hello, hello, hello!

Bet you all thought I forgot I had a blog! I promise I didn't. I've thought about posting on many occasions but just never actually sat down and did it.

Life has been full of ups and downs as usual - although I hasten to add that I'm making sure there are lots more ups in my life to help me get through the downs! I have a lot to be grateful for and I remind myself of this whenever I start to get down. Mostly, the downs are things I can't control and while I know I shouldn't stress about them, sometimes I just can't help myself. Chocolate helps! Lots of it! And doing "up" things.

Right now, I'm up to my neck in study. I have three exams in three and a half weeks. These are the final three exams of my graduate diploma. Fourteen exams in two and a half years, while working full time, and trying to write....hmmmm, I think I'm mad!

And the study doesn't end there! I've recently started an Open University course and the second one starts in February. I'm really enjoying my M150 (data, computing and information) course and the good thing is that it's assessed via assignment so NO MORE EXAMS!

I've also been on a life planning and career success course recently which means I have a plan (which I'm looking at right now!) of where I'd like to be in three months, six months, 12 months and three years from now. No surprises for guessing that having a book published is in there somewhere!! Along with things like learning Spanish.

I've also been to see Col Tim Collins give a talk. He gave the famous speech to his men on the eve of the Iraq war. I'm sure I remember several romance authors talking about how dashing Col Collins was at the time! In person, well, let's just say I was awestruck! His speech was just amazing. I came home and ordered a copy of his book.

Oh, and I'm thinking about writing! This weekend I've penciled in time to do a final run through of my ms before sending it off to the agent who requested it. Yes, I know that was ages ago and I promise you I haven't been pissing around. The agent specified it was not to turn up at her office until after October 29th so I'm posting it on October 29th.

And, looking back through my blog a few minutes ago, I realised my partial has been at M&B for four months now. Not that I'm going to stress about it. Exams are the only thing I have time for stressing about right now!

But I did promise the fantastically inspiring woman who presented the life planning and career success course that I would start writing something brand spanking new before Christmas, and that I'd email her to let her know I had done this.

One final word (or words): fingers crossed and best of luck to my fabulous CP who is sending her requested full into M&B. Go Sue!!!!!

agent update

The agent liked what I did with the revisions on the partial and has now asked to see the complete ms! Yay! I was a little shocked to see the envelope waiting for me when I got home last night because I only posted the revised partial to the US last Monday and wasn't expecting to hear back until the end of October. I'll be printing out a copy later today so I can start going through it to double check one more time!

updates

- Ms revised and posted to US agent on Monday.
- August exam result received today - I passed - 60% - yay!

busy!

I'm bogged down in study and finishing my revisions for the US agent. My to do list is looking so scary that I'm almost at the point where I don't want to add anything else to it! But, on the plus side, I am almost over the cold I caught when we were on holiday and I LOVE being busy! I'm one of those sad people who work best when they're busy! And I have set aside special time for reading when I reach certain milestones on my to do list. For example, yesterday I ordered the new James Patterson book Double Cross which is out on Thursday. I should receive it Friday and I'll be desperate to read it asap so I've decided I can read it as soon as I've sent my revised ms off to the US.

the best holiday ever was followed by...

...the crapiest day at work ever. But that was yesterday and I've moved on. Almost. OK, so I might still be a tiny bit annoyed.

But, moving on.

While we were away, I told my darling husband that I felt I needed to become more high maintenance. Where did this come from? I don't know. I've never been what I would call a girlie girl. I can be ready to go out in a matter of minutes. It's not that I don't care about my appearance. I do, but I've never been into all that girlie taking hours to get ready business and stressing about how I look. OK, maybe I do stress about how I look a bit but I am definitely not high maintenance!

Naturally, my darling husband was concerned by my statement and told me I was not to become high maintenance!

He can relax. I couldn't do high maintenance if I wanted to. I'd bore myself!

But this week I have managed to visit Boots to purchase a new (and expensive) skin care regime only to instead come away with enough free samplers to last a week at which time I have an appointment to see the skin care specialist to review my options. Now, that is high maintenance for me! And, as a side note, my skin is already feeling and looking better after just two "three minutes a day" sessions!

And today I went shopping and came home wearing a matching bracelet and necklace, which my darling husband looked at and said "is that your attempt at being high maintenance?". Then, having found out how much these items cost (£4 and £8 - ok, so not much but I liked them!) he practically fell on the floor laughing at me.

High maintenance I am not. I don't know why I would want to be. Maybe I was flirting with a mid life crisis. Or maybe I just needed to spend some money on myself to cheer myself up because some crappy things have left me feeling a little down.

Usually I would simply buy a book or some chocolate. OK, you got me there! I have bought a lot of chocolate in the last two days as well!

Whatever the reason, I am feeling happy right. Tired, and still suffering from the cold from hell, but happy.

the best holiday ever!

I'm home again and I've had the BEST HOLIDAY EVER!!!! Aside from the fact that we both came home with stinking colds, that is. Apart from one trip to the supermarket to buy fresh fruit and veg, we've spent the last two days lying on the sofa watching videos or in bed sleeping, all the while coughing and blowing our noses! Nice!

But I don't care because I had the BEST HOLIDAY EVER!!!!!!

It truly was.

I am yet to feel sad that it is over. That will probably hit me on Tuesday morning when I head off to work, when reality takes over and I realise that I am suddenly back to being rushed off my feet at work every single second that I'm there, that I need to start studying again and that I need to finish my revisions.

But for now I'm sitting here listening to Dance Anthems on Radio 1 and a top tune from the best dj in the world, who I just happened to see on my holiday!!!! Thanks to my darling husband for booking the tickets!! Love ya!!

things to be happy about

1) I'm going on holiday to sunny Spain on Friday!

2) I bought Swan Adamson's latest Little Black Dress, Memoirs are Made of This, today to take on holiday with me. It features the delightful Venus Gilroy from My Three Husbands. That and She'll Take it (by Mary Carter) are two of my favourite Little Black Dress books so far. Believe me, I have a lot of them! They're all brilliant!

3) I've eaten an obscene amount of chocolate today. Ok, so maybe I shouldn't be happy about that, I mean, I'm not exactly a perfect size, I'm somewhere between a UK 10 and 12 with jiggly thighs and bottom and a less than flat stomach but I don't care about dieting today, or pretty much any other day.

4) I have a tan! So what if it came out of a bottle and it's all streaky. I have a tan! I never tan. Never. Ever. Hence why this year I bought FAKE TAN. Tonight's application should fix the streaky bits. Maybe. I don't really care right now.

5) An agent who asked to see more of my ms when I sent her a query letter has just been in touch to ask for revisions! Thankfully, I understand exactly what she meant in her letter and know exactly what I'm going to do to fix it.

6) I have a fantastic husband who I love dearly!

interrupted revision

I'm at home today revising for Friday's exam. At least, I should be revising. Normally, I go to the library. But then in the past I didn't have my own desk here at home. So, today I decided to stay at home and study. Big mistake. Firstly, it's sunny so I keep looking out the window and thinking about going outside to sit in the sun. Secondly, the husband works from home. He's been chatting away and has now just put the radio on, plus he arranged for the Tesco shopping to be delivered this afternoon because I'd be home to put all the shopping away. And finally, I keep distracting myself by going on Facebook, checking my email, reading the news. After the shopping has been delivered, I am going to either the library or the park so I can get on with some study and tomorrow I am getting up and going to the library.

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!