i passed!

May exam results turned up today (a whole day earlier than expected, sneaky people!) and I passed! That's right, I passed all three exams! One straight pass and two credits - some of my best exam results actually. I'm amazed, simply amazed. I was convinced I'd failed at least one, if not two. I felt sick this morning when a colleague who sat two of the three exams I did announced to the team that our exam results were out and she'd passed. Then the next person checked and announced he too had passed. I refused to check mine for ages, absolutely convinced I'd failed and everyone would feel sorry for me. But I passed and we duly went for a walk to buy celebratory donnuts! This is just the boost I need two days before my next exam!

i'm still here..

I'm just very busy and thought it was about time I gave everyone a break from my moaning! Since I last blogged I've been on holiday to Bournemouth again (another fish and chip fest!), stressed terribly about the situation that I shouldn't stress about because I have no control over it, received a rejection letter from an agent (well, actually, what she did was scribble a few lines on the bottom of my letter and send it back to me!) and have been ill for the last two days. But, hey, the good times have outweighed the bad so I'm not complaining this time round!

I'm studying hard as I have an exam in just under two weeks and have also just given in and joined Facebook and Shelfari. After the exam (which, if anyone is interested is exam 11 of 14 so I am nearly there!) I'm off to Cambridgeshire for the weekend and have yet another trip planned to Bournemouth in mid-August, after which I shall have to start work on the courses for the November exams.

One of these days I might even fit some reading in! I swear I took a book to Bournemouth with me (the same book I took the last time we were there) but didn't find time to read it. Maybe when we go to Spain...

reference number

I got my reference number in the post from M&B today. What? I forgot to mention that I posted a partial to Richmond on Monday? When my last submission to M&B got rejected back in February, the letter came with a comps slip to send something else in to the same editor. At the time I didn't think I had anything more to send so it got filed away until last week when I decided I did have something to send in. I dusted that comps slip off, printed my partial, wrote a letter, packaged it all up, posted it off and then immediately began to worry about all the flaws in the ms that I hadn't thought of until after I posted it! Oh well. If the editor sees something in my ms, she'll give me a chance to fix those flaws. If not, it wasn't meant to be. For now, that's another ms forgotten about as I have an exam in a little under a month which I need to focus on but I'm sure I'll be frantically worrying that a letter got lost in about 20 weeks!

a rubbish day

Today was a rubbish day. It was full of gossip, speculation and bitching. I contributed to all of it and came home with a pounding head, wishing that I could come up with an excuse not to get out of bed for the next couple of days. I really wanna wake up and find this is all over. Note to self: stop stressing about things you can do nothing about. It is nearly over. Just a few more days...

This time in a week I will be getting ready for another trip to Bournemouth! The weather people say we only have one day of real summer weather left - July 15th. Guess where I will be on that day? Bournemouth. On the beach! Yay! Now that is something to look forward to.

Another thing to look forward to is the arrival of my copy of Lean Mean Thirteen, which I ordered from Amazon at the weekend and hope will arrive this Friday or Saturday.

And another thing to look forward to is reading all the gorgeous Little Black Dress books I have been buying even though I haven't had time to read them...and also all the other books I've yet to read. I'm tempted to post a list of them all on this blog but I'd probably be embarrassed because I've gone a little book buying mad while I've been studying. My excuse is that I'm not writing at the moment so I might as well take advantage of this and use the time to read, only I haven't managed to do that either!

So, there you have it, today sucked, tomorrow looks better! And if not tomorrow, then the next day or the day after that. There is light at the end of the tunnel after all!

Sorry for all my grumbling over recent months. I promise to try harder!

tiny steps

An agent I sent a query to earlier in the week has replied saying my ms "sounds super" and to send it to her! I know it's only a tiny step but it's 100% better than a rejection letter so I'm happy! I'd be happier if there wasn't a postal strike tomorrow because that means there's no point taking my ms to the post office until Monday. Still, I can get it ready tomorrow.

Life is progressing steadily on all other fronts; every day this week has had it ups and downs.

ps: how much does it cost to send a letter from the US to the UK? I need to include a SAE with my ms. Thankfully I have US stamps from the days when I was submitting to Avalon. Back then I think it was about 80 cents. I just googled US to UK postage costs and I came up with a cost of nearly $4 to get a letter. Surely that can't be right?

time flies...

I think the saying is time flies when you're having fun. I wish. I just realised how long it's been since I've blogged and unfortunately I can't say it's because I've been busy having fun. Time has flown. Life truly sucks.

Right now I'm lying on the sofa, dosed up on painkillers with a hotwater bottle on my neck/back/shoulder in an attempt to dull the pain I have been feeling all weekend. What I really wanted to be doing this weekend was reading Janet Evanovich's Lean Mean Thirteen but not a single one of the many bookshops I've visited since it's release date last week actually have it. I am now preparing to buy it from Amazon, which I don't do unless I absolutely have to for a reason I can't remember.

But that's not why life sucks. The little things are getting me down but only because I can't do a damned thing about the big thing that's making my life suck right now. My dh says I shouldn't stress about things I can't control. Knowing he is right, I have tried to live by this suggestion for the last few months and mostly I've got by. Sadly, that's not the case right now as the situation comes to a head.

Life hasn't been all bad though. Last weekend I visited my parents, and I'm sure other good things have happened which I've conveniently forgotten about now, which brings me to another thing. Can anyone recommend a good book for increasing your memory power? My dh says I need one! I've been looking on amazon but there are too many to choose from!

Oh, I just thought of another good thing - dh bought himself a new desk which is arriving tomorrow which means I get his! I will finally have a desk to put my laptop on instead of making space wherever I sit down...on the sofa, on the bed, on the beanbag. Yay!

And I do have rather a lot of very good books to read.

Now, if only this damned pain would go away...

bournemouth

I'm back! The holiday went something like this:

day one - relaxing on the beach, catching up with friends, fish & chips for dinner.

day two - nine mile walk along beach (to Mudeford) to catch up with family, fish & chips for dinner.

day three - relaxing on the beach (tired out from yesterday's walk!), fish & chips for dinner.

day four - nine mile walk long beach in other direction (to Sandbanks/Poole) just for the hell of it, pasta for dinner because dh insisted I have something different.

day five - relaxing on beach, fish & chips for dinner.

And then yesterday it was back to work. Thankfully, it was a Friday so I read my emails, actioned a few important things and caught up with the gossip before coming home for two days off! And did I mention that it might also be time for a diet after all those meals of fish & chiips? Today I have existed on wholemeal bread rolls with rabbit food in them, which I don't particularly love but sometimes you gotta try to pretend you're being healthy!

We also watched an hour or so of day time television in the mornings while we were waking up and getting ready to go out for the day and...I watched something that gave me an idea for a book! Yippee! Now, if only I had the time to research and write it.

Time is against me given that I have another exam in eight weeks and only started lesson one of the course on Friday afternoon. However, the idea won't go away and I can't study all the time after work so I'm sure I can fit some writing time in somewhere!

In the meantime, tomorrow I'm going to send my current ms to another couple of agents.

But first, I must get some study done tonight and catch up with everyone's blogs!

phew!

Exams are over. For now. I have another one coming up soon but I'm going to pretend that I don't right now because these have been the hardest exams I have ever sat and yesterday afternoon I was questioning my sanity!

Monday's exam was a disaster. I knew all the stuff and right now I can't even remember what went wrong. I just recall that I WAS NOT HAPPY.

Tuesday's was mildly better however I'm not convinced I will have passed. I expect I did OK in the case study (section A) but not so good in the second section so it all hinges on just how well I did in the first section. It will be close.

Today's exam went well. I'd be surprised if I failed.

The bits in between the exams were a nightmare. Sunday I stressed, Monday morning I stressed, Monday night I stressed, all night Monday I kept waking up with exam questions in my head, consequently I felt ill (and stressed!) all day Tuesday due to lack of sleep. Last night Daren convinced me to take a sleeping pill so I was actually refreshed and mildly chilled out this morning! And my brain has been so exhausted that I've been saying the weirdest things!

Anyway, it's over and there's no point stressing so these exams are now forgotten about until the start of August when the results are due.

So, back to writing.

I made it to the launch of Wannabe a Writer on Saturday. Just. I had been planning to see a friend who I haven't seen since her 21st birthday (many years ago!) afterwards but I was ill so crawled home to bed where I stayed until the thing that happened on Monday that I've forgotten about now!

The launch was fab! I chatted to Katie Fforde, Sarah Duncan and Maria McCarthy (all lovely ladies!) for a considerable amount of time before getting a copy of Wannabe a Writer, getting it signed by Jane Wenham-Jones and many of the contributors and then crawling home.

Now, as you may have gathered, I have been busy but even so I managed to find time to read the bits on finding an agent and, feeling inspired, emailed queries to four agents. Two have already responded with form rejections.

Anyway, it's back to work tomorrow. As previously mentioned, I have a very much muddled brain so I was kind of hoping to sit at my desk for two days doing very little while I recovered but I forgot that having had a week's annual leave and study leave and exam leave, I have a lot of work to catch up on that I promised people I would do this Thursday and Friday.

Still, it's a bank holiday weekend (yay!) and the following weekend we are off to Bournemouth to spend five days on the beach (yay!) so I can't complain too much...except for the fact that I have to start studying for the next exam next week...

the library is not a quiet place...

As the company I work for is paying for me to study and wishes me to pass my exams, they gave me three days off this week to revise. So, each day I got up and went to the library where:
- I revised for 12 hours over three days
- I wrote 67 and a quarter pages of notes

I also aggravated my RSI, rediscovered my love of M&B Medicals and learnt that the library is not a quiet place.

On Wednesday afternoon on my second trip to the library that day, I struggled to study while teenaged school students hung around talking loudly, complaining that all the computers were busy and arguing with the security guard when he asked them to keep the noise down. I managed to revise an entire course and was pleasantly surprised at how much I remembered, and I decided to be at the library at opening time on Thursday and do my revising in one sitting rather than taking a lunch break mid way through.

On Thursday I was at the opening just after opening time....as were class after class after class of primary school children! Noisy, but no where near as bad as the teenagers. Another course was revised.

Today I was at the library just after opening time again but spent the first half hour texting a work colleague because I was a little bored with revising and struggled to get into it. I'd just got into it when it kicked off. I have no idea what it was about but a man started yelling at the top of his voice at the library staff and it went on for ages. Security was called and at several stages I'm sure everyone in the library expected the police to be called. About half an hour later the man calmed down and left. Despite the interruption, I revised by third and final course and came home to enjoy a little of the sunshine on the balcony.

Exams start on Monday afternoon.

I feel like I have done all I can. I know I've studied hard since January.

On the writing front, I received a rejection from the agent I sent Breaking the Rules to this afternoon. I'm a little down about it but this was the first time I'd ever queried an agent so rejections are to be expected.

I'm off to Borders in Charing Cross Road tomorrow to get a copy of Wannabe a Writer by Jane Wenham-Jones. Jane and several of the contributors to the book will be in store from 12-4pm. I had intended to take the book on holiday with me in two weeks but I have a feeling I'll be reading it either over the weekend or straight after exams so I can soak up any tips before sending my ms to another agent.

On a funny note, my Tesco clubcard statement turned up in the post today. They include a couple of vouchers for extra points; usually things like 20 points for spending more than £1 on bananas or 20 points for spending more than £10 on bread. Sometimes they get used. Sometimes they go in the bin. One of today's vouchers: 100 points for buying any M&B! I am definitely not going to have a problem using that! Am already waiting impatiently for June to buy Kelly Hunter's next Modern Extra.

exam stress...

This time in two weeks I will be a complete, utter mess. I will have sat three three hour exams in three days and will probably be lying on the sofa sleeping having eaten fish and chips for dinner followed by ice cream. I am sooooo looking forward to these exams being over.

I know I always worry I won't pass but this time, I'm really worried! These exams are the first for the new syllabus. That means that, unlike previous exams, there aren't years worth of exam papers online which I can download, digest, review, analyse, study and compare.

Before past exams, I have gone through five or six old exam papers, learning what questions are always asked, what questions are unlikely to come up again - just generally getting a feel for what I'm about to face. This has helped me decide what areas I need to focus on (either weak points or strong areas that I know I can get really good marks on if the question comes up in section B).

This time round, there is one exemplar paper for each exam. I know the theory, I practice it almost every day, but these questions seem foreign to me and I have even less understanding of the sample answers.

This time round, I feel like I simply don't know enough.

It may be that I'm just putting too much pressure on myself. In previous years, I've sat two exams in May and two in November, a total of four a year. This year I am sitting seven exams.

It's damn hard to work a full day and then come home to study.

I'm not after pity. I'm just venting in the hope that it will make me feel better. I still have this weekend and three days official study leave next week, plus that weekend and then the commute to each exam during which I will be reviewing diagrams and the like one final time in the hope that something will stick.

I know this stuff. I do it every day. I will pass my exams. I will. I will. I will.

men!

Let me start by saying I am petrified of spiders. Petrified of them. I know they are small (at least some of them are) and are probably more scared of me than I am of them blah, blah, blah but I am petrified of them all the same.

So, imagine my horror when I look up from my study early this afternoon to see a HUGE spider on the top of the shelves.

I mentioned this to my husband who usually removes such things from our house for me and he duly wheeled his chair over to the shelves to remove the thing, or so I thought. However, this time round he flicked the thing at me.

After much screaming, being chased around the house and tears, yes lots of tears, my darling husband (who was almost wetting himself with laughter while I had tears streaming down my face) admitted it was PLASTIC.

He is truly horrible.

congratulations nell!

Huge congratulations to Nell Dixon for winning the RNA Romance Prize at the Savoy on Friday with her book Marrying Max!!!!!!

A friend pointed out I hadn't updated my blog for a while, which is mainly because I'm not writing just at the moment. I'm studying frantically for exams! I have exams on May 21st, 22nd and 23rd and currently have a week off from work which I took with the intention of studying hard. I am studying but I am also doing other things like relaxing, enjoying the sunshine, catching up with the housework which tends to get forgotten when I'm writing or studying, and spending time with my husband.

Sadly, I haven't done any writing since sending my partial off to an agent at the end of March. I was feeling fine about it until I looked at the first chapter of one of my mss this morning and decided I wanted to send it somewhere! I must be patient and not send anything until I hear back from this agent.

I have promised myself some writing time straight after exams, but it will only be brief as the next exam is on August 3rd.

But I promise you I am reading your blogs on an almost daily basis!

little black dress books

Thanks to Amanda for pointing out on her blog that Little Black Dress books are buy one get one free (BOGOF) at Tesco! I got four on my way home tonight. Just don't mention it to my husband since I still have four other LBD books that I haven't had time to read yet. I will get round to reading them all eventually.

And does anyone from New Zealand know if Friday the 13th is also known as Black Friday? I'm sure all Friday the 13th's are called Black Friday in NZ. I assumed it was the same here but my husband just looked at me like I was crazy when I mentioned it tonight.

sent!

Well, I finally did it. I finished polishing up Rules one last time and emailed a query to an agent tonight. This is the first time I've queried an agent so I'm a little bit nervous!

The good thing is that I'm finally happy with Rules so I don't plan on going back and continually tweaking it anymore. At least, not unless I get a full request and then I'll obviously have to give it another run through! So, with Rules out of the way, I'm free to move onto No Maternal Instinct and also study.

Study took a back seat this week while I completed Rules but it's top of my list for April and May, after catching up with my sleep first!

getting closer!

I'm getting closer to finishing Rules. I have just 20 more pages to polish up. Of course, they have been polished twice before. This is the final, final, final polish before I start querying agents.

Today, I spent my lunch hour in Starbucks, sitting at a table with a hot chocolate and a piece of lemon victoria sponge, red pen in hand polishing the previous few chapters. I felt like JK Rowling!

I would desperately like to finish Rules tonight but it is just after 11.30pm and my dh has just pointed out that I have to go to work tomorrow. I've been tired all week because I've been up late every night either working or writing.

Roll on the weekend, and Easter! And the end of May because then my three exams will be over and I'll be going on holiday!

In the meantime, roll on tomorrow lunchtime when I'll be looking for somewhere to sit quietly with my final 20 pages.

hello world!

It's nearly 9pm. I've just got home from a work related course, which I went to straight from work. I've still got to eat my dinner and I have a thousand very important and non-writing related things to do but...here I am, sitting on the sofa having logged onto my laptop because something very exciting happened as I was sitting the number 4 bus on the way to my course today. The opening paragraph for No Maternal Instinct came to me! I just have to get it into a word doc before I do another thing! This ms has been brewing away in my mind forever. I still don't know the plot but at least I finally have my opening. This is going to be one of those mss where I just write and then piece it all together at the end. Boy, am I excited! But don't panic, I haven't forgotten about finishing Rules. I have printed the final chapters and will start going through them with a red pen during my lunch break tomorrow. Just gotta get this opening down while it's in my head - and while dinner is still cooking!

nearly there!

I didn't get Rules completely finished this weekend but I. AM. NEARLY. THERE! I edited 17 chapters this weekend and I am happy with them. I'm on the final stretch. I couldn't do any more over the weekend because I still have to limit my computer time because of the headaches. I'm going on a work related course tomorrow night after work but hope to get Rules sorted by Wednesday.

a good day!

I had good news today that I can't blog about - but I wanted to mention it anyway because it seems like I only blog about being ill or feeling down about my writing most of the time. Today was a good day! There was the good news, plus the headaches I've been suffering from lately seem to have just about gone (touch wood) possibly due to all the changes I've made to my usual working habits, including dramatically reducing the amount of time spent writing on my laptop in the evenings. On the writing front, I am nearly finished revising Rules again (I will get it done this weekend) and I'm also dying to start a new ms that has been brewing in my head forever! I'm off to study for a short while before heading to bed.

yippie!

Yippie because it's the start of the Formula 1 season tomorrow! Actually, in six and a half hours, since it's in Melbourne, Australia. I'm toying with the idea of setting the alarm for 3am so I can watch it! Sundays are just not the same without a couple of hours of F1.

It's been an odd week. I'm having eye sight problems, which has meant raging headaches and spending as little time as possible in front of a computer - difficult when sitting in front of a computer is what I do from 9am-5pm week days. I'm booked in for an eye test on Monday morning so hopefully things will settle down when the new glasses (I know I'm going to need new glasses...) arrive.

And I also tried very hard to break my wrist during the week. Not hard enough, thankfully. My wrist is bruised and hurting but not significantly so.

The up side of all this is that I've got plenty of study done this week. My eyes, it seems, are able to cope with everything other than staring at a computer screen. Also been reading My Three Husbands by Swan Adamson, which is hiliarious!

famous people

Which famous person, dead or alive, would you most like to meet and why?

I'd been pondering over my answer to this question - it's one from the magazine that I mentioned on Friday - for ages so switched on my laptop so I could email a few friends to ask their advice. Sally was on MSN so I asked her and as she was writing back to me, I came up with my answer...

Sir Peter Blake!

It's a wonder I didn't think of him instantly considering I have an inspirational quote from Sir Peter Blake's last diary entry before he was killed on my desk:

"To win, you have to believe you can do it, you have to be passionate about it, you have to really "want" the result -- even if this means years of work, the hardest part of any big project is to begin, we have begun, we are underway, we have a passion." Sir Peter Blake, Tuesday December 4, 2001

Who would you like most to meet and why?