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!

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 ...

HELP!! MY KEYBOARD IS REVOLTING ...

What is going on with laptop?  The cursor keeps jumping about all over the place necessitating constant editing.  It started about a week and I have no idea why.  Here is what a typical sentence looks like:

the cat sat on the mat the cat sa the maat the mt t on the cat sat on the cat sat on the mat

The middle bit where the italics are, show you how the cursor keeps jumping from word to word. It even jumps a whole line occasionally so something that should only take a few minutes is taking me forever and a
day!  Any ideas anyone?  In fact it is driving me so mad I might be forced to save this and finish it at the day job tomorrow...

Next Day
Well gentle reader, I did not have time to complete this at the day job, so will have a go now.  Made some enquiries today.  I was looking for a kindly laptop therapist who will be able to sort out my keyboard's problems and not charge me the earth.  Alas the two seldom go together but a nice young man in Maplins recommended a place near where I live so I will go in search of this mecca at the weekend.  Fingers crossed.  Maybe if I don't rush or lose my rag with my errant cursor for a bit, I might even get this post finished sometime before two o'clock in the morning.  Well - you never know.

Now where was I?  Oh yes - the publisher for The Book.  Well I am going along the self-publishing route but with some external assistance and guidance.  This is a good chance for me to test the waters in preparation for the eventual re-launch of the Yucketypoo books, now that the rights belong to me again..And  - if it all goes well, I think even my poetry may see the light of day at some point.

I know I always seem to be saying this but once I am all sorted - laptop happy, young writers running again, study move completed, Christmas put back to bed and the new year underway - I might even be able to actually put my two-year plan into action.  Except I have already made a start because I have finally renewed my subscription with Writing Magazine.  And I have already reclaimed Yucketypoo.   And I have already reached a decision about The Book - so maybe I am not the queen of the procrastinators after all.  But I am starting to find my errant cursor a minor irritation so I think I will say cheerio for now.  PLEASE drop me a line and say hi.  Bye!!

Happy Hallowe'en!!

Just thought I would round off October with a quick post since I have been somewhat negligent of late - sorry for that.  Got back a week or so ago from a midweek break to the Isle of Wight.  We were sooo lucky with the weather!  We had one big storm and then lovely autumn sunshine for the rest of the week.

Does anyone out there know how to fully utilize twitter?  I am trying to raise my profile by writing regular "twaikus" via my mobile phone.  But I never seem to get any response so wondered if I was doing it right?  Is there a Twitter For Dummies book?  If not - why not?  I'd write one myself except I don't know how to utilize Twitter!  Here are a couple of my "twaikus":-

Where autumn turns the leaves
to gold, my heart is golden, too.
Feel the love I'm sending out
especially for you.
*************************

Sitting here in suit and boot,
I raise my coffee cup.
Tonight is when the weekend starts;
the only way is up.
*************************
Missed the rain,
snoozed on the train,
coffee at Nero's,
caffiene heroes,
ready now to face the day
AND the weekend's on its way.

Ok - I know they are sickeningly cheesy, but hey - at least I am writing poetry again.  And that is about all I can manage this lunchbreak.

Any Twitterites able to help..?

Returning A Favor For An Old Friend ...

I  think I may have found a publisher for The Book - watch this space for further updates (and an update of The Epic will follow eventually).

Tonight I am actually writing this post as a tribute (and an apology) to an artist by the name of John W Johnson to whom I owe a debt of gratitude.  I came across his website completely by chance once day around ten years ago and found his artwork beautiful, tranquil and inspiring.  If I remember rightly, I dropped him an email to congratulate him on his fine work and, somehow or other, quite a bit of my inspirational poetry ended up on his site, giving it exposure it would not have got elsewhere. You may recall at the start of this blog, I mentioned my very first blog FIFTY AND NOT OUT and upon that for the year or so it was running, I had a number of links set up, one of which was to John's site.  Then when that blog sort of fizzled out, there was a bit of a gap - maybe three years or so, where I didn't have a blog at all.   When I finally started up the blog for the Young Writers - and then a few months later this one - I couldn't actually find the facility for setting up links ( and I still can't).

Right now however I am going to insert the link to John's site in the body of this post by way of saying thank you to John for his support all those years ago.  I also happen to think his artwork is still among the best you can find and I would love to share that with you.  So, before you log off tonight, please take a look at John's work (and John I am sorry I didn't do it this way sooner!) on www.jwjonline.net

Getting Back On Track

A whole heap of stuff has been happening lately.  Firstly, I think the problem of finding a new venue for the Young Writers is virtually solved.  I am just waiting for a couple of forms which I have to fill in but once that is done, it is more than likely that the sessions will be held at the local library, so a massive yippee for that.  Also, I had another poem published last week and another one accepted for publication - all in the space of a few days.  I have just put in place a month's notice that I want the rights of the Yucketypoo books reverted to me so I can find a new publisher for them.  AND something else really exciting happened a couple of weeks ago.  I was asked to do a motivational speech at the day job and I knew a poem I wrote a few years ago would be perfect for it - but do you think I could find it anywhere?  Then I went on the internet and found that not one but two organisations in the United States had used it to inspire and motivate their teams. I am in America!!!  Well - not physically of course.  Physically I am sitting here in my cramped study, in my jim-jams updating my blog.  But my work - well this poem at least - is in America.  So I printed it off and it went down incredibly well.  So feel as if I am up and running again ....

A Whole Month ...

How on earth did that happen?  A whole month since my last post?  Shame on me!  I will not do anything so mundane as to trot out a list of excuses other than the fact I was away for a week, my modem went down, the mobile keeps conking out, this flying saucer turned up in the middle of the night and took me to Mars ... I am way above such banal actions!!!!!  But hey.  I am here, now, right?

Finished the sessions with Michael - at least for the time being.  Our last session was three weeks ago.  His mum sent me a text last night to say he had been diligently working on a story for three hours solid and wants to know if I will read it.  How dedicated is this young writer?  I will get back to her shortly in the affirmative.

Sadly, even though the Young Writers were due to start their sessions again a week or so ago, we suddenly found ourselves minus a venue when the coffee shop we usually meet at closed sown unexpectedly.  So now I am looking for a new venue.  I approached the local library yesterday and might be in with a chance there so fingers crossed.  Failing that, I may have to think the whole thing through again.  It is a shame though.  The proprietor of that coffee shop was the first person to show an interest in the idea of a Writing group for youngsters.  She put so much into that place; it is such a shame it did not work out for her.  I hope she is able to pick up the pieces and soldier on somehow.  She deserves that chance.

Gotta go - someone coming in shortly to discuss installing solar panels and I have to hop in the shower.  Be back later with some good news though!!!!!