famous faces

I got this from Ally Blake's blog. Excuse the terrible photo of me! It's the only one I have scanned in.

still shattered

I posted the partial of Heaven Sent to M&B on Thursday. They would have received it today. Yesterday I felt elated. I've sent three mss - two partials and one requested full - out this week. Today I just feel tired. I've been up until midnight almost every night for the last two weeks and then up early to go to work. Did I mention how tired I'm feeling?

Shattered might be a better word for it. I've been living on lucozade. I feel a very early night coming on tonight. I just need to stay awake for another hour so that I can go to bed and drift off listening to the psychic show on LBC (http://www.lbc.co.uk/default.asp).

With the writing out of the way, the next six weeks will be filled with study...and reading Phillipa Ashley's (http://phillipa-ashley.com/blog/) Little Black Dress book in October and Kelly Hunter's (http://www.kellyhunter.net/index.html) next M&B Modern Extra in November. I totally loved Kelly's first book - Wife for a Week. I've read it soooo many times!

paper cuts

I got a paper cut yesterday when I was shuffling paper round during my editing of Sea of Dreams and then I got another one - a really nasty one that required a plaster to stop me bleeding all over my ms - this morning when I was packaging my mss ready for a trip to the post office.

Paper cuts are a hazard of writing. I always used to get them. Not so much recently since there's been a bit of a writing famine. But it made me wonder, do editors get paper cuts? I mean, they handle our mss. They must get paper cuts. Or do they read our mss with rubber gloves on their hands?

OK, silliness over. Rules and Sea were both posted today and so the waiting begins. I'm hoping to hear by Christmas but you never know - could be earlier or it could be longer.

Christmas will be here before I know it. This week I've got to concentrate on polishing up Heaven Sent for Modern Extra. Then I have six weeks of serious studying, followed by a week of freaking out about exams, a week freaking out about having so much work to do and then two weeks in Cuba! It'll only be one week until Christmas when we get back.

Let the countdown begin!

i wrote

...and wrote and wrote. And now I'm on a high!

The first seven chapters of Breaking the Rules are printed, ready to go to Little Black Dress at lunch time tomorrow. Can I just say that I think this ms rocks? And I think my synopsis is pretty cool too!

And the full of Sea of Dreams is also printed and ready to go to DC Thomson tomorrow.

Phew!

I'm exhausted! Or at least I should be.

The obvious question is did I do any study this weekend? Nope. Not a dot. But then there's always next week.

This coming week is about editing Heaven Sent (previously referred to as Holly's ms or The Husband Hunt) as my fantastic cp has sent me a fantastic crit.

shattered

I'm officially shattered. I figure I must be about to come down with something because I'm feeling very low and tired in general. When the alarm went on this morning I seriously considered not going to work. I did go but the brain failed to engage on several occasions which resulted in several hysterical laughter moments at work after I astounded my colleagues with my complete lack of an ability to function as a person.

The thing is I did actually leave work early yesterday because I had a killer headache. It was brought on by stress, in fact it started about five minutes after the stressful situation I was in yesterday resolved itself. So I came home, ate, slept for a few hours and then edited chapter five of Rules. I also swore at the laptop a couple of times because it seemed to be functioning as slowly as me.

I didn't sleep well and woke up this morning feel crap but not crap enough that I didn't go to work. I still had the headache although it was just there in the background until about 4pm when it started to kick in again.

So far tonight I have done absolutely nothing. I should be finishing chapter six of Rules but I don't think I can. It is not going to kill me to finish it over the weekend and post it on Monday.

But enough whinging. I had good news today! A full request from DC Thomson. Now, if you'd asked me last week after Tarts got rejected by M&B, I would have said I had nothing left out there. You see, I sent a partial of Sea of Dreams to DC Thomson on December 1st last year. They usually have a pretty quick turn around so when I didn't hear I just assumed it had been rejected and I hadn't got the letter.

But I was wrong! I got an email from the editor today apologising for the delay and saying she has read the partial and would like to see the rest. All I have to do is run through it with a red pen to shorten the word count and it will be ready to post on Monday.

I feel like the writing gods (if there are such a thing) are smiling on me at the moment. Tarts might have been rejected but I got a comps slip from M&B to send in with another submission which I'll polish up next week, Rules is just about ready to send into LBD and now I've got a full request for Sea of Dreams!

Now if only this headache would go away.

agent update

Thanks to everyone who has emailed me with advice on the agent dilema. I have listened hard and done some serious thinking and while I tend to agree that finding an agent is a good idea, I am going to send BREAKING THE RULES directly to Little Black Dress. That's not to say that I won't go down the agent route in the future. Just not with this particular ms. Tonight I'm doing a final run through chapters one to four and chapter seven then I need to finish an assignment. I have a feeling it's going to be a late night! Tomorrow I'm rewriting chapters five and six. Thursday I'll run through them one final time and Friday I'm printing and going to the post office. Now that I've posted that on my blog, I'll have to stick to it!

agents

So, I spent Friday night working on the first person version of Tarts Inc. I'm pleased to be able to report progress. LBD take the first 100 pages which is SEVEN chapters for me.

The first three chapters are as polished and ready to go as they ever will be. Chapter four is done but needs a polish. Five and six need rewriting but everything is there so that shouldn't take too long. And seven is done, done, done.

I'm thinking I can have this baby out the door by Friday. Which brings me to my next dilema - do I send it straight in or do I send it to agents first? I only "know" two LBD authors and both have agents.

There's also a second dilema in the background but it's only a small one - a name change. I'm so over Tarts Inc. It was the name for my Modern X version. This version is much funkier and I'd like a new name to go with it. So far all I've come up with are:
Breaking The Rules
Breaking All The Rules
Breaking Her Rules
The Rulebreaker
The Four Week Rule

Breaking All The Rules is the only real contender at this stage.

In other news, we visited a HUGE stationery store - Staples - today! For me, it was like being in heaven! As far as my husband was concerned, I was weird! I tried to explain to him that all writers like stationery but he just didn't get it. But in the end he did give in and let me buy more things for his desk that he actually needed. I didn't get anything for myself because I already have an overflow of surplus stationery in the house.

And I have also completed ONE assignment this weekend. Last night, in fact. Which means I am now only one assignment behind schedule. If this headache that is currently bothering me goes away, I will get that assignment done tonight and may even start on the next one.

It's going to be a busy week. It's our seventh wedding anniversary tomorrow so shan't be writing or studying! On Tuesday we'll be watching our weekly dose of Prison Break and the first two episodes of Spooks, which returns tonight. And on Wednesday we'll be watching the start of series two of The Unit. The rest of the week will be dedicated to study and writing, which I will, of course, be finding time for on Tuesday and Wednesday nights.

POSTSCRIPT: Now I have another dilema. Is it the first 100 pages I'm meant to send in or is it the first three chapters? I've seen guidelines with both. I have the first three chapters ready to go. What to do?

hm&b rejection

I came home tonight totally fired up to complete two assignments. But somehow I don't think I'm going to be studying tonight.

Instead, I'm sitting on the sofa with a rejection letter next to me. Yes, M&B rejected Tarts Inc. But it was one of those "good" rejections. I submitted my first ms to M&B in June 2003. Since then every single rejection letter I've received has been personal and I've always been sent a comps slips signed by the editor asking for me to send something new directly in to her. I've always been told comps slips are like gold dust.

I have another comps slip. That's the good part.

And it was another personal rejection letter - not a form rejection - so that's another good thing.

The editor said my premise was interesting and quite ambitious but the scenario was over complicated, and that there was a danger that the reader would not be able to identify with the heroine because they didn't get a clear sense of who she was because she was posing as somebody else.

However, my sensual tension is great and they look forward to hearing from me in the near future.

Hahahaha! The near future? I don't have another single thing that I can send them. I'm all M&B'd out.

OK, so maybe I'm not totally M&B'd out. I do have that ms I was freaking out about a few weeks back that I kind of like and haven't submitted anywhere but feel like it's missing something. I'll send it to my cp tonight along with an angsty email explaining what I don't like about it and see what she has to say.

And I do have a plot for a new M&B Modern Extra but it's many many many months away from being completed (or even started, for that matter) due to exams etc.

Anyway, the plus side is that I have a single person version of Tarts that I really enjoyed working on (unlike the M&B version which was like getting blood from a stone) and I'd talked to my cp about submitting it to Little Black Dress recently. Well, now I can. I'm kind of excited about that...at the same time as feeling a little sad that I've got yet another rejection letter.

peter brock

I've just read the sad news that Peter Brock died earlier today in a rally crash. Most people probably don't know I'm a bit of a petrolhead. I watched Brocky in the Bathurst 1000 and Mobil 500 every year when I was a kid. I loved it! I even went to Wellington to watch the Mobil 500 one year. These days I'm more of a Formula 1 fan but reading about Brocky's death reminded me of those years. I feel sad for Australia. They've lost Brocky and Steve Irwin in the same week.

exam result

Got the result of my July exam in the post today. I passed. Just. Still, it was still a pass. I shall celebrate by taking donnuts into the office on Monday. It was a bit of a wake up call though ie I need to start putting a bit more effort in for November's exams. I've only done one assignment so far. So shall be studying hard this weekend.

Visited baby Annie yesterday. Very pleased to say she's gorgeous but that I didn't have any maternal urges. Phew! I was worried! She must have known because she was very well behaved! So well behaved that I'm already planning my next visit.

technical difficulties

I've been missing for a while due to technical difficulties. Not with my new laptop, I hasten to add. My husband's computer died over a week ago and he uses it for work (rather than just writing and study like me) I had to let him use my laptop.

He builds his own computers so I had several days of "bits" arriving last week and when they all arrived, the lounge turned into something resembling a bomb site. It's usually over in a couple of days but this time, come the Friday night, one of the new bits failed. So instead of having my laptop back to study all weekend, I had to find things to entertain a grumpy husband who used my laptop.

He offered to tidy up since he had to wait until Monday to order new stuff (arrival Tuesday) but I didn't think it was worth it. I regretted this last night when the groceries arrived and I didn't have anywhere to put anything!

Touch wood, it all appears to be working tonight and I have my laptop back!

I'm way behind on my study and I'm also inspired to start writing again thanks to Julie Cohen (www.julie-cohen.com).

And I've got a half day in the office tomorrow because I'm going to see my friend and baby Annie!