Win tailored advice on how to get published

Waterstones are running another great competition for writers giving you the chance to have lunch with Caroline Taggart, editor of Writer's Market UK & Ireland

The very lucky winner will get to meet Caroline in a London restaurant and get invaluable advice on approaching publishers. If you're interested follow this link to their website

All you have to do to be in with a chance of winning is simply tell them in 150 words or less your name, waterstones card number and what you would like to achieve from a lunch with an editor. All entries must be received on or before the closing date of 18th May 2009 at 11:59 PM

Good Luck!

Review: The Boat that Rocked

I wasn't sure about this film because Richard Curtis has received a bit of a grilling for this one. Something about too many characters chucked in together. I couldn't see the problem with that myself. As far as I was concerned I was getting more great actors for the price of one film and I’ve loved all of his other films so far.
The film is set in 1966 on board a ship where a great line up of male characters broadcast 24/7 rock and pop from pirate radio station Radio Rock. Katherine Parkinson (Jen from the IT crowd) is the only woman allowed to live on the boat on the account that her character is a lesbian and can cook...badly. Rhys Ifans isn’t in it as much as I thought but in this case it was definately quality not quantity; Ryhs Darby (Murray from FOTC) was hilarious with his character celebrating the back catalogue of The Seekers. Bill Nighy was the main reason I wanted to watch this but although he was great the shining character for me surprisingly was The Count played by Philip Seymour Hoffman. Nick Frost showed just a little too much flesh for my liking but if you have a thing for him you'll love this. The funniest character for me had to be Thick Kevin (Tom Brooke). He was hilarious especially in the who am I game scene. I am only naming but a few here.
Quite a lot happens in this film; evil government ministers trying to overthrow the radio station; marriage; betrayal; boy realises who his real father is; boy finds girl; girl finds girl; some titanicesque boat sinking; sex; drugs and you guessed it: plenty of rocknroll. This film has it all and what it lacks in plot and character development it most certainly make up for in cast, comedy and music. The sound track is bloody excellent. I listen to the radio all day during my working week and you just don’t get songs like that. My only critique was that it had a tendency to be a bit cheesy in parts but it had me laughing my head off despite this. Stellar cast and even better sound track. A must see!

Who says I can't do two things at once!

In my bid to get fit for race4life I decided to combine my training with a little hobby of mine. About 5 years ago my dad, who is 49 today (or so he says!!) HAPPY BIRTHDAY by the way, introduced me to something called Geo caching. Heard of it? Whenever I have been on any job interviews and the interviewer sees this rare commodity hiding in amongst my love of reading, writing and ...ahem watching tv I always get asked ‘What is geo caching’? I’m sure they could google it but I indulge them by explaining it the best way I know how. It’s a cross between treasure hunting and orienteering with a GPS. My dad could explain it better I’m sure but it could get technical, for me anyway. There are hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands even, of hidden caches all over this country and many others that are waiting to be found.

If you love discovering new sights and learning new things while getting some exercise then I have to recommend this to you. My dad and I have seen so many beautiful sights through this activity and its great having a shared interest in something which I see as quite cult.
So on Saturday I successfully managed to locate a local cache which was 1.29 miles from my house. Nice and easy one and I was impressed with its location. I didn’t realise that this particular railway station where it was located was so close to my house. It took me about 20 minutes to combine running with walking and staring at the geocache application on my phone. Unfortunately however it now feels as though someone has repeatedly kicked me in the shins. I shall however soldier on.

If your still thinking 'what the hell is she going on about' follow this link and click on hide and seek a cache to see whats in your area: http://www.geocaching.com/

I made it - just about

I started my training for Race for Life after work yesterday and I was quite shocked at my level of fitness. I must admit I got a bit cocky telling the girls at work that 5k would be a piece of p*ss. I only managed to run for about 4 minutes which was actually broken up by stopping at the local supermarket (which I didn't realise was so close), putting my laces back in my trainer twice and picking half a dead fly out of my eye. That was the last straw for me so I decided to call it a day and walk back home. After that measley bit of running I am now in agony (forgot to stretch when I got home). After that feeble attempt I would just like to salute Sarah G and anyone else taking part in the Flora London Marathon this year and say I am sooo not worthy.

A Grand Day Out

First of all many apologies once again for my lack of posts, visits, comments of late. It's been very hectic and as this may continue for the next week or so I shall just say one big SORRY in advance rather than me boring you with my profuse apologies here, there and everywhere. I'm still reading/writing wherever I can but life is getting in the way of my art right now and if I weren't so taken over by 'stuff' I would feel down about it.



I did have a fabulous weekend in my pretty froral dress as boyf took me to Liverpool to watch the Grand National. I won £7 (and lost £10) and got to drink and eat all day for zilch. Needless to say I was a very happy bunny all day. We spent the rest of the weekend in Chester, did a bit of shopping and generally just chilled.



This weekend may not be so chilled as we are moving house. Not sure If I am actually moving out of the house yet myself as we haven't been given our moving date yet. It's all very boring and headachy so I'll let you get the general idea of how fun my weekend will be if you want to.



On a final note I am running Race4Life this year. I've put a little widget on the top right hand corner of my blog if you wish to sponsor me to run further than I have ever run in my life. I'll keep you updated on how my training is going (as I am yet to do any!) and hopefully get some writing relating topics in there too. I'll be doing the blog rounds later I promise. I've missed my fave blogs sooo much.

Paul Blart: Mall Cop

Funny Funny Funny!! Yes it was that funny. I am slightly biased because I just think Kevin James is hilarious. I was gutted when King of Queens came to an end. This film is short and sweet, which is good for me because I do tend to have the attention span of a nat (I'm assuming they have little or no attention span but I'm sure you get my point). Towards the end I found myself repeatedly turning to my friend in surprise (to her surprise) and saying 'I was not expecting that!!'. If your looking for laughs a plenty (albeit a little silly) and you like Adam Sandler humour (this film is made by his or the production company HappyMadison which makes a lot of Adam Sandler films) you must go see this. Its not one of those films that you must watch in the cinema for its full effect but it makes for a funny evening out. I went with my friend and as she is 5 months preggers and could only fit into tracksuit bottoms it was either a trip to the gym (HAHAHAHAHA) or the cinema and you can guess which one I would never have chosen.

You are now leaving lazyville, don't come back now!

No writing done so far this week. I am slipping big time with the word count as even though I have been doing the 100 words a day I haven’t stuck to my 354 words a day target if I’m to get the first draft finished before my holiday/brothers wedding in August. I need to get my backside into gear if I’m going to get CIM finished. I wouldn’t mind but I haven’t even been busy this week! The lull started because I took Saturday off to go to a MAC technique class to learn how to put my slap on properly. I had a good day and although this has nothing to do with writing I figure that whatever I do is research for that next story or character. Saturday night we had a BBQ just to make the most of the weather and because big bro came to visit from Cornwall for his Christmas dinner. We haven’t seen him since last year so we all got presents, so exciting!!

So in light of my frequenting lazyville yet again I am vowing to blog more, write more and be online a little bit more. I’m being very unsociable lately. I come home from work and I can’t bear the thought of turning the computer on. Normally I can’t wait to log in. So I’m turning on, logging in and not tuning out.