21 TODAY

No, not me! I’m a wee bit older than that. I’m talking about Womag Short Story SALES! Yes, yippee yo-yos I sold my 21^st story TODAY. Actually, that’s not quite true – it was a couple of weeks ago to be exact, but it's taken me this long to get my posterior into gear and get around to blogging about it.

But I’ve got a huge excuse. My eldest son got married at the end of August. How exciting is that? I’ve yet to come down from it all. My daughter-in-law is wonderfully creative, and the wedding had an Alice in Wonderland theme. It was fantastic. Below are just a tiny sample of the designs she created.

So what else? Well, I’m going to enter a few competitions. I’ve never really tried the world of competitions but a few have tickled my fancy.

The Mslexia Novel Competition – details can be found HERE.

The Mail on Sunday – Start-of-novel competition. Details can be found HERE on Womag’s blog. Thank you Womag!

The Best Short Story Competition. Thanks to Suz for her help voucher gathering!

SUCH FUN!

Ooh, and do help yourself to cake!

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I believe in FAIRIES

Okay, I admit it! I believe in FAIRIES - well doesn't everyone?

Those who have been following my blog for some time, thank you, and you may remember here how I promised myself a fairy ornament each time I was lucky enough to sell a story.

Well I didn’t keep it up...and I won’t deny it, just lately short story sales have become a bit of a rarity - a sign of the shrinking market, I keep telling myself. But what if it's down to something more magical? Like the lack of fairy wishes.

So, with this in mind - no I'm not completely barking - well perhaps a bit - I went on a fairy hunt and came across the above very lovely ‘Good Luck Fairy’. And I bought her not only because my lounge is lilac, and she's rather pretty, but because I knew she would bring me some much needed good luck.

Within a day, I had my first spark of luck. My short story jointly won first place in my lovely on-line writing group, Womag2Weekly.

NEXT – I PASSED my English Literature exam for OU A210 – oh yes indeed. Final year, here I come!

And FINALLY (and I’m assuming finally, as luck normally only comes in threes, well so they say - the fairies that is -okay so I am mad.) The Best of British Magazine have said they are going to publish my article on my father’s childhood in London during World War 2. He’s going to be so THRILLED!

Right, best go .... I need to buy another FAIRY!

Exams, Sales and Wanderings

I've been on my travels, oh yes indeed. Visiting America and Canada - searching out magazines. Well not only searching out magazines because that would have made my hubby a wee bit cross – but I did pick up two copies of Woman’s World and I'm very tempted to send them a story at some point. Although they don't take email submissions which is a bit of a shame. They have Woman's World in Canada too, and I also saw our very own home-grown People’s Friend there, which made me rather proud.

On my return I received a lovely email from Liz Smith at My Weekly wanting to buy one of my stories – the sixth they've bought of mine - YAY! So my supermarket trips over the next little while will be rather exciting as I scan the mags for my stories - I'm waiting for two to appear in Take a Break Fiction Feast too. It certainly make up for those rejections.

Oh, and I’ve finally finished my A210 course with the Open University. The three hour exam took a lot of revising for - but I can honestly say, with pride, I gave it my best shot! However, it was so hard– and if I’ve passed it will be some kind of miracle. I won’t know until the middle of August, but I'll let you know - one way or the other - and then it’s on to my FINAL year – EA300 Children’s Literature. Not going to be easy, but I will get there - well if sheer determination has anything to do with it. :-))

My latest novel is chugging along nicely. I'm halfway through, and hoping to get it finished and out there to agents before the end of the year. So watch this space!

Bye for now.

Woman's Weekly

It’s like *Rejection City* around these parts. Three stories that had been with Woman’s Weekly for over three months all winged their way back over the last few days. That’s a grand total of 17 rejections.

My road to Woman’s Weekly has been bumpy. It was around my eighth submission I got my hopes up. On the 17th March 2010 at 11.23 a.m precisely, after four months with Woman’s Weekly, one of my stories came back with a lovely letter saying they liked my writing and would like to see more of it. Although they added that –sorry, it’s a ‘NO’ this time, I still danced a little. Well wiggled my head in excitement. I thought I’d finally got somewhere. But since then it’s been rejection after rejection.

I was even more frustrated this time, as the stories came back in a different order than how I sent them out. Talk about give a girl false hope.

I refuse to give up, though. They don’t get rid of me that easily! Perseverance and determination is the key. I just wish I could find the blinking door.

In other news:


Novel: I’m galloping along with my new novel and loving it; hovering presently at 25,000 words. I’m convinced I learnt a lot from writing FMIAB and I’m hopefully not making the same mistakes with my new novel, although time will tell. The biggest difference is I have my plot summarized chapter by chapter, whereas I let FMIAB lead me. It’s making a huge difference.

A210 Open University: My Approaching Literature course is drawing to an end. I've completed my assignments and have a 3 hour exam to do. I should be revising right this minute, but seem to be continually finding things to do to avert it – hence the blog post! Next year is my final year – and then I’ll be in proud possession of an English Literature Degree – well that’s if I pass the scary exam!

Bye for now x