Christmas Wishes

I would just like to wish all the readers of this blog a very merry Christmas. May all your Chrismas wishes come true and have a fantastic break. I'll see you all back here in 2010.

2009 Writing Achievements

So what has 2009 been like for my writing? Well not too bad actually. Of course there’ve been disappointments, rejections, entries in competitions that came nowhere – but when I put together everything that I have achieved this year – well here it is and I’m quite pleased with this 2009 writing round up.

Publishing achievements:

Short Stories Published in 2009

Rosemary Lane, Pseudopod February 2009
Cone Key, Escape Velocity Magazine, March 2009
The Last Traces, Footprints (Hadley Rille Books) July 2009
The Oracle, Jupiter SF, July 2009

Short Story Sales in 2009

The Last Traces, sold to Footprints Anthology (Hadley Rille Books) published July 2009
Symbionts, sold to Absent Willow review (publication due Feb 2010)

Writing achievements:

Total number of short stories completed: 7

Novel status – 1: Two complete rewrites
2: ½ written first draft

Also – the Hangman Inn Anthology compiled and edited for the Yeovil Cre8ive Writers (includes one of my own short stories).

So all in all, not a bad year when I list it like that. I think I deserve another glass of mulled wine.

Tinsel and Lights

The run up to Christmas has begun in earnest. The kids spent a wet and grey Saturday afternoon decorating the tree whilst my husband wrestled with last years lights trying to get them to work – finally admitting defeat and heading out to buy a new set!

As usual our tree looks very much as if someone grabbed and armful of decorations and lobbed them in its general direction, even though it took a whole afternoon of painstakingly stacking as many baubles as possible on one branch for the kids to achieve that effect!

Anyway, time for the writing to go on the back burner – for a while – mulled wine and mince pies are the order of the day – and there seems to be a non stop round of school fayres and parties. Still the turkey is ordered, the pantomime tickets bought, the cards in the post and all I need to do now is finish off the Christmas shopping.

It’s a good time to take a break. The re-written short story has been dispatched, and the rewritten novel is, well, rewritten. I plan to send it back to the agent in the new year, but for now I can forget about it and get on with enjoying the next few weeks.