Zombie Queen Party Time

Zombie Queen of Newbury High is written by my 'real-life' friend (and now cyber friend as she moved from UK), Amanda Ashby. It's released in March so this year March will roar in like a lion because it's a brilliantly fantastic and fun book.

To celebrate its release, Amanda's holding a ten day party over at her blog and authors will be blog guesting every day. I'll be there on Thursday - probably Friday for us in UK.

There's also a chance of picking up a copy of Zombie Queen just by spreading the word of the party! So get spreading because it's a fantastic read!

"Still Under Consideration..."

I first posted this picture on October 3rd. That was when I sent a proposal for a mystery series to a publisher. A week later (after speaking to the editor) I sent a couple of other proposals for a younger age group. So, when I opened a letter from the publisher this morning and read that my mss weren't suitable for their new list, I just pushed the letter to one side. It wasn't until Husband up the Hill picked it up and read it that I discovered

Stationmaster Ruth - Seaside Sleuth is still under consideration by the editorial team.

So hope rises again!

The letter was in a bundle Husband collected from the sorting office - postman hasn't been able to get to us for a week - and there was a couple of books I'd ordered in the bundle, too. One's a 'writing' book I read about somewhere, can't remember where, it's called Writing Magic - Creating Stories That Fly and it's by Gail Carson Levine (author of, amongst others, of Ella Enchanted and Fairest). I think an early night with some dark choccie is called for. I love reading in bed. And, yes, I'll have a notebook and pen with me as well, just in case I decide to do some of the writing exercises GCL sets.

Here's to a great week (with no more snow) for you all. Shirley, if you read this, please don't do your snow dance again!

Happy February

Must do better! Thank you to all who emailed to see if I'm all right. I am! Well, apart from being freezing cold. That's one reason there's been a looong gap between blogs - my study is the coldest room in the house and, because we've got old sash windows, the wind howls it way through the gap. So I haven't been spending as long as usual in front of the computer. Plus, I've been writing the novella but it's slow going - only 3 chapters done so far, and they aren't very long chapters. See... Must do better!

Does your writing slow down in cold weather?