Happy New Year!!

Well, it’s here, 2023. It’s hard to believe that another year is over and we’re already into the next one. 

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and New Year and weren’t too bogged down with this nasty cold / flu bug which seems to be everywhere. My eldest son was the first to by laid low, then my husband got it just before Christmas and is still coughing and spluttering. My youngest son caught it from him and has been suffering quite badly with it. I, however, have managed to escape it so far. There, I’ve just jinxed myself, I’ll probably catch it now I’m due back at work.

 

Christmas – well it takes so much preparation and then it’s over in a flash. I hope you all had a lovely Christmas, we did. We spent it with my husband’s family – twenty of us. We all chipped in with the cooking but hat’s off to my brother-in-law and sister-in-law for hosting it all. We had a great time but I was glad we had nothing planned for Boxing Day so we could all recover. There was another party on the Tuesday for a belated 21^st. And then my mum came to stay with us for a few days. It was lovely to spend some proper time with her, especially at this time of year.

 

Amidst all the celebrations, there is also a sadness to this time of year for me. Five years ago, just before Christmas my mother-in-law passed away. The following day, whilst my mum was undergoing knee replacement surgery, my dad was diagnosed with terminal cancer and passed away ten days later on 30^th January. This is him on my wedding day.

 

 

I still miss him so much and am sad that he’s not here to see what lovely young people all his grandchildren have become. I try to look on the positive side though, that he is not really lost to us, but is forever with us in our hearts. It makes me cherish my mum even more though, and I am eternally grateful that she is still very much in our lives.

 

It’s not been a great year for a lot of people, and I’ve had some incredible stressful periods throughout the months, but I have ended the year feeling positive and particularly motivated for my writing in the year ahead. Life is what you make it after all, and I’m going to do my best to make 2023 a thoroughly productive writing year.

 

Wishing you all the very best for 2023!

 

Another Year Over

 

Well, thank goodness for that – 2021 is officially over. Covid has put so many pressures on everyone and we’re still not out of the woods. In fact, the number of people I know who have contacted the virus recently has spiralled. Thankfully the symptoms don’t seem to be as aggressive as previous strains, but you never know how its going to affect you.

As I suffer from Rheumatoid Arthritis and need to take immune suppressants to control the disease, I have to be very careful about the contact I have with people. So far I’ve been lucky and have managed to steer clear, but now it feels inevitable that at some point everyone of us will test positive. We can only hope that because of the vaccination process, that for the majority, it becomes nothing more serious than a really bad cold.

I’ve always use the period between Christmas and New Year to review my writing goals from the previous January and set new ones for the year ahead, and I try to start the new year fully enthusiastic for my writing life. Usually I manage to achieve all my goals until roughly mid-February, and then I go off on a tangent. Although I only had one short story published last year, I did do a lot of work and I have a couple of big projects which are nearing completion. Hopefully these will bear fruit during 2022.

As ever my goals for losing weight, eating more healthily and exercising more fall by the wayside before the year is very old, but I will set them again for this year and hope that I can put some strategies in place to finally meet them.

During 2021 I fell out of love with short story writing, not because I don’t enjoy writing them anymore, but because I’m struggling to know what to do with them. The short story market has seriously diminished over recent years, especially as some magazines have closed the submission process to writers who haven’t been published by them previously. I’m sure this is because they are inundated with submissions and that shifting through the slush pile it too labour intensive, but it is saddening for those of us who are struggling to get our feet on the rungs of the ladder.

Lockdown has exacerbated the problem and sometimes it has felt as though submitting short stories is like posting them into a black hole. So I was delighted when Yours Fiction accepted one of my stories – The Floods of Change - for publication. And I was even more delighted to see it in print in the November 2021 edition, and even get a strapline on the front cover.

I was also delighted see a new magazine on the market, Seven Days, but disappointed by the news that even in such a short time it has proved not to be viable. It has seriously made me want to take a more direct control of my writing life, and over the last few months I have been doing some research into self-publishing. This is something I will be looking into in greater detail during 2022.

I hope that you are all feeling enthusiastic for your writing life and the beginning of this new year, and most of all that you stay healthy and happy.

A New Year

Last year was one of my least productive writing years but I’m not going to beat myself up about it. It was a very traumatic year to live through, and to be honest, I’m just pleased that I made it!

Sometimes life comes along and pulls the rug out from under your feet. But you can’t do anything about that except get on with it when it happens.

But there are some things you can control in life and I’m determined that 2019 is going to be positive with regard to the things I can control. Number 1 on that list is how much writing I do throughout the year.

With a busy life and an illness which brings with it a lot of fatigue, I often find it difficult, not only to find the time to write but the energy.

It’s easy to let one day slip by without writing and then another, and before you know it, time has slipped by and you are out of the habit.

So this year I’m determined to start off with good habits even if it’s just a few minutes each day. To help me do that I have written a specific list of immediate tasks so that when I do sit down to write I know exactly what it is I want to achieve from each writing session. Even if I don’t have the time or energy to do much, the hardest part is actually beginning and by having a plan, I'm hoping that this will make it easier to get that bum on seat and fingers on the keyboard. What I’ve also started to do is write a list of everything I achieve each day so that at the end of each week or month I have physical evidence of what I have achieved which will hopefully spur me on to do more.

So here’s a question. What do you do to keep yourself motivated and keep on writing?

The month has certainly got off to a good start with an email from The People’s Friend to say that a story of mine which was accepted last year will be published on 26^thJanuary, so I’m really looking forward to seeing that, and, fingers crossed, many more throughout the year.

So here’s to 2019 and may it be the best writing year ever – for everyone. Good luck, best wishes and happy writing. 

Happy Belated New Year

Forgive me father for I have sinned, it has been four months since my last blog post, and one of my writing resolutions this year is to be a better blogger (as is my resolution every year).

2016 was a disappointing one in terms of writing, but at least I can't complain that my life isn't full.

For 2017, though, I want to be better, carve out more time for my writing and generally be more focussed and productive.  To do this I either need to delegate more or to be more organised - or probably both.  I heard an interview the other day when an author with a full time job was asked how she fitted everything in and she said she had a big bottom and a dirty house.  I think she's got it just right - its getting your head around not caring if the chores aren't done because you're doing a far better thing by devoting time to your writing.  (Also means you have to get your family's head around it too and make sure that they pull their weight and not spend quite so much time on the X-Box!)

Anyway, in terms of being organised, one minute after the applications opened to join the Romantic Novelist's Association New Writers' Scheme, I sent off my email.  And I got in.  So now I have a deadline to deliver a manuscript by the end of August.  It seems a long way off at the moment but I'm sure, judging by the speed last year disappeared, that it will come round quickly enough.

Now I have no excuse and I'm determined to make 2017 a writing year that counts.

Hope you all have a happy and productive writing year too.

Linda

Happy New Year!

Wishing everyone who is reading this a very happy New Year.

December for me is always a bit of right-off writing-wise as I struggle to prepare for Christmas and juggle everything else.  Each year I promise I won’t let myself be distracted from writing but I always am and this year was no exception.

Christmas Day passed by in such a rush I wondered, as usual, what all the effort was for and then on Boxing Day I came down with a cold/flu bug which is going around and which made me feel rubbish.

I did manage to see some family but not all although I recovered in time for New Year’s Eve.

I’m feeling very positive about 2015.  Last year, for many of my friends, 2014 was a horrible year which they were glad to see the back of.  It certainly had its down moments for me, but it was a bit of a non-descript year which seemed to slip through my fingers. I don’t feel I achieved anything I set out to at the beginning of the year.

That’s why I want this year to be different.  I have so many plans which is part of my problem, I tend to flit from one thing to another and it takes ages to get anything done.  This year I’m going to set myself a project to focus on each month, so that the temptation to get distracted is reduced (fingers’ crossed).

For January the project is a novel which is in its fifth draft.  It’s nearly ready to be sent out but not quite and so I’ve determined by the end of January it will be ready.  I’ve been working on some of the edits from my sickbed and so already have a momentum going which I hope to keep to throughout the month.

Instead of setting specific resolutions this year I only have one – and that is to dedicate more time to things I want to do not things I feel I need to do.  That’s my incentive to get writing more, to make this year count.

What do you hope to achieve in 2015?

Reflections on 2012

I could write the same blog post at the beginning of each New Year, in fact here are my words from early January 2012.

I'm going to be more focussed on my writing, I'm going to declutter my house, get my life organised, lose weight and get fit.

So this year, whilst my intentions are the same, I'm simply going to say that I want to think of a way to make more use of my time. I'm either going to have to stop watching telly, stop sleeping or find some other way to find ways of being more productive. I know I run the risk of the same blog post in 2013 but I really hope not.

Be careful your words might come back and bit you on the bum.

So, have I been more focussed on my writing?

Well, I’ve tried but I’m not sure I have achieved much, certainly not in the way of publication, so this year I need to try and be even more focussed.

Have I decluttered the house?

Well, actually, I have made some progress, but not nearly as much as I wanted to.  There is still plenty of room for improvement, so this is still on the list.

Have I got my life organised?

I wish!

Lost weight or kept fit?

Ditto.

In many ways, my life has not changed fundamentally since the beginning of the year, except in one way. 

I was made redundant.

This is a good thing.  I keep telling myself anyway.  This is my chance.  My opportunity.  To work for myself and also to make the writing work.

So, what are my resolutions for 2013?  Simply to make some money independently.  To be my own boss.  To be my own success story.  2013 really needs to be the year I focus, focus, focus.

Oh, and by the way, I need to declutter my house, get my life organised, lose weight and get fit.

Ho hum.

Another Year Over

Rather a belated New Year's post, I'm afraid. In fact, Christmas seems to have passed in a bit of a blur.  It's been wonderful spending time with family and friends, some of whom I haven't seen in a long time, but  it has been hard work too.  I'm going back to work after having two weeks off but I can't say I feel rested.  I know I'm very lucky to be surrounded by family and friends though, so sometimes you just have to accept the exhaustion.

Now it's a new year and as ever I'm full of optimism for the year ahead.  My new year's resolutions can be cut and pasted year on year. I'm going to be more focussed on my writing, I'm going to declutter my house, get my life organised, loose weight and get fit. 

So this year, whilst my intentions are the same, I'm simply going to say that I want to think of a way to make more use of my time.  I'm either going to have to stop watching tele, stop sleeping or find some other way to find ways of being more productive.I know I run the risk of the same blog post in 2013 but I really hope not.

Anyway, happy new year to you all and wish you luck with all your best intentions for 2012.

All the best.

Linda

Happy New Year!

A rather belated greeting I’m afraid but last week was a bit hectic to say the least.

My youngest son has the misfortune of having his birthday on 5 January. I always feel sorry for him because by the time Christmas and New Year is over I often find that I have run out of steam. Usually I just want everything to get back to normal rather than have to start the celebrations all over again. The fact that most people also feel this way forces me to try just that little bit harder to make his birthday enjoyable.

This year though his birthday was dogged by illness. Both my husband and myself had been feeling under the weather at New Year, so it was a very quiet one, with us seeing the New Year in at home and then going straight to bed. To be honest my bed had been calling me for a long time before midnight but I stuck it out because, well, you have to don’t you?

On Tuesday it was back to work (which to be honest was a bit of a relief) but because the children didn’t go back to school until the next day my husband had taken the day off to look after them. I thought everything was on schedule for the next day; presents sorted, party numbers confirmed, friends coming round after school, only to find when I got home that husband’s feeling a bit under the weather had morphed into full blown flu. At first I thought it was a bit of the man flu type flu but as my husband isn’t one to take to his bed I had to revise my cynicism. In fact he was off work for the whole week, which I have never seen before - as he’s self-employed he usually goes to work even when he probably shouldn’t – he spent most of the week in bed and didn’t even want anything to eat apart from the odd bowl of soup until Friday.

So, I cancelled the friends round from school – didn’t think their parents would appreciate them catching the flu after only being back at school for one day – took both the boys out for tea on my own, and even managed his party at Quasar on my own too – that was fun! All this between working flat out at work, school runs, housework and looking after sick husband.

I did my best though and I think youngest son enjoyed himself. Can’t say I didn’t try anyway.

Husband’s better now, apart from a hacking cough which just doesn’t seem to want to pack its bags, and life truly can get back to normal. Thankfully!

Hope everyone's New Year is off to a good start.