Competition Time

Quite by chance the other day, I came upon a list of recently established Literary Agents on the internet.  I almost immediately found two that sounded promising and on Sunday - after cross-referencing them in the 2014 W&AYB -  I emailed the obligatory synopsis and opening chapters of The Book to them, so fingers crossed.    And last Saturday, of course, saw the latest AYW session take place at Ashburton Library.  All five children from the first session turned up, as did two new members, so I was absolutely over the moon!  If two new members turn up every session for the next four sessions, the numbers will be almost up to where they were last year before we lost our venue.  And word is definitely getting out there.  One of the youngsters that turned up last Saturday just came via word-of-mouth!  Which - as any writer knows - is the most effective marketing tool there is!  And it's free.

Having got the submissions off to the two agencies, I have now decided to concentrate on entering a couple of competitions.  My latest Writing Magazine is absolutely chocablock full of competitions to enter so I will round up a couple of the most tantalising (and challenging) ones over the next day or two and get cracking on them.  I desperately want an iPad and winning one may be my only chance of getting it at this point in time.  I like Writing Competitions though, it must be said.  They give you a deadline to work to and guidelines of what they want.  The more you enter, the more confident you get.  It is kind of like a practice-run to being a fully-fledged writer where you have briefs and commissions flying at you left right and centre (and believe me I  know.  I am actually lucky enough to have actually been there for a year or so back in the mid 80s when I had so much work coming in I was actually able to give up the Day Job for a while just to accommodate it all.  And I was getting paid!  I think that was probably the happiest working year of my entire life and  I'd quite like the chance to go back there).

I did quite well in competitions around that time.  I won one and was a runner up in two, and all three pieces were published.  It is always nice when something like that happens.

Don't forget to tweet me @Jilly66408011 or comment just to let me know you are still in the land of the living (she says hopefully).  And I would love to hear from any other writers who keep a blog ...

WooHoo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Amazing Young Writer Session last Saturday!  I had five youngsters turn up to the first session of the new era - four complete newbies and one "old boy" (who is only actually 9) who belonged to the original group almost from its first day back in 2012.  If you want a complete update go to http://addiscombeyoungwriters.blogspot.co.uk where my ecstatic ramblings take up a very long opening paragraph!  Suffice it to say I came home afterwards breathing a huge sigh of relief.  And it doesn't stop there.  I have already had three enquiries about the next session!  So the snowball effect starts here!

I am feeling really fired up!  Even though I have withdrawn The Book from The Publisher mentioned last Post (don't ask - long story.  Well ok ask then - it would be nice to get some  sort of response on here!) but I have already got another iron in the fire so all is not lost.  The fact is I truly believe in The Book - possibly more than I have ever believed in anything else I have ever written.  And I know that I will know when the right agent/publisher/editor has come along - rather like you instinctively know when you have found the right new home or job!  It has taken me three years and a growing file of positive feedback to get to this point with this book so another year is not going to hurt if that is what it takes.  I have faith.

As for everything else - well - Steve and I took four of our six grandchildren to Toys R Us a couple of weeks ago so that the two youngest could pick their birthday presents.  Admittedly this particular branch of Toys R Us is HUGE - but before we'd even got ten yards inside the door they were all telling us what they wanted (the older two had pocket money to spend) just from the first shelf of display.  Eventually we managed to persuade them to take a look at the other how-ever-many-thousand-square-footage of shop there was that they hadn't even spotted beyond those first two or three displays and, surprisingly - less than an hour and a half later we left with two huge bagfuls of toys plus four very contented children so all was well that ended well.  And Steve and I have also seen a couple of good shows lately too.  If  "Fame - The Musical" comes within a hundred miles of you anytime soon, you have just got  to go and see it!  It is kinda scary that I can actually remember the original TV series because it was ... well... shall we just say quite some time ago.  And finally if you like reading biographies I urge you to grab a copy of Simon Pegg's Nerd Do Well.

That's it for this post.  Catch up again soon.

THREE DAYS AND COUNTING ...

...till the first session of the brand new Young Writers group.  Despite the fact press releases have gone out, posters and flyers have been distributed, letters have been sent to all previous members and information packs have been sent out to the six most local schools, I am still wondering if anyone will actually turn up! And, as well as all that, there have been the blog entries, tweets, the library have also contacted local schools...it has been a marketing merry-go-round!   I keep saying to myself, okay, if no-one turns up, I will let go graciously and move on.  If three or four turn up - well, that could be the start of the snowball effect.  If too many  turn up ... uhm ... Anyway, all will be revealed in time as Laurence Olivier said in Time - the musical many many moons ago!  And don't worry - whatever happens on Saturday - I will let all my silent and shy readers know.

Had some kind of good news this morning re The Book.  I think the publisher I sent it to a month or so ago is seriously considering taking it.  But don't get too excited just yet.  When I know it is all for real and going ahead, I will let you know - boy will I!!!!  In the meantime, watch this space.

Good news re: The Study.  It is about eighty-five per cent done now.  The Stephen Kings are all in a neat row on two shelves.  The J K Rowlings and Sue Townsends take up another whole shelf as do the classics (sorry - am a sucker for the golden oldies - Dickens, J M Barrie, well, you get the picture; I have very eclectic taste).  It is all the others I need to get into some kind of order.  But the stationery cupboard is full.  My Society of Authors membership certificate is in a frame and so is my letter from Prince Charles about Yucketypoo  (yes you read that right), plus numerous inspirational slogans dotted about; my laminated copy of W H Davies' Leisure (my most  favourite poem ever).  Two whole shelves of my own published work, one and a half shelves where all my diaries and journals are lined up (I started keeping a diary in when I was fifteen), black box files lined up like soldiers on parade Yucketypoo one, two and three, the entire series of Boot and Sock stories once broadcast on local radio, and unpublished titles such as The Tutstwaddle Ghosts and Molly The Magnificent Machine.  My entire writing life is in this one room.  No wonder I needed to move out of the pocket handkerchief!  But I love it and would not change any of it!

So that is where I am right now.  In a good place - which is always a good place to be!

I'm Back!!!!!!

Woke up this morning feeling back to my old self again.  What happened?  I don't know and I really don't want to know!  Suffice it to say that when I opened my eyes this morning - after my first solid night's sleep in a week - I just knew that the dark clouds had lifted, the monster was safely back in its cave and I was on top of the world!  Phew! What a relief!

Had a good look round the study tonight.  It is so higgledy piggledy!  I still haven't managed to sort it all out. And to add insult to injury, it seems to have suddenly become a storage area for charity shop stuff and boot sale stuff - simply because there's nowhere else for it to go!  It drives me nuts.  Have got a family wedding  this weekend so I am not going to get much done tonight - but afterwards, I am determined to get some semblance of order in here.  I don't mind it becoming a repository for unwanted items as long as all the stationery is in its right place and the books are in some kind of decent order (right now I have Stephen King mixed in with Sue Townsend, kids books with adults books, non-fiction with fiction.  The only thing that seems to be in one place is all my poetry books - thank God for that - I would fade away if I couldn't get to those!)  Yup - higgledy-piggledyness  is really the sign of a disordered brain - now where did I read that?  And I can't have a disordered brain!  I'm a writer.  Or maybe I can because  I'm a writer!

Have been seriously thinking of backing up all my stuff and looking on the Internet.  Why are some Clouds 
free and others not?  Should I trust the free ones?  If they are to be trusted, why aren't they all free?  Or is some entrepreneur out there just trying to rake in our hard earned cash?  How do Clouds work anyway?
Answers on a postcard please ...

Guess what happened to me the other week?  My Steve left for work at 8pm as usual on the Wednesday night and, five minutes later, I heard the front door open.  Thinking he'd come back for something he'd forgotten, I went out to the hall to meet him and saw the front door slam shut from the outside.  I yanked it open but couldn't see anyone - no Steve - nobody.  The street looked eerily deserted.  I shut the door, walked round the house shouting "Hello?  Hello?" (in retrospect this was a really idiotic thing to do but at the time I was still trying to find Steve) and then rang Steve (I was still partially convinced he was hiding somewhere and this was some kind of elaborate joke - not that it is something he'd be likely to do).  He was well and truly on his way to work.  Like my gallant knight in armour he said he'd come straight home but not before barking "Call the police!".  He actually got back just after the police arrived.  They did a thorough sweep (is that what they say or is it only something that gets said in films?) but couldn't find anything - and  Steve took the night off work because I was pretty shaken up.  I suddenly realised how vulnerable I can be. It was a very scary experience!  The police think it was an opportunistic break-in and that my opening the living room door totally freaked him/her/them out which was why they scarpered so quickly.  He/she/they obviously thought the house was empty.  The hall light now stays on all night and the door gets double-locked as we go out (even if one of us is still inside).  Better safe than sorry.  So take heed - there are badd'uns out there.  Anyway I am okay; that is the main thing.

Anyway I think I have bent your ear long enough tonight (can you bend someone's ear if something is being said visually as opposed to audibly.  Is it ok to say I've bent your eye long enough?).  Anyway I just wanted you to know I am back to normal (as if you didn't know).  Catch up again soon!

My Great Dark Monster ....

There are two halves to any brain.  With my brain, one side is full of good intentions, plans, targets, goals and a sense of joy that I am alive and have achieved so much.  Generally speaking this is the side of my brain that is actively in use, tackling every challenge head on, enjoying every little success no matter how small - a published letter or poem, a good day at the day job, an especially nice weekend or time with loved ones.  But then there is the other side of my brain and that side is the one I try to suppress and ignore, the one that wags a calloused finger in my face sometimes and drags down my self-esteem.  It tells me I am wasting my time, chasing dreams that will never come true, that I have been a failure in so many ways.  It says to me - Jilly, you COULD have saved your parents' marriage when you were 12 if you had only tried harder; you COULD have been a great writer if you really wanted to but obviously you didn't really want to because man, just look at you now,  all in a nasty sing-songy, playground taunty kind of voice.   I hate that voice.  There was a time when that voice could wipe out any of my good intentions and did so, frequently.  But I always managed to bounce back and  shut it back into its dark cave and leave it there.   Actually, that voice has been pretty silent for the last couple of years at least.  But it woke up from its hibernation on Thursday last week and I just cannot shut it up right now and that is bothering me.  Not so much the fact it is there.  More the fact I can't shut it up.  I have always managed before.  Why can't I now?

I have been trying since Thursday to pinpoint exactly what started it off.  I am no closer to finding  that elusive answer.  I have not argued with my Steve who is as sweet and loving and giving as ever.  I have not dropped a shilling and found a farthing.  I have not rowed with anyone.  I got a brilliant review at the Day Job, my children, grandchildren and siblings all love me unconditionally.  The Young Writers are about to start again,  I have published quite a few bits in the past year, I have got back the rights to Yucketypoo, The Book is at the Publisher, I have written SO MUCH poetry lately so why this sense  of impending doom?  Why do I feel so down when I am clearly on the up?
I don't know.  I really don't.

All I know is that I need to snap out of it because it is a huge famished dark monster feeding on all my doubts, my misgivings, my sense of worth and I can't let it win, I really can't.  I think there is only one things for it.  I will have to read Og Mandino's The Choice again.  And fight to beat this beast. I will soon have it scuttling back to its cave. I have to start right now ...

Amazing ...

It is a cold, wet, windy night and, as I sit here at my desk, I can see the raindrops running down the windows and the trees swaying in the wind beyond.  It seems like it has been raining forever but oh, did I see the most amazing rainbow this afternoon?  It swooped across the sky like an artists pallet, very vivid and beautiful! Quite took my breath away!  I'm sorry but I am a sucker for nature's brilliance.  I make sure I notice the magpies playing in the tress, the squirrels racing round the park, the rabbits nibbling at Mitcham Common - anything and everything that compounds the natural world, really.  Everytime I see a sunset or a sunrise or a garden covered in pure white snow, it stirs something within me.  Maybe that is why I am a writer and poet?  It is so nice to know that what stirs me has also stirred writers of times past.  The world maybe moving into a thoroughly cyber age, but no matter how advanced technology gets, there will always be flowers, trees, animals, people and nature to look at in awe and love.

I had a good start to February.  I am up to date with all the Young Writer stuff, have The Book at a publisher and, yesterday, I got home from the day job to find two pieces of published work awaiting me - one is a letter in the latest Writing Magazine, the other is a poem entitled - rather appropriately - HOPE.  I am just so lucky, really.  If I can keep that up then the sky is the limit!  Of course I would love to write full time and earn a living from it - but even if I never get paid from my writing again, I will always love it!  There are lots of things I could live without.  But I could never ever live without my writing!

I CAN STILL WRITE THOUGH .....

You would not believe how unwell I have been the last few days!  I haven't actually been right in weeks.  I have had this on/off sore throat/cold/virus thing since mid-December but the annoying thing was that in between the bouts - and even during the bouts sometimes - I didn't feel ill; I just felt under the weather.  The sore throat would arrive, hurt for two days and then go and then three days later the sneezes would come for 24 hours and then the sore throat would come back.  It was actually getting right up my nose - literally!  And then, lo and behold, last Friday I started to cough.  I woke up Saturday with a sore throat (again) and by Sunday I had lost my voice completely and the throat felt like it was full of razor blades (remember those? They were what we used before No-No came long - allegedly).  I went off to the doctor yesterday morning and guess what?  I have laryngitis.  So I am on antibiotics.  And all day Sunday and yesterday, I also had a raging temperature.  So I didn't go to work yesterday.  And I didn't go today (the first days I have had off sick in around 18 months).  Finally by about mid-morning today, I began to feel noticeably better.  And my voice - although still gravelly and hoarse ( nay -I said hoarse not horse!) and somewhat sexy like Honor Blackman - is slowly returning to normal.  I am going back to work tomorrow and my manager has promised to find me something to do that will not require me using the phones for the day - which is fine by me.

My sister Sharon - bless her darling heart - said to me "Why don't you use the time to write?".  And I said to her "Good idea!".  But today is the first day I have actually felt like a) getting back to the laptop and b) thinking beyond the next daytime TV show or snooze.  Ah well - never mind - at least I seem to be on the mend now.  And don't you just hate blogs where all people talk about is how ill they have been with their man-flu or aches and pains?  I would never do such a thing!  Honest - you know what I'm like!

So - how are things out there in Blogland?  Do you know what I did the other week in between sore throats and sneezes?  I set up a proper Twitter account.  And guess what?  I already have 12 followers (hey - I know others have got thousands.  And Stephen Fry has about eight million!) but I am a novice tweeter so I don't think 12 followers after two weeks is so bad.  At first I thought - now what?  Do I personally reply and thank everyone?  Is that what Stephen did with his eight million?  He must have tweeted once a minute for the past 750 years to manage that!  In the end I posted one tweet thanking everyone who is following me for following me.  I wasn't sure what else I could do.  And I am still not sure, if I am honest.  I suppose it is like everything else - it gets easier the more you do it.  Now where was I - oh yes - asking how things are in Blogland.  I would also like to physically ask any other writers who regularly blog to tell me how I can follow their blogs?  Nothing feeds off writers like writers and I think it would be really nice sometimes to find out what other writers are doing (as well as writing, I mean) but I don't even know how to start.  So if you are reading this and you are a writer, could you let me know?

Okay - that's quite enough from me.  And if I sound a tad flippant, pray ignore.  I am probably delirious from the hot lemons and antibiotics .....