Tag Archives: Writers Bureau

Must Do’s 22nd to 27th July

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Ok, well i for one am fed up with the hot weather lol. I’m not a sun lover for starters. pale and pasty that’s me 😉

So last week I felt a bit meh and I think that’s related in the To Do list. Last week I was supposed to:

1. Post Tangled. YAY, it’s gone!

2. Do Artists Way stuff. Yep!

3. Start decluttering cupboard under stairs. Couldn’t face it.

4. Finish packing kitchen & dining room. *shakes head*

5. Sort out drawing class and enrol. Well, I found one, but, bloody hell soooo expensive! 😦 I need to find out if I can pay in instalments before I commit.

This week is gunna be hectic (and another hot one) so the diary looks like this:

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I’ll definitely need my Boxing Day come Sunday 😉

So what are your plans for the week?

Writing Blogger Challenge Day 2

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The prompt for Day 2 is:

Make 10 writing related confessions.

1. I still get confused between nouns, verbs, adverbs & adjectives. it’s just not sinking in 😦

2. I’m comma happy. I use far too many lol

3. I have approximately 450 unfinished short stories. Whoops!

4. I have a huge problem with Tautology in my writing. A really bad habit that I must get under control.

5. I prefer to Handwrite than type. I’m actually considering doing the next novels first draft all by hand.

6. I feel that my vocabulary is lacking. And that goes back to my education levels.

7. In real life I swear like a trooper. But my characters don’t tend to lol.

8. I am the Queen of Cliche. See number 7 *giggles*

9. I hate writing in first person. They always sound like me lol

10. I still haven’t sent off my first Writers Bureau assignment! EEEK! (Should really do that lol).

Well, that was pretty cathartic lol…. Go on, give me a writing confession, so I don’t feel such a loser 😉

Must Do’s 8th to 14th July

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Well, last week was a wash out 😦 I think I left the house, what, twice, between Monday morning and Friday afternoon lol….so annoying!

So nothing from last weeks list got done lol, although “Tangled” is now in it’s envelope lol.

It will be going off Wednesday morning (it’s the earliest I can fit in going to the post office) and I have spent the weekend decluttering. So the plans for this week are:

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It’s gunna be a good week, a few nice “writerly” type events to look forward to, especially after such a poxy week of illness.

What are your writing plans for the week?

Must Do’s 24th to 30th June

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Well, I’m back from The Lake District 🙂

Lake District

Everyone said it was a beautiful place, and it is. But, it’s very wet *snigger*

You can sum up the Lake District in 5 words…

  • Wet
  • Green
  • Sheep
  • Hills
  • Lakes

But if you’re looking for a relaxing break with no mobile phone signal and intermittent Internet access (via the hotel) I can highly recommend it!

We did some sightseeing (of course) and the highlights were Beatrix Potters house and Rydal Mount, home to William Wordsworth. In the garden is a summer house where Wordsworth wrote most of his poems (a post coming up about that soon).

So now it’s back to the real word and this weeks to do list. I didn’t do much writing when I was away, and i didn’t do any reading. I was up at 5am most mornings, just wandering the hotel grounds pondering life lol. I didn’t actually come to any conclusions, but, the peace and quiet and time with my thoughts was relaxing.

So this week there is only one item on my to do list…..

1. Get “Tangled” off to the RNA New Writers Scheme for its critique.

I meant to do it last week but my printer has run out of ink, and then The Hubsters (at work) keeled over too so he had to order a new one. As soon as he’s got that set up I’ll be emailing him the MS for him to print.

I also need to send off my first assignment to The Writers Bureau and continue to work on my 2nd, but that’s not a priority… What is though is catching up with about 400 emails, blog comments, Twitter, FaceBook…..

What are your writing plans for the week?

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The Power Of Knowledge

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When I finished my Faber course back in April one of the last things our tutor said was, don’t enrol on anymore writing classes, just get on with it now, and WRITE!

Initially I thought, yeah, great advice….like Nike says “Just Do It!

But then a couple of weeks ago I heard an interview on the radio with Tracy Chevalier (who wrote Girl With A Pearl Earring) where the interviewer asked her why she had decided to go down the Creative Writing MA route rather than just write. She responded by saying that she felt she needed the structure and instruction that a course like that gave her.

I was already thinking what the hell was I was going to do after Faber and Tracy’s words really struck home. I think I’m quite a lazy writer, no, perhaps not lazy, oh what’s the word? I’m the type of writer who needs a push. When it comes to a choice between the carrot and the stick I probably respond better to the stick, that’s for sure. I suffer from huge motivation issues.

Sooooo, after hearing what Tracy said I went straight online and looked up writing courses. I still have so much to learn (I feel) and as I’m a member of 2 writing groups I don’t feel that I’m lacking in contact with fellow writers, so I was looking for something I could do at my own pace, at home.

I’d seen adverts for The Writers Bureau in all the writing magazines. I know people who have done the course, and I even know a couple of writers who tutor for them. So I signed up for the Comprehensive Writing Course and my pack arrived last week 🙂

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I’m a big believer in learning as much as I can about writing, but I know at some stage my Faber tutor is right, but I don’t feel I’m ready to let go of learning, just yet….So when will I know I am?

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Must Do’s 10th to 16th June

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This past week has been hectic. I’ve got a couple of things going on at the moment that are rather exciting, but I can’t say much more, now, because I don’t want to jinx it 😉 Will tell you soon though, I promise!

The problem is, I’ve had so much on my mind this past week, and because of that I’ve found it really hard to focus. Still been writing everyday, just not doing the things I should have been doing *frowns*

So the list last week looked like this:

1. Submit 1st assignment to Writers Bureau & start 2nd. Nope *deep sigh* but I did work on it.

2. Continue to work on Faber 25 word pitch & reading. Yep, but it’s still not finished.

3. Edit at least 1 chapter of Tangled. Nope, but I’ve decided to send it off to the RNA in first draft form.

4. Declutter the dining room. Started….it looks even worse now than before I started lol

5. Sort out outfit for Faber event. I have decided what I’m going to wear. I don’t want to look too posh lol….so I’m just going to go as me! I will need a new pair of shoes though.

6. Look at Adult Ed classes for September. Nope, but, there is a good reason why I didn’t do that….I just can’t tell you about that at the moment lol

Sooooo, a disappointing week, but I guess I should have known that I wouldn’t be able to focus. The Faber event where I have to read in front of 30 agents is this coming Friday (14th) and the nerves have set in already. I’m feeling a bit stressed and looking at my diary for next week it’s no wonder lol

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I’ve tried to keep my To Do List very simple this week because I feel that anything I add won’t get done anyway lol

So what are your writing plans for the week?

Trawling The Net

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I have spent much of the last 24 hours trawling the Internet…….nooooo, I wasn’t procrastinating? (or was I? Lol). I was researching all the short story comps and possible places to submit work to.

A huge thanks to the Womag Writers Blog and Helen Yendall who have both been a wealth of information 🙂

I have discovered there are 18 competitions ending in March. I’ve got myself a folder. Done some ‘calendar’ type sheets and now, I’m ready to go LMAO 😉

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Now, if I stop eating, don’t shower, survive on cat naps (no actual sleeping) and only leave the dining room table for loo breaks and the occasional cup of coffee I might, just, be able to enter them all *snigger*

Seriously, I can enter at least a couple can’t I?

Actually…..I managed to enter 1 last night. The Writers Bureau have a monthly comp and this months was “50 Word Love Story” I can’t post my entry on here, and rest assured, I will be screaming from the rooftops if it actually gets anywhere lol 😉

Yesterday’s prompt about the crosswind inspired a story about a guy losing his toupee (thanks Danny) and a romance is about to blossom between Mr Toupee and the woman who tried to rescue it. What a sweet story to tell the grand children “I met your grandad as I was trying to rescue his toupee from the wheels of a bus” lol. Today’s prompt is it was a daydream which sounds like great fun. I love daydreaming 🙂