News and Goals

It never ceases to amaze me how fast Christmas goes. You seem to spend half the year anticipating it, planning for it and then it’s gone in a flash.

We had an enjoyable quiet Christmas and our annual New Year’s Day party. We are still not back to routine, but will be once little one is back at school. I took down most of the decorations and cards yesterday as it felt like time. The house feels huge and bare, but I know it won’t last long. I’m at the mourning the sparkle stage.

I had a very enjoyable time during the holiday as I started to trace a friend’s family roots. It struck me that my hobby is such a rich source of writing material. Indeed all of my manuscripts have some family history or family links in them.

Good news came before and after Christmas. Before Christmas I found out that I had been placed third in the Writer's Toolkit Flash Fiction Competition – link here.

After New Year I had the exciting news that I have a place on the Romantic Novelists’ Association New Writers’ Scheme. This last news felt as if it had crystallised my New Year goals, as I need to have a full length manuscript edited by the end of August for one of the RNA readers to take a look at. I’m lucky in that I have three novels complete at first draft stage, but having shied away from the editing process up to now, I know I have my work cut out. Also, how do you choose which book to send?

Have you had any surprising good news lately? If so please share.