Fundraising walk

I'm taking part in a sponsored walk to raise funds for the Hospice of St. Francis (Berkhamsted). I'll be walking 13 miles at midnight on 21st June. There will be hundreds of women walking all with the same aim. I've set up a web page with all the details. If you would like to sponsor me and help the Hospice please pop up and take a look. This online sponsoring was suggested by the hospice as a way of making it easier for people to donate.
Here is the link http://www.justgiving.com/susanfranklin

Books to read by Lookybooks

Click on the front page of the book and see it open. Click on each right hand page to get a new page. Use the eyes to make it easier to read. This is a brilliant website: If you have children or just love children's books this is the place to go.http://www.lookybook.com/index.php take a look at their site, register or just read the books. You can find both fiction and non-fiction books. Brilliant!

Another chapter polished

I love polishing chapters. I love writing the first draft, the editing and re-editing and re-writing, re-editing however many times necessary before polishing. I’m now polishing and feeling more confident each page I turn.

I feel I’ve learnt quite a lot during the process of writing this manuscript. It feels deeper and stronger than anything I’ve ever written before. I only wish I could have more time to write. I’m off for the Easter break now and for next week, then back to school. I need to get as many chapters polished as I can before I go back. So its nose to the computer screen, pencil to the hard copy and polish, polish, polish.

Late nights, early mornings and tons of PG Tips tea – strong, hot and by the bucket full will get me through.

See you later – I’m off to write.

Lemon Drizzle cakes and Chocolate chip muffins

Well for those who might be interested in having a virtual birthday cake - here they are. Enjoy! Sorry they didn't end up as butterfly cakes. I ran out of time.

By the way, these are only some of the thirty.

USA agents quick response.

Having seen some great reports about an agency in the USA. I decided I'd submit some of my work. I set about crafting my introduction letter and synopsis. I've not submitted by email often and I wanted to make the initial approach both professional and friendly. Once complete I sent the first three chapters, synopsis and author biography at around 12 noon on Friday. I was expecting to wait six/eight weeks for any type of response therefore you, as I would be surprise to have a reply in my inbox two and a half hours later.
You can imagine that my initial thought was that it was an automated response. No it was a real response from the lady herself. Excitement welled up inside: "Wow! she must think it is really brilliant!" -

This is the opening to the email:

Amazingly, I’ve been able to read this incredibly quickly –

However the next sentence said it wasn't for her, but she did give me some great pointers which will help with the rewrite. That's when I get down to pulling it apart, using all the jigsaw pieces and slot them back together in a different order all glued together with creative sticking plasters.

With writing in any form it's the staying power that will make you a writer. Don't give up at the first or come to that a dozen or more. You have to take note of the comments, judge them with others you may have already got. See if you agree with them and then rewrite what feels right to you. All in all you have to be true to yourself.

I'm off now to get back to work on Wybird.

Submitting work

It's been quite some time since I've posted here. However that is a good thing in terms of my writing. To which I mean that I've been rewriting and rewriting and now I'm about to send out some work. I haven't submitted anything for about six months and am keen to get these two new submissions out. On Monday I must check the situation with three submission that have been out for five months. I hope to get at least confirmation that they've looked at it.
I'm off now to write, surprised? No of course you aren't. I need this year I need to get my work out there and accepted. Now just how do I do that? Well that is the thing that aggravates us all. If ever I find the secret, I'll let you know.

How can you influence your writing?

Yesterday evening I battled through the fog to my writers circle in St. Albans. We were having a workshop where we were actually asked to write. This doesn't often happen. More often than not, we hold manuscript evenings where we read and discus each other’s work. However this was not the case. The instructor had brought in a morose picture with a girl holding what looked to me like a giant bag of Fish & Chips. I found the picture quite depressing. Other members of the circle found they could make comic pieces from this image, mine was far from comic. Then after tea break we listened to a piece of music. More depression! The music actually made me angry and I wanted to walk out. I forced myself to stay and write something. What I wrote was powerful but angry and very dark. Much removed from the children's writing I love doing and want to achieve in.
We discussed how visual stimulus and musical stimulus can influence your writing. Many of the writers said that they might use this method to help them develop their work. For me, well, I think if I want happy thoughts and I'm feeling a wee bit down it might work, but I don't think I want to experience the dark side again.