That's All Folks!

I've done it! I've finished the first draft of my novel!

It needs a huge amount of rewriting and editing - but I've done it! After all this time (can't even remember how long!)I've actually finished my novel.

For the next few weeks, I'm going to concentrate on my short stories and articles, before coming back to the novel when I've got a bit of distance from it.

In other news - I've put a new review up on Bookersatz today, so please pop over and have a look.

Special thanks to Calistro for joining me in a final sprint for the end this weekend! We've been cheering each other on via Twitter and Facebook, and it's been amazingly helpful.

Look At That Word Counter Go!

To be fair, I've revised the overall word count down a little, but I'm happy with that as I know there are some sections in the first draft that are quite sketchy and will need to be fleshed out in the rewrite!

I'm determined to finish by this time tomorrow. Wish me luck!

John's War

'John's War' has been published, in the Summer 2009 issue of Evergreen Magazine.

As some of you know, 'John's War' is the story of my grandfather, John Worrall, and his experiences during the Second World War. The story was based on his war scrapbooks and the contents of several boxes of photos and letters which I found when I cleared out my parents' house after they died. They've used quite a few of the photos to illustrate the story, which looks great.

This is such an emotional story for me, so it's particularly sweet to see it in print, and I'm so glad that it found its home in the sister publication to This England which published 'Reflections' back in February of last year.

Jasper's Jottings - Part 2

Well, it's all got a bit boring around here hasn't it? Mummy just keeps banging on about her writing. And I mean, seriously, who cares? What a yawn-fest.

I'm much more interesting. We cats are having such fun in the hot weather. Mummy's been sleeping with her bedroom window open so we've been taking it in turns to sit outside and howl to be let in. It's hilarious! Even though we're perfectly capable of going round to the front of the house and using the cat-flap, it's much more fun to make Mummy get up and let us in through the back door.

Cookie's been quite naughty this week. She keeps killing baby birds and bringing them in through the cat-flap. For some reason Mummy doesn't think it's funny. Apparently she has better things to do than clear up feathers all day ...

Yes, thanks Jasper - that'll do now!

I'm back from the Della Galton course - 'Rejections To Sales'. There turned out to be so much wrong with my story that I'm not quite sure what possessed me to send it out, but at least now I know how to put it right.

Writers' Forum

My article about Sue Bentley appears in the July issue of Writers' Forum.

I haven't had a chance to read the rest of the magazine properly yet, but I'm so pleased to be sharing the pages with the lovely Sally Quilford who contributes a regular competition column, and the wonderful Della Galton who continues her series on writing short stories.

I'm also expecting John's War to be out any day now. I'll keep you posted.

Books, books, books ...

I've just posted a new review to Bookersatz, of this book by Marina Fiorato which was kindly sent to us by Beautiful Books.

In more exciting Bookersatz news, we've recently been approached by Headline Publishing to review some of their upcoming titles, so there's lots of exciting stuff coming to Bookersatz in the coming months.

I've also been lucky enough to win a couple of books in blog competitions recently. One was Where Petals Fall by the lovely Shirley Wells. I loved this book and will be reviewing it for Bookersatz in due course.

I was also thrilled to win a copy of the 2010 Writer's Handbook in a competition on Nicola Morgan's brilliant and very informative blog.

I do seem to be very lucky at the moment!

Good News

I've just heard this morning that I've sold another story to Woman's Weekly.

Needless to say, I'm very happy about this!

I love Woman's Weekly, it's a great magazine and has the added advantage of the Fiction Special which increases the scope of short stories that they use. They are also a joy to deal with!

And the other good news is that I have tomorrow off work, and a whole long weekend just to write. So happy!