Swings and Roundabouts

Positives from the last few days:

1. I finished my mountain of proofreading.

2. I won Phillipa Ashley's contest and now have a nice copy of Wendy Holden's The Wives of Bath sitting on my bookshelf.

3. I had a precious extra hour in bed on Saturday morning.


Negatives from the last few days:

1. An elderly member of the family, who had been unwell for some time, passed away.

2. Little Frog has contracted a very nasty bout of gastroenteritis.


At times like this I find it helps to think, "This too shall pass."

While I'm away from the blog for a few days, I'd like you all to put your thinking caps on for me. Brenda Novak's Diabetes Auction is coming up in a few months, and I will once again be contributing a gift box full of great items, probably on the theme of "England". So, I'd like to know a few things:

1. What sort of things would you love to get in a gift box?

2. What sort of gifts/prizes do you think of as being typically English?

I'd particularly appreciate the viewpoints of those of you who don't live in England, for whom English things will be a bit more of a novelty! Everybody who leaves me a comment with their suggestions will be entered to win a signed copy of Haunted Hearts -- and I might throw in some English chocolate too :)


Just finished reading: Full Exposure by Diana Duncan

Quick Bulletin

Still here. Busy working. Maternity leave finished and lots of proofreading to do. Great to be exercising the brain and earning money again, but hardly any time leftover to do anything else -- hence no progress on word counter. Really don't think I'll fulfill the To Do list this month... But stranger things have happened!

Mystified by MySpace

I've finally succumbed to the progress of technology and joined MySpace. There are people I know who've been on there for quite a while but I've never done it myself before now -- mainly because... well, if I'm going to be honest about it, the pages always look really cluttered and messy to me! But I think you can customise your own page, yes?

I would appreciate any pointers or advice anyone can give me about MySpace. How do I find new friends? How do your customise your page? What sort of things do you normally do on there?

If you would like to be my friend (shades of primary school...) then you can see my profile here.

I'll be looking for advice again in the next couple of weeks, this time to do with contest prizes and the sort of things you like to win! So look out for that :)

Cake Helps You Write

Question: How can we already be a week into February?!

It's been a time of great milestones for Little Frog lately. In the last fortnight he sprouted his first tooth, finally worked out how to sit up unaided, spent a trial day with his childminder (during which he went to a birthday party and was helped to play pass-the-parcel: be still my sniffy motherly heart), and then promptly sprouted his second tooth. How can this be when he was only recently a little pink wrinkly person who just knew how to sleep, poop, and cry??

And so to writerly things... I meant to post my February "To Do" list on the 1st, but got distracted by baby teeth and suchlike. So here it is:

1. Continue subbing my motherhood article. (Am still waiting to hear from the first magazine.)
2. Write chapters two and three of Truck of Luck.
3. Write another short story.
4. Update my website.

I finish my maternity leave next week and will be back to proofreading, but I am going to try my best to continue to meet my writing goals. I may need a couple of slices of Marks & Spencer's chocolate fudge cake to help me, but if that's what it takes then that's what I gotta do!


Just finished reading: One Night Stand by Julie Cohen

Whoop Whoop!

The first chapter of The Truck of Luck is DONE! And I am loving my characters. Their dialogue feels really effortless to me, which is great (I sometimes think my dialogue sounds a little forced) and I lurve my hero -- always a good sign.

*happy sigh*

And now I get to celebrate, because today is mine and The Bloke's sixth anniversary (of our first date) and Little Frog is at his grandparents, so we are going out for dinner :)