Monday 23 February 2009

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!

Monday 9 February 2009

"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!

Sunday 1 February 2009

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?