It's 2017 !!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy New Year to each and every one of you. I can hardly believe it is 2017 already!  Hope your festive season went well. Ours was brilliant and it was lovely to see people we don't see too often.

Well - it happened.  I am between jobs!  It was all very amicable and will give me some breathing space.  Fortunately several Creative Writing opportunities have come along - talk about perfect timing - which will be very handy as I look for another job.  It did feel a bit weird yesterday not to go back to work like so many others.  This morning I got up at the usual time, had breakfast with Steve before he went to bed after working last night, met my coffee shop buddies as usual and then spent the morning job-hunting.  I know something will turn up - even if its isn't full time.  I have signed up with several on-line recruitment companies. too.

My plan for 2017 - especially now I have a bit of time on my hands - is to write another book for children and to get myself signed up with an agent.  I have tried my entire life to get an agent and I will go through my new W & A Yearbook (courtesy the in-laws) looking for one and for any other new openings.  I deserve it now.  I have been writing for over fifty years!!!  When I think of how much I have had published over the years, plus the fact I have been a member of the Society of Authors for two decades or so, and all the courses and workshops I have run, talks I have done, competitions I have judged and commissions I have been presented with, and the huge success of the Young Writer group, I think now is my time!  Watch this space.

Wasn't it sad to lose Rick Parfitt, George Michael, Carrie Fisher and  Debbie Reynolds all in the space of four days!  What a shock!  We saw Quo at the O2 not four weeks ago - Rick was too ill to perform but Francis Rossi gave it his all.  To then find out we lost Rick on Christmas Eve - how sad is that?  But then, I think, 2016 was a very bad year for celebrity losses.  I seriously cannot think of any other year where we lost so many!

So as I sign off I wish you all the very best for 2017.  Believe in yourself and your dreams will come true!