26 June 2010

Caroline Smailes - Like Bees to Honey new widget

OK so if you, like me, were totally addicted to Stray's Black Boxes widget (below right) then you will love the new one.  Stray has now created, to coincide with the launch of Caroline Smailes new fantastic book Like Bees to Honey, a fab new widget to the right of this blog post.  It works in a similar way to the Black Boxes widget where by answering questions you can makes lots of new bee friends.  I now have 10 which I think is pretty good (I have been playing for a while now).  You can ask questions too, mine being:

'To bee or not to bee'

Sorry, couldn't resist!

Thursday 24 June 2010

Another award!!

Yay me, the lovely Gaelikaa has awarded me ‘The Prolific Blogger award’. Gaelikaa is among a great new group of bloggers I have found through Womag2Weekly which I joined when it was set up in the new year. You can find her here and here.

There are a few rules that come attached to this award:


Every winner of the Prolific Blogger Award has to pass on this award to at least seven other deserving prolific bloggers.

Each Prolific Blogger must link to the blog from which he/she has received the award.

Every Prolific Blogger must link back to This Post, which explains the origins and motivation for the award.

Every Prolific Blogger must visit this post and add his/her name in the Mr. Linky so that we all can get to know the other.

I wish to pass on the award to the following seven bloggers:

Qwerty Queen
Spiral Skies
Writing at the Window
Get on with It
Debs - Daydreams in the Shed
Not Only in Thailand
Chez Aspie - DJ Kirkby's blog

Friday 18 June 2010

How to Get Published evenings

Just a quick post as I am on hols and don't have long to spend on here but I just wanted to let you all know about Marie Claire's How to Get Published evenings.


They are taking place next month in various cities across the UK, with London being host on 20 July and I am definitely going.  Well I have paid anyway (I was a bit thrown by one of the comments saying it was sold out but it let me buy a ticket).
As part of the evening you will get the chance to meet author Harriet Evans in person, alongside a panel of experts, and discover what it really takes to get your name in print.

The events are 2 hours long starting at 6.30pm so is 9-5 friendly.  It gives me just enough time to get up there and hopefully learn something.  The tickets are very reasonable at only £20 which includes champagne, canapés and a fabulous goodie bag, including a copy of I Remember You.

I think that makes for a pretty good evening.  If you're interested you can buy your tickets here:

http://www.marieclaire.co.uk/features/343907/how-to-get-published.html

Saturday 12 June 2010

An Award and some things you may not know about me

A huge thanks to the lovely Debs for this award. I love getting awards so this really made my day. Debs is the Editor for Little Black Dress Thursdays at Novelicious.  Her fab book reviews can be found here.


As per the award rules I must list 10 facts that you didn’t know about me and pass them on to other bloggers. I’ll try and list something completely exclusive but if you’ve heard about it on here or on facebook I apologise and I promise not to make anything up…I hope!


1. I live with my boyfriend of 6 years. He is very supportive of my writing (mainly because it means he can play Call of Duty on the X-box without me trying to talk to him.

2. I can read and write short hand. It has come in no use whatsoever but I’d like to think it will someday.

3. I once went for an admin job at MI6. I didn’t get it which is just as well as I am the most indiscreet person you will ever meet. I can keep a secret but I am just very loud!

4. I am tone deaf yet somehow I made the school choir. I also got picked along with other less vocally challenged school friends to sing at a local nightclub when I was about 10. We sang ‘Any dream will do’ with a male stripper for a charity event (don’t worry he didn’t strip).

5. I would quite like Italy to win the World Cup. I got them in the sweepstake at work so am in with a chance of winning £100 (although it would be super cool if England win).

6. I’m totally short sighted. I once mistook my sister for a parking meter. I hate wearing glasses and when I’ve been on a night out and have worn contacts I always wake up the next morning in a blind panic (excuse the pun) because I can’t remember taking them out.

7. If I won the lottery I would still continue in my quest to sell a short story to a womag. It’s not the money but it would be cool if my work was that good someone wanted to pay me for it. I would also love to go to Uni and study Creative Writing. I know I would never need work again but I love writing that much.

8. I hate flying. It makes me nervous and prompts all the following questions in me – what have I forgotten? Can I use the toilet yet? Why does the person next to me keep checking their watch? When is the food coming round? When will you let me off this sodding plane?

9. I have never broken a single bone in my body. I put that down to my lack of adventure as a child and my love of dairy milk.

10. I have super powers – OK just kidding but I have run out of interesting facts if you can call the above interesting. I suppose I could mention what I do for a living (snooze). I work for an IT Company in the Contracts and Compliance Department. I like it some days and other days I hate it. It’s not always easy to do the job properly when deals need to be done quickly and then there’s my total lack of ability to speak anything other than English and on bad days complete nonsense.

I'd like to nominate the following five brilliant bloggers:

David
Suzanne
Gaelikaa
JJ
Carol

Monday 7 June 2010

A busy old week

Last week as the title suggests was really quite a busy one... and a good one.  The bank holiday weekend was spent in Swindon watching the men cook up a bbq and then forage for fire wood.  Boyf and I spent Bank Holiday Monday watching my very best friend and her fella get married.  We spent the night in this beautiful old Manor House where we skipped breakfast and opted to spend our Tuesday off lying in and having a breakfast of tea and complimentary cookies.  These were soon worked off in my Body Pump class which I have only just recovered from - I didn't realise I had quite so many muscles to annoy.  Sadly it was back to work on Wednesday, Thursday brought a bbq for my neices birthday for which I received just in time my copy of Stunt Bunny: Showbiz Sensation by Tamsyn Murray.  It would seem she's a little too young to read herself so I shall take great pleasure in reading it to her.  Saturday I spent sizzling on Brighton beach with Lolly before heading off for a late afternoon wedding where 2 of my very good friends also tied the knot.  The gorgeous food I have consumed has played havoc with my waistline and as a result I have been suffering from chronic heartburn - me thinks my body wants a word no?

Somehow in amongst all of these wonderful (and tiring) goings on I still managed to find time to get in my short story for my fortnightly writing group.  It was received better than all of my previous stories so I was really pleased with that.  It was a Halloween piece which with the helpful comments I received from the other members I was able to rework and send off to Jill at The Weekly News today.  Fingers have been glued cross (which makes for difficult typing so am going to stop now)

Have fab tomorrows everyone

x