Wow…I can’t believe it’s February already. Where has the start of 2018 gone? It has been ages since I posted anything on here that wasn’t the Weekend Writing Prompt, and there were a few weekends where I thought even that might not happen 😯 .
So what have I been up to? – A Few Updates
Well, my birthday’s been and gone, making me a year older since I last posted a non-prompt related post. For presents, I got a number of beautiful things any scribbler would treasure: notebooks, pens and journal materials, as well as a few other things, including a copy of Francis Pryor’s Britain AD and the DVD box set of The Bridge season one.
In what little free time I’ve managed to scrounge together so far this year, I’ve been writing: poetry, short stories, and even my novel WIP has had some time and energy spent on it. It feels like it’s been a slow start to the year (I remember complaining about the same thing last year!), but some progress is being made. I’ve set myself a little personal challenge this year, which seems to be helping me make the most of my available time. I’ve called it the “1000 words a day challenge”, where the aim is to be able to say by the end of 2018 that I have written, redrafted and edited 365,000 words. This way, even if I don’t have time to write everyday, I can work towards the overall goal. So far, I’m on target! Yay!
I’ve also been trying to catch up on reading some of the responses to the Weekend Writing Prompt. I spent half of yesterday enjoying some amazing poetry and prose, from old and new participants alike. It’s wonderful to see so many takes and interpretations of the same prompts. You are all so very talented 🙂
Now for the second part of the post…The Magical Items that the Postman Brings
Just before Christmas, my copies of One Turn of The Wheel arrived in the post. I still can’t believe that there is a book out there with my name on it. I have received some lovely comments about this collection of tiny tales, and I can’t tell you how much they warm my heart and make me smile!
If you would like to read The Goblin Dance in its entirety, you can do so by heading over to the publisher’s website. If you would like to order a copy of One Turn of The Wheel, it is available to buy as a paperback through Lulu.
At the beginning of January, my contributor’s copy of Children of Zeus arrived, containing my short story, A Family Reunion (which you can read more about, here):
And lastly, some very surprising news…during the last half of 2017, I wanted to challenge myself to send out more of poetry for publication. For some reason, I find it harder to submit poems than I do short stories. And so I did just that. One of the venues I chose was Paper Swans Press, who were holding open submissions for a pocket poetry pamphlet on the theme of love. I didn’t have any expectations of being included in the pamphlet; they made it clear that it was going to be a very small publication. You can imagine my surprise when months later I received an email that says my poem was one of twelve that was chosen out of a couple of hundred to be selected for publication.
You can learn more about The Pocket Poetry Book of Love, including how to order one, on the publishers website.
My contributor copy of the pamphlet arrived in the post this week, and it’s just lovely!
