January

So January slipped away before I knew it.

What have I been doing? Well, I had a birthday. I've been organising, but not going on, two uni applicant days for Son 1. I've been downloading lots of cheap and free books to my Kindle. I've been trying to deal with Son 2's increasing behavioural issues.

I've also been writing. I completed the 31 days of the River of Stones project. To be fair I did on a few occasions forget to post the stone which was germinating in my mind, but I always caught up the next day and I ended the month with 31 stones written.

I've started doing Helen M Hunt's Hop On, Hop Off short story course and I'm enjoying it very much. As some of you may know, womag story writing is an area in which I've had no success so far and I'm a great admirer of Helen's stories for that market, so I'm hoping some of her skill will rub off on me. Woman's Weekly has always been the women's weekly magazine which I feel suits my writing style best and Helen has had significant success in that very competitive market. Although womag stories require the same writing skills as other genres there are definite restrictions on content and I'm trying hard to rein in my darker side!

Helen also runs face to face workshops but if you are looking for something very flexible the Hop On, Hop Off course might just fit the bill.

Success

I told you about Caroline Smailes' flash fiction writing challenge here. Well it was a huge success. Over 350 stories were submitted of which 100 were chosen for the anthology and I'm delighted to tell you that my story Barricades was one of them.

I'll give you the details of the Kindle book as soon as it is released, but don't forget you won't have to own a Kindle to read it.

A new writing challenge

There are writing challenges out there at almost any time: NaNoWriMo and Sally Quilford's 100,000 words in 100 days being two recent and current ones. But I'm not a fast writer and have to fit my writing in between so many other commitments that I've never dared tackle a big challenge like that.

I do, however, enjoy the challenge of writing short snippets such as small stones and like to use my writing to support worthy charities. In fact my first publication came in a charity fundraiser as a result of a 300 word blog challenge, Your Messages.

So I was delighted to read that Caroline Smailes has set up a new challenge for 100 word flash pieces to be included in a Kindle book to raise funds for One in Four. The catch is that each piece must be based on, inspired by or linked to a song on YouTube and the closing date is next Wednesday,11th January.

I'll leave Caroline to explain all the rules and the story behind why she has again chosen to support that charity here.

I've already entered, please join me.

Another river of stones

I forgot to mention that I am once again taking part in the River of
Stones writing project this January and you can find all my recent small stones on a separate blog, small stones in a river.

I've already shown myself to be rubbish at remembering to update the blog regularly between projects. But even just writing small stones daily for two months a year, and knowing others are doing the same, has proven to be very satisfying.

For more information on the River of Stones project, and how you can join us, visit Fiona and Kaspa here at Writing Our Way Home

Tiptoeing into 2012

I'm not keen on New Year resolutions. You know, the sort where you pledge to give up something or lose a ridiculous amount of weight in next to no time. They are the sort which you break almost immediately and then cause you guilt.

But I have been taking a look at my life and how I can better prioritise in 2012. The last few months of 2011 have been a rollercoaster, from a desperate low to a fantastic high and back to low again. It's not been easy and some things had to give, mostly my creative writing, which made me sad.

In terms of writing, my currently small scale commercial work has to take first place, as it reliably pays. I then intend to concentrate on short stories for a few months, whilst I further flesh out my plot for novel two. Having already made one false start on novel two, I've had to go back to the drawing board, and will eventually start to write again in a different genre, with a different main character and more plot points on the scaffold. But I'll get there, I really will.

I also need to start sending Walking on Tiptoe out again. It is currently out with a few agents but I suspect that the silence from two of those can by now be construed as a no. I think that this will be the year when I start sending it out to indie publishers, whilst also looking into electronic possibilities. I'd love to see it on the Kindle one day, but if I go down that route I'd probably need help with the cover and formatting, which is fairly complex, and I don't have the funds to invest right now.

2012 promises to be an interesting year for the boys. If all goes to plan we will be waving Son 1 off to his first choice university in the autumn, whilst concurrently making plans for Son 2's future. This is likely to be less straightforward.

I have a secret project, which I hope to start working on quietly in the background during the year, building perhaps towards something for the future, when the nest is finally empty.

Last, but definitely not least, December has shown me that I need to take even more care to preserve my health. I'm doing okay, but there is still room for improvement, still a need to be more selfish sometimes and take a little more time out for myself. Recently I have felt as if I am spending almost every waking hour either caring or working (I include thinking about work here!) and my body is telling me that it can't continue. It's difficult to balance Hubby's ad hoc work against my needs but obviously the guaranteed money has to take priority at times.

So what are your plans for 2012?

Merry Christmas

Can you believe that Fairytale of New York by The Pogues, featuring the late Kirsty MacColl, was first released in 1987? No, neither can I. Enjoy.

Thirty years on

This time last week I travelled into the West End to meet up with six friends from university. Two I hadn't seen since our graduation day almost thirty years ago, others I hadn't seen for at least seven years and the last meeting with some of those was sadly at a funeral.

It was a reunion which grew out of a chance comment on Facebook and an effort to get in touch with the fellow students for whom I still had contact details, some of whom then brought in others. The only thing we all have in common is that we studied single or joint honours German at The University of Reading in the same year group. But it was amazing how we immediately fell back into easy conversation. Someone brought along the departmental photo (which I'd missed as I was at a job interview) and time was spent trying to recall the names of other students and sharing anecdotes. I was glad to discover I was not the only person who struggled to put names to the familiar faces in the picture.

Some of those present had lived in my hall of residence, others spent the year abroad in the same location as me. As well as the memories we talked about families, jobs and our fears that some of our children will be going out into the world during a recession, just as we did. I wonder if our career paths might have taken different courses if that had not been the case.

Whether or not we ever manage to get together as a group again, the afternoon was life-affirming. It showed that most people's lives don't follow the path they had expected, yet we have all survived. And it proved that friendships based on shared experiences never quite die, however long they are neglected.