Motivation

Over the holidays I haven't really had the motivation to write but now I have two. The first incentive to get on with working on Allie is on the SCBWI-BI website and it's the new slushpile challenge (which I have to print out to remember it). An agent has challenged us children authors to send in the first 2000 words and synopsis of a middle-grade novel we're working on. That is me! The deadline for us to send it in by is 7 Feb, so I have a few weeks to get the first chapter up to scratch for it. 15 people are selected and only one can win a talk with the agent, who is a famous agent for children's authors - Julia Churchill. So that is why I have been working hard on Allie again.
The second motivation is that I am now critique buddy with Sue Hyams, and she has emailed me her first chapter of her ms she's working on. I did say to her that we need motivation to get cracking on with it and she has given me that. I have already emailed her back the first chapter of Allie and think it will be good to have another eye to read it, instead of mine. Hopefully I shall have her feedback back and revised in time for the first motivation.

I also needed motivation to lose weight having put on a couple of pounds over the holiday, and lost most of it within a few days, but this morning found I'd put on half a pound again. Right, that was it. In today's Sunday Mirror Celeb mag, it has features with lots of celebs who have lost weight over the recent years, inc Bev Callard (Liz in Corrie). I had bought Bev's Boot Camp DVD and started using it earlier. Hopefully I will start to see results pretty soon. I am also thinking of starting yoga and have found some simple yoga exercises in the latest Sainsbury's mag, so might work on those too during the week. Watch this space...

That is all for now. Catch up later in week to see if I am still motivated.