Don't tell mother.

Laying in a bath full of bubbles this afternoon I was thinking about the post I wrote this morning and to be honest it felt a bit self indulgent. Now there's nothing wrong with indulging yourself now and again but I would prefer it to involve chocolate than whatever that was that was going on this morning. I almost deleted the post but like I have said many times, I regard this blog as a conversation between friends and as we have all probably learned to our cost once something has been said it can't be unsaid.
Frances said something in a comment she made that just confirmed what I had concluded. Frances said that writing is something that you should do because you love it and that is so true. I do love writing and I will continue to do it. However for now at least it will be just for me, myself and I. Its not the disappointment that I can't stand because it really doesn't bother me. I get over it very quickly and move on. I think that for now I need to write for enjoyment and while I am being truthful when I say the disappointment doean't bother me I can't pretend that I enjoy it.
So sorry and all that but I guess the blog is about me then and I thought that I would tell you some things that my mother doesn't know about me.
1. I enjoy listening to Andrea Bocelli and Il Divo even though I have no idea what they are singing about most of the time.
2. I have had articles and stories published in national and international magazines.
3. That I enjoy baking and bake a cake almost every week. I made a carrot cake this morning.
4. That I have 5 clocks in my living room for no other reason than I like them all.
5. That I don't take milk in tea or coffee - actually she might know that but just choose to ignore it because she is the only person who ever puts it in.
That's enough for now. Don't want to overload you with information.

The way I'm feeling

Well I know that I would have been quick enough to tell you good news so its only right that I tell you that bad. Well not bad really because its just par for the course but disappointing to say the least.
There was a huge thud on the mat the other day when the two stories that I sent to PF landed there. Who knew that 10 sheets of paper (approximate because I didn't count them) could make such a noise? Or was that the sound of my hopes crashing.
Anyway there you go, it happened they came back but if its any consolation they had been there for a couple of weeks instead of the couple of days and the pages were crumpled so I can be sure that they were read.
As you have probably realised, this blog os about writing but I'm thinking that I might have to start sharing a bit more of me and my life because to be honest I am thinking of giving up on this writing lark or at least on the trying to get it published. I will probably still do it for pleasure. So its either give a bit about myself or not blog
Please be assured that this is not an attempt to get anyone to say that I should keep at it and I'm really good etc etc etc its just me telling you how I feel today. I can take the disappointment and to be honest I got over the disappointment the other day very quickly and on reflection even though the stories IMO were good (in fact I think one of them is very good) maybe they are not right for the short story market (well obviously not because they were rejcted.) So its not this weeks disappointment it is just me being realistic.
Anyway, I'll have a cup of tea and have a think about it and I may be back with really inetersting facts about me (yaaaawwwwnnn)

Feeling good

This morning I have written the first draft of my first new short story in almost two years and it feels fab. At the moment its 2000 words long which took me a couple of hours to get down and I don't know where the time went. I noticed there were a lot of red and green squiggly lines throughout the text so lots of typos due to the fingers and the brain not working at the same speed but that can be sorted later. I'm now going to ignore the newly stored story for a few days and then go back and edit it and correct all of the mistakes but for now, I feel good.

Finding positives.

Well, there's still no sign of the two stories that I sent to PF over a week ago which is definite progress given my track record with them so thats good. Also on a positive note I filed my tax return for the writing I did last year and paid the bill and while the extra tax revenue won't have had George Osborne doing cartwheels I feel better that it is filed and paid. If I ever meet Sir Philip Green (highly unlikely I grant you) I will take great pleasure in telling him that me and the tax man are square and then ask him if he can say the same. Also (also) on a positive note I started a new short story. "So what's the big deal about that?" you may ask especially those of you that do that on a weekly if not almost daily basis. Well the big deal my friends is that it is the first new short story that I have started/worked on in almost two years. I have finally climbed back in the saddle so I fully expect a little soreness later on.

Desperately Awaiting Postman

I'll be desperately waiting for the postman tomorrow - not that I'm expecting anything good but to see if my PF submissions come back.
My current record for the longest time they have taken to return them is 4 days (shortest 2 days) so given that I posted them on Wednesday and today is a Sunday so no post if they don't slap down on the doormat tomorrow I will consider it a bit of a result. Not much of a result I grant you but when you are trying to crack a new publication you have to grab any ray of sunshine you can.

A dilemma

I'm sitting on the horns of a dilemma which, thankfully for me is not as painful as it sounds.
Picture the scene if you will, one of your main characters is dealing with a problem and they have to deal with said problem in a certain way for the story to progress in the way you anticipated it going. However, after getting into the characters head and writing they have behaved in a different way meaning that things may not turn out they way you thought they would. Actually they probably will but the character of teh character(J)has changed. Maybe they were misunderstood all the time. There's a thought. I'd never planned on people sympathising with her. My book may have just taken on a whole new direction. Not in the outcome of the story but in terms of the journey. Maybe I don't have a dilemma at all.
Thanks for listening.
On a different note I sent off the two stories that I was planning to submit so fingers crossed that I don't get them back in today's post.
And on a totally different note as you can see, I have paragraphs. Thanks dark Skipper for solving the problem.

A question

Okay so this may be a bit of an odd question but all I can say is remember that I am going back to basics. I have 2 stories that I want to send to the same editor and oddly enough this is a "problem" that I haven't had before, so what I would like to know is, is it okay to send them together or should the be sent seperately? Also is Shirley Blair still the Fiction Editor of People's Friend? All guidleines I read for PF say that I should address the submission to "The Fiction Editor" which I will do if that's what they prefer but in my head I would like to know the name of the person that I am writing to.

Lesson learned

With reference to my last post which told you all of my latest rejection I wanted to share the lesson that I learned from the process of writing it. I won't keep you waiting because I'm sure that the suspense is killing you so here it is. The lesson is that, and I say this with no offence to anyone who writes for them, but writing for M & B is not something that I would like to do on a regular basis. They have moved on and you are allowed a bit more realism but keeping within their framework makes the stories, how can I put this, unrealistic. That is only my opinion of course but I'm entitled to it so I'm giving it. So, I'm glad I gave it a try but I won't be trying it again in a hurry. This morning I'm going back to basics as it were and preparing a couple of short stories to be sent out into the world. Last year was my most successful (although still very modest) year as a writer but the wheels seem to have come off my wagon so to speak so its time to back-track a bit I think. Just out of interest, can anyone please tell me how to get paragraphs on here? I'm still not a fan of the neww format and since it changed I have never had paragraphs. I could live with it at first but now it is irritating me.

Not such a Nice project

I got the response on my "Nice" project today and sadly for me it was not the one I wanted. It was my first ever attempt at a "romance" for Mills and Boon so I guess I shouldn't have been surprised that I didn't get it right first time. It hasn't been a total waste because I learned a lot whilst writing it and I do think that the basic premise is okay. Maybe I'll stick it in a drawer (so to speak) for a while and then look at it again. I'm not sure what prompted me to write it other than it seemed like a good idea at the time. I hope I'm not coming across as despondent because that's not how I feel. At the end of the day it's just part of life's rich tapestry.

Letter writing and not much else.

I haven't done a lot of writing this week. Well, for that you could read almost non which would be more accurate. I did write a letter to The Guardian though which is something I suppose. It was part of my "experiment" and also something that I have never done before. I don't usually have time to read a newspaper but I flicked through the magazine part last week and found something that actually caught my interest so I gave them my opinion on it. We'll see if they take note of it but I'm not holding my breath. I have also read a couple of issues of WN like I said I would but I don't think I have anything in my current works in progress that fits the bill so I will have to come up with a new idea. I have however had a very relaxing week. I've had a potter or two in tha garden, the odd sweep of a paint brush (on walls not canvas) and finished the biography of Mary Tudor that my youngest son bought me for Mother's Day. Today (Friday, Himself and I are off to Northallerton for the day. It's a bit of a trek but it will be worth it. I was offerred a job there lat year and we went to see if I could manage the commute but I decided that I couldn't. The driving didn't bother me it was the thought of sitting in the car for an hour and a bit after work each day. The ten minutes that it takes me now is much more to my liking. Anyway, I digress a little but that is what we will be doing today and then the weekend is for relaxation before going back to the day job on Monday. One last thing. Bit of a random question I know but can anyone come up with what to buy a man (Himself) as a pearl wedding anniversary present? Ta x

Update

I have to be honest and say that my experiment has stalled somewhat due to circumstances that were mainly beyond my control but it is sitting on the back burner and I will get back to it in due course. I have bought the last few issues of WN though in an attempt to see where I'm going wrong there. I have enjoyed some success with them before but nothing for ages so I'm trying to work out what it is that Jill is looking for these days. They were the first magazine to publish me in this country so I have a soft spot for them. The stories that I had published with them were a while ago though, before I spent time writing just non fiction so I need to get in tune with them again I think. Other than that I have a week off work this week which I am looking forward to. I don't expect to get a lot of writing done because Himself is also off work and while we haven't "booked" anywhere I'm sure well be out a lot. NRIMH is surrently sitting at a little over 26,000 words. It is the first draft and is basically just the skeleton of the story which I am probably about half way through telling. Okay, so time to read this weeks stories in WN and I'll keep you up to date with my retuning efforts. Oh and by the way - Go Wiggo, go Wiggo!!! (reference to Bradley Wiggins for those of you that don't follow the Tour de France)

Magazine experiments and other stuff

So in the last 10 days or so since I last checked in I've added about 3,000 words to NRIMH although 1,000 of those were written this morning. I have to say that I am very happy with that because I don't thnk I have ever had such a productive morning in terms of written words. However I have decided to give the magazine experiment that I have seen a few people do before a try. You know the one, it's where you target a magazine every week or every fortnight and try to get something published in it. Hopefully it will focus my mind. The magazin de jour as it were is Take a Break and given that I have never had a sniff of an acceptance from Norah I think I'd better try the letter page.

Getting to know them again.

I've spent the last hour reading through the 19k words that I already have down on NRIMH, reacquainting myself with all of the subsiduary characters and who is connected to whom. I discovered that I'm rooting for S, that I actually feel sorry for J and that H's son started of being called James but became Peter a bit later. I settled on James. Let the new words roll.

Coping with the disappointment

So I heard back about three of the short stories I'd submitted. That would be "no, no and no again." Luckily for me they were all in the same email so at least I didn't have to read three seperate ones and when you're looking for silver linings in clouds then that's the best that I can do. Also I'd submitted BTL to an agent and they decided this week that they weren't in love with that either. Luckily for me I have a part of my brain that I can stick all the things that I don't want to dwell on in and I close the door and forget about them. This is an actual fact, well its not an actual room with a door obviously, but I am able to forget about things that I don't want to remember and this allows me to get over disappointment very quickly. I think it may be the silver lining attached to the cloud that was a road accident, partial paralysis and a stroke when I was 6 years old. Oh and please don't feel sorry for me because I don't remember any of that at all - seriously can't recall it. However getting back to my disappointing week, that's all the bad news. The good news (putting positive head on) is that I still have the Nice project, a couple (might be one) of short stories and a non fiction piece out there. Also I am very excited about my next big project "NRIMH." Some of you may remember those letters as it is a project that I started a couple of years ago but for reasons that I won't go into I decided that it would be best to stop. Well the time seems right now to carry on so that's what I am going to do.

Waiting game

Still no news about any of the things that I have out there. Don't you just hate the waiting? I do but what can you do - it's all part of the game. I'm at a bit of a loose end on the big project front. My "Nice" project is finished and out there so what do I do next? Well there are a couple of large bits in the WIP folder but I'm not sure which of those grabs me so to speak so maybe I'll have to come up with a new one. NO NO NO!!! For God's sake stop procrastinating woman and get on with it. They are all perfectly decent ideas that just need developing which they won't do on their own. Okay,that's the personal pep talk, rant, call it what you will over. I also have a short story that I have just finished which needs polishing and sending off and then I guess the waiting game will begin with that one too. This is an extra day off work for me and I have been forbidden from ironing, window cleaning etc so maybe its time to get my head down and do something creative.

This week

I haven't done a lot of writing if I'm honest this week mainly due to the fact that a) my mind has been on other things and b) due to "a)" I haven't got a lot of sleep and after going to work and all the other stuff that I have to do there's been no energy left for anything else. To cut a long story short my dad has been ill on and off for a few weeks but seemed to be getting better then on Tuesday he took a turn for the worse and ended up in hospital. It doesn't help when you live a hundred and odd miles away so you do your fretting from a distance. Anyway, crossing fingers and touching wood, it looks like he is on the mend and hopefully will be home in the next day or two. Another hopefully is that I will be able to see him this week as long as Mum thinks he is up to it. I don't want a random visit from me making him think that he is worse than he is. Anyway that's the reason behind the lack of writing but it has got me thinking about if there is something that you want to do you should do your darndest to do it because life is fragile and you don't know how long it will last. So with that in mind I am going to try and focus on attaining at least a modicum of success from this writing game. I know that I may never achieve the level of success that I aspired to when I was a chit of a girl who knew nothing about life but I don't want to die thinking that I didn't give it a try. So with that in mind I submitted an article today. Yeah I did say article not story but its a piece of writing at the end of the day. I had a bit of disappointing writing news the other day when I heard back from Jill at WN with a "thanks but no thanks" response to a story that I submitted in October but I took it on the chin becasue it goes with the territory. I have six more things out there at the moment so maybe I'll have better luck with one of them.

What I have done so far.

In my bid to get the ball rolling on the enthusiasm front I queried an editor about something I found in the bag only to get a reply saying that they were no longer in business so that was a none starter though I did appreciate them letting me know. Also I pitched an idea to an editor but I haven't heard back from them yet. I've also started editing some of the old stuff and one of them (maybe 2) are going to be winging there way into the world shortly. On a totally different note maybe someone can inspire me in my real life. I'll let you into a secret, I am not a huge fan of breakfast because cereal, toast etc are as dull as dishwater and if I'm honest a sandwich at lunchtime doesn't do it for me either. I mean I have had some lovely breakfasts sandwiches but generally they bore me. So what I would like to know is any ideas that anyone might have to tempt my taste buds. Okay so that was a bit random but hey ho.

What I found in the bag.

Oh I REALLY don't like this new blogger. Anyway, I have spent the last hour or so going through the said "bag" and put things into piles, some for now and some for later. I made a list of wesites etc that I had noted and I am going to look them up and work out what I was hoping to get from them. Then there is a pile of some other things that I want to start working on asap and lastly there are the things that have gone back into the bag for future reference. Things that I found that I feel are worth a mention are 1. A character that I would love to develop into a series of stories. She is too big for just one but I'm not sure what sort of outlet there would be for such a series. I'll try to get one story written and worry about the rest later. 2. Something that I wrote the day after my last dog died which made me cry. 3. An outline for a screenplay that when I started to read I could see playing out in pictures infront of me. 4. An idea that I wrote down that if developed properly would make a great tear jerker. 5. A few non fiction ideas that might be worth exploring. And this just came from that one bag. What about my drawers? What about the notebooks that are dotted around all over the house? I used to be so inspired. I used to be so enthusiastic. I wish that I could get some of that enthusiasm back because if I'm being honest I probably have been going through the motions recently.

What to do today

Something totally unrelated to writing caused me to rummage through my "wip" drawers a moment or two ago and while I was doing that I spied my "wip" bag. This is an old briefcase jam packed full of bits of paper and books etc that have ideas and partial stories etc written on them - you know that type of stuff because you may have one of your own. Anyway in a bid to get my short story juices flowing my "to do today" list consists of going through that bag. Could be a long day so I'd better get a cuppa before I start. Watch this space/

There was the sun.

Since I was last here, I am happy to report that the rain has abated and there is a strange golden orb in the sky which, if memory serves me correctly we call the sun. Oh hang on a minute - it's gone again - maybe I imagined it. On a different note I am still waiting for a reply to any of the sumissions that I sent out recently and some of them date back to last October so I would have hoped to have heard about them before now. Maybe no news is good news though so I will just hang on and hope for the best. I need to write some short fiction. It is a very long time since I wrote anything new in that respect and I'm feeling the need to do it but lacking the inspiration at the moment. I've spent the last few months on a longer project so the short stuff has been neglected and to be honest I am feeling nervous at the prospect of trying to do it again. If I am being honest it has to be soemthing like 18 months maybe even a bit longer since I wrote any new short fiction so I hope I haven't forgotten how to do it. I'll let you know how I get on.