First school booking?

I have had possibly my first school visit booking, for next year. A couple of months ago I emailed my old secondary school asking if they'd be interested in me visiting them to talk about my book. Well, earlier today I got a reply finally from them saying yes, they are interested in me visiting them next March during book week. They'd like me to talk about my book and maybe help a group of girls create a magazine about healthy eating in school. I have provisionally said yes because I have yet to get my 2010 leave card here at work, which won't be until next year. I think I will have to book the whole of that week off in case I get more invites. Of course I will charge them. I don't know what my mum will say because she has already told me she doesn't want me to go back there as I was bullied there. We shall see. But I do want to go there and get rid of any demons and bad memories I have of being there when I was a pupil.

Watch this space...

Research and schools

Well, I ended up researching publishers to send Allie to and found 2 that are possibilites. I will send a query to one this weekend and the other the following week, do both this weekend. I didn't do the typing I said I was going to do because I didn't feel like it, but intend to do it this weekend now.

In the meantime I am still trying to promote Rosie now that I have to find another publisher for Allie. I have started emailing more primary schools that are just outside my area and have asked on email loops if anyone would be interested in joining up to sell their books in a group. Quite a few authors, children's and adults, are doing this now and I think it's a v good idea. Beats not having to face people alone.

I am still on Chapter 5 of Georgina and hope to finish it this week. She now has two more team members to help her defeat her enemy and win her campaign to get others to go natural and organic with their products. Just like me really. I wonder where I got that idea from.

Well, this is all for now. Be back soon when I have more news.

Allie

Yesterday I emailed Pegasus asking them to either email or fax me a reply about Allie if they hadn't already. Then when I got home last night there was a letter from them. They are offering me a similar contract to the one for Rosie. I have turned them down saying that I need to save money now and had decided to try to get it published with a conventional contract. So back to square one for Allie. I already have a few publishers in mind to send a query to but it won't be for another week. I don't have time for researching it this weekend as I have a meeting in Holborn to go to tomorrow then on Sunday I want to type up revisions to a story I have done for an anthology. It will be the week after that I will send it off again, and in the meantime I will be looking at the submission guidelines for other publishers for Allie, as well as for Checkmate.

I will still be working on Georgina as I do like writing these books and so want them to be published.

Must get on with work now.

Rejection

I got home last night to find my novella had been rejected by People's Friend Pocket Novels. They said that it had promise but the romance took second place with the family search in the book and their novellas were about developing relationships. All is not lost yet though. I really liked that book so have decided to look into other publishers, small press and e-publishers, to see if I could send it to them. We shall see.

Still working on Chapter 5 of Georgina. Hope to finish it this week but quite a bit to write still.

Must get on with work.

What's happening

I went to the dr on Saturday after I had a phone call last Thursday to say that I had to repeat the last blood test I had. My iron levels are fine (which is what I thought the problem could be), the problem is my macrocyte count. It's the size of my red blood cells that are the problem, they are slightly higher than normal. The dr said it could either be caused by one of the tablets I'm taking or an infection. Not sure what that means. I will be having the blood test on Thursday.

Meantime, started working hard on Georgina again. Because I hadn't been working on it properly over the last few months I had forgotten what powers I'd given her and had to read the chapters I'd typed and printed to see what I had written. I now know. So far have typed up to near the end of Chapter 4 and it already comes to nearly 20,000 words, which I feel could end up being longer than Allie. Which then will mean that I will have a lot of cutting to do. I already have some in mind to do for the first chapter following the Fantasy workshop I went to 4 weeks ago, and some other revisions that came to mind after that.

Well, must get on with some work now.

The dreaded lurgy again

I have yet another cold. This is my third one in a matter of weeks, so I am going to the dr on Saturday to find out what is going on with my body as I don't normally get three colds in succession. Yesterday was the worst day as I was sneezing, blowing nose etc all day but today it's not as bad.

As well as recently contacting libraries, me and my book Rosie is mentioned in the Spring/Autumn issue of the British SCBWI's on line magazine Words and Pictures. More publicity, I am so pleased. I am still waiting to hear from Pegasus about Allie and am still working on Chapter 5 of Georgina. Should finish that next week if not tomorrow, when I go back to work.

Well, this is my news for now.

Be back at the weekend.

Chemical nasties

I found out the other night that a handcream I'd been using the last few months had a chemical in it that I usually avoid. I bought the handcream in a set at the Vitality Show from a company that I thought sold natural and organic products, which is why I bought it. Then the other night my mum mentioned that she had read in a book called Toxic Beauty about chemical nasties that this company hadn't been registered/certified as organic. So I had a look at the handcream and one of the ingredients (if that's the right word) was proplyene glycol, which is a chemical preservative that can harm your skin, and have been avoiding it since starting using organic products. So that handcream went in the bin and have replaced it with another that I know is natural and organic. Thankfully, both of the bath washes from the same company are OK and have no chemicals in, which is strange.

Then Mum looked at her skin cream she uses for her skin condition and noticed that not only did it have parrafin in but one of the other ingredients had SLS in, which is a skin irritant. She wasn't sure what to buy after that, and I ended up asking if she had been OK with it, and she had so told her to continue using it, although I am very dubious about that decision now.

It's going

I finished off Checkmate yesterday and packaged it ready to go today. Mum is taking it to the Post office for me. Now all I have to do is sit and wait for a reply from them. Meantime, I will get on with working on Georgina and a short story for an anthology, whose deadline is the end of December.

Regards to the Chinese restaurant, I tried to contact them again on Saturday but still no answer so they have lost our custom and I am putting it behind me. Have decided to try to find somewhere else to eat other than Chinese, possibly Nandos.

Must get on with some work.

Been sick

I haven't been here recently due to having a rotten cold. The lunch was a bit of a disaster. The restaurant I booked was closed when we got there, I found out when I phoned them that evening that they had forgotten to let me know that they no longer open at lunchtimes. They apologised. So we ended up at the local Harvester, where the meal was spoilt by my uncle's partner constantly whinging about her cutlery and food all the way through. It will stay in our minds for a long time. Mum has been trying to get hold of the restaurant to see if they can compensate us for letting us down.

I've had a cold the last 3 days and have done a lot of reading. I also printed off the first 3 chapters and synopsis of Allie and sent them to an agent, whom I saw at the agent's party the other week. I also revised the synopsis of Checkmate, which I will type up on Saturday and hope to finalise at the weekend to send off next week. I am now back to working on Georgina, and am already loving it. Things are about to get v troublesome for Georgina.

Must get on with more work.