Monday 30 December 2013

Wishing Everyone a Very Successful 2014

Hi everyone.  What a Christmas we have had.  How was yours?  My parents in law kept up their annual tradition of presenting me with the brand new edition of the Writers and Artists Year Book. They have no idea how amazingly grateful I always am for this and I fully intend to utilise it a whole lot more in the New Year. I am already  busily planning ahead.  I intend to publish My Writer and get back on track with my poetry and pick up The Epic where I left off a few months back.  Plus I am still planning on relaunching the Young Writers (the library is being deplorably slow coming up with these forms I have to fill out.  I have emailed but tomorrow I will go in and actually see them) - which means coming up with a whole new flyer, re-establishing newspaper contacts to get some publicity and sending out a mail shot to all the previous members to see if they want to come back.  But of course I can do none of this till I know when we can actually start.  I am getting off on the right foot though because I have two refresher sessions planned with my young protege Michael  - the first of which, is this evening.  So even though we are not actually into 2014 yet, I am certainly starting off as I mean to go on.

As for 2013 - well, it was not a total washout.  The first Young Writers' anthology was published; I had The Article and Several Poems published plus wrote thousands of words in Draft One of The Epic.  Plus I got back the Yucketypoo rights so I will be doing something with them before very much longer - as well as writing a whole lot of new stuff.  Anyway  - better go.  Due at Michael's in an hour so no more time till tomorrow.  Happy New Writing Year To Each And Every One Of You!

Wednesday 11 December 2013

ALMOST THAT TIME OF YEAR AGAIN...

I know.  I know. I have been gone weeks!  I am sorry.  I did not forget you, I promise.  But OMG have I had problems!!!!   Remember I said the laptop needed repairing because the cursor kept doing a tango across the page regardless of what word I was writing?  Well I found this kindly PC Doctor in Croydon who admitted the laptop for a couple of nights, performed miracles and then called to say I could pick the little darling up.  And I did.  And he only charged £45!  AND the repair is guaranteed for three months; so I came home a happy bunny, reunited with my baby aka my creative partner.  A couple of nights later, Steve and I went online and ordered two tickets for next year's tour of Jeff Wayne's WAR OF THE WORLDS (brilliant show; you simply must go and see it) and I was so relieved to be able to go online and do it having been laptop-less for a while.  Then the next night I went back and tried to go online - hey-up - no connection.  I figured this was perhaps a belated reaction to being disconnected for a few days so duly rang BT - who we have our landline with - who ran a few checks and told me I needed to ring our broadband provider - Sky.  So I did.  Sky ran a few checks.  They said it was a BT fault, so I rang BT again.  They insisted it was a Sky fault - and that was pretty much how it went for the next five days.  Finally I spoke to the lovely Leanne at Sky.  She did wonders, taking up arms (metaphjorically speaking)on my behalf against BT who finally agreed there was a fault which was down to them, which they rectified in one five minute twirl of an engineers's screwdriver.  Leanne then was finally able to run all checks and tests and lo and behold, we were back in business!  But ten whole days had gone by where we were laptop-less again!  Anyway - all's well that end's well as Shakespeare said and here I am.  Back in the driving seat and ready to rock and roll.

So how are your Christmas preps going?  We took five of our six grandchildren to see a lovely Christmas show at Fairfield Halls last Saturday where they all got to meet Santa, and I have spent every evening the last two weeks wrapping presents, and our tree is up and sparkling beautifully, so I think we are almost there.  Oh - and the Great Study Swap is done.  It is amazing to have some space  in which to work again.  I have got some BIG plans for next year which I will tell you all about next time.  Oh yes - and I am going to try and get onto this blog at least every two to three days so I will see you again soon ...