What a Feeling!

I have just sent my entry for the Waterstones Postcard competition. I didn't realised how much I missed that rush you get when clicking the send button. Exhilerating. Right enough chat it's back to the 9-5 and I shall be working hard on my novel for the rest of the week. Lets hope I can continue where I left off before my holiday.

3 Ideas

Still no work done as I have just lost my weekend to my boyfriend's neice's 1st birthday. Yesterday I went to London with my Mum and spent a lot of time and money in Hamleys. What a great shop. The way I was carrying on anyone would think the toys were for me. Today was the party and I have never seen so many cute kids in one room. I'm not broody or anything but I was tempted to adopt all of them. Despite the lost weekend I did manage to come up with 3 different ideas for my Waterstones post card so I shall definately be getting that finished (and started) some time this week.
I have also managed to avoid eating cheese at all costs - although I ate quite a lot of rubbish today because of the party. Damn those tasty jam tarts

Time to shape up

I'm feeling really really crap today. Tired and headachy. I know this is down to my lack of exercise and poor diet. Sooo... I have decided to give up cheese. Hey if Johnny Vegas can do it so can I - not that I look like him but If I'm not careful I will by the time I'm his age. As soon as my dodgy tan lines have gone I'll be heading to the local swimming pool to get fit as well. My lovely boyfriend got a free ipod shuffle which he kindly gave to me so I think I'll get running too!Hopefully I'll start to feel a bit better and I can focus on other things a lot more like my job and my writing. I still haven't done much in the way of writing this week. I'm stuck in yet another slump. Good news is that I received the OK for my edited version of my short story for the 5-piece photo comp so hopefully I'l be seeing that in print in the Autumn.

Home Sweet Home

I'm back after my week's holiday in Gran Canaria. Apart from having my phone stolen and being badly burnt all over, the holiday was lovely. I am glad to be home but I could do with not having to go back to work in the morning. My spare time tomorrow will definately be spent getting back to the world of writing. I've not done a thing in over a week. I have been receiving some good feedback from some short story competitions I entered. I haven't placed in any so far but I have heard back from the ones I entered and its been positive feedback. ACW wrote to tell me I hadn't won but that I had made it into the top 300 out of 2000 entries. I was pleased with that as it was a story I had written when I was studying English A Level. I don't normally write children's stories but had thought that suited what the competion was looking for. They also offered me a £15 discount for a writing course. Ummm a bit of a ploy me thinks so I shall say no to that for now.
I am leaving the novel for a week just while I am working on an idea for my Waterstones Postcard. I'm still not inspired so I think I will just start and see what order my fingers hit the keys in.
Thats it for me, just wanted to say Hi and hope everyone is well. Must go and watch Britain's got Talent!

What's Your Story?

Waterstones are running a short story competition to celebrate the National Year of Reading. This competition gives writers the chance to be published alongside some of the world's greatest authors and even win an Arvon Writing Course. It doesnt matter what you write as long as it fits their story card. Their favourite stories will get published online and three winners stories will be chosen to go into a postcard book - all proceeds of which go to Dyslexia Action and English PEN. All entries must be in before 19th June 2008 so click here now and get creating.

How much help is too much?

I only managed 395 words words on my novel today as I have spent the best part of this evening looking over the editor's changes to my short story that I submitted for an anthology a while back. While I am happy with most of the changes that have been made I do wonder at what point I can no longer call it my story. A few minor omissions have been made to characters and dialogue. The northern dialect has been taken away, a history between two of the characters created and a slight change to the end. Whilst I am more than happy and agree with all changes (apart from the ending) I do fear that I would be agreeing to too much. Would it still be my story? I know the ideas, the characters and a fair bit of the original story are mine, but can I still agree to put my name to it without feeling like a fraud?

On a role

I have managed to stay out of holiday mode long enough today to write 590 words - this is pretty good considering the only chance I have had today is my lunch break which got cut short due to an annoying client and the last 20 mins as I have been watching the F Word with my boyfriend. Yes I deserve a wrist slap but its a great show and I love Gordon Ramsey and my boyfriend of course. Anyway, that's over double the amount I did yesterday. I figure if I keep this up I can possibly manage 2,000 words just this week alone, and then I can really enjoy my holiday. Fingers crossed (well not while I am typing obviously).