Amazing things have been happening and I just have to tell someone before I bust! This year my Young Writers group celebrates its fourth birthday and I thought it would be wonderful to mark it somehow. The children have been saying for months that they want to publish another book and guess what? After an appeal in the local paper we now have the funding to go ahead and publish it!
I am so excited about all this - this evening I have been printing off consent forms for the mums and dads! My childrens' faces when I told them at the last session were a sight to behold! This is what they have been hankering after for ages!
On top of that, I have been asked by Croydon Writers to be a Guest Speaker in May and on top of all that I have been approached today to take part in the Croydon Literacy Festival in June by running a Creative Writing workshop! I mean how much better can it get? I have been dancing on air all day.
If I can only convince a literary agent to take on my new book, I will be the happiest writer alive! The new book is something I have been toying with for months and could lead to Young Writer Groups being set up all over the country! This is my ultimate goal these days, That plus initiating an Annual Award for Young Writers with a trophy and Gift Card for the young winners. I have said all along - ever since I ran the original workshops for children back in the late 80s - that if I can help one youngster to grow up and be a successful writer, I will feel my life's work is done!
My poetry year by the way is also coming on in leaps and bounds. An editor in Australia asked if I could submit some work and one of my haiku was recently published on Poetry Space! I have also been writing oodles and oodles of it - haiku, tanka, free-verse, you name it! My pen is in full flow and I am tweeting haiku regularly on Twitter (@Jilly66408011). I certainly made the right decision when I said 2016 would be my Poetry Year! I hadn't realised how very much I have missed it the past couple of years!
So all is right in my Writing World at this point in time. And I love it!
