Merry Christmas!

Good wishes to You and Yours over this Festive Season

I’m off on my Christmas break now, see you in January!

Reason 23 why sports cars are not a good idea!

You don’t know about the car? You can see it by clicking here.

Happy National Short Story Day

To celebrate why not enjoy a little bit of ‘me’ time? Put your feet up and

click here to download a free story from the wonderful

 

 And instead of rushing around looking for last minute Christmas presents, did you know you can now send Alfie Dog Gift Vouchers to your friends and family from the comfort of your own pc, laptop or smartphone?

Happy reading!

Number crunching

 I’m pleased I didn’t attempt NaNoWriMo this year because I completely failed my ‘easier’ challenge to write 1,000 words a day throughout November. My grand total for the month was a measly 5,182 words – not helped by the fact that I wrote nothing at all on five of the allotted days!

In my defence, I should add that these were carefully chosen and edited words – not the crazy jumble that spills out during NaNo – so for every one I counted there were probably a dozen or more discarded.

As well as recording the number of words written, I made a note of where I’d used them, and this turned out to be a much more useful exercise.

About half of the words produced:

• 4 new pages for my adult novel

• half a chapter of my children’s book

• a flash fiction story

• 4 short blog posts 

And where did the other half go? Into comments on other people’s blogs and forums.

Conclusion  I’d do twice as much writing if I didn’t spend so much time reading!   

P.S. If you like reading and doing puzzles (and live in the UK or Republic of Ireland) National Book Tokens is currently running this competition to win a year’s supply of books.

Word of the week (21)

‘Yes, of course I can change the title, make the hero a heroine, delete this chapter, set that section in a different country, add an alien encounter, weave in a romantic sub plot, turn the cat into a wise-cracking parrot, reveal the end at the beginning, make the sad man happy, write a completely new story …. whatever you want,’ said the flexible writer.

Just what the doctor ordered

I didn’t take to my bed, but for more than a week I had a cold, niggling aches and pains, couldn’t think straight and generally felt under the weather. Keeping warm indoors seemed sensible but only added boredom to my other symptoms. Eventually, I needed to get some shopping and thought a short walk in the fresh air might make me feel better. It didn’t. 

I picked up a few essentials in our village shop and looked around the shelves in the forlorn hope of finding some miracle remedy. Cough mixture? I had plenty at home. Chocolate? I managed to resist the temptation. Then I came to the magazine rack …  

Many years ago, The People’s Friend was one of my main target markets. I bought it most weeks and read it carefully from cover to cover to get the feel of what they published. All that research paid off when I had two short stories and two articles accepted by the editor. But then I wanted to try other magazines and different types of writing, so I stopped buying it so often and gradually lost touch.

As I looked through the latest issue I was pleased, although not surprised, to discover it’s hardly changed at all (except it now has a Facebook page). Yes, I’m sure some people would describe it as an old-fashioned magazine – especially if they remember their mother or grandmother reading it – but the reason it’s survived since 1869 must surely be because it found a winning formula and has stuck with it. I wonder how many of today’s celebrity magazines will last that long?

I spent the afternoon sitting with my feet up, drinking tea and enjoying a good read.

Bliss! 

And, not only did I start to feel physically better than I had for days, but the fog in my brain finally cleared and a new story idea began to grow. It’s a feel-good story that I think might be suitable for the Friend … 

A (short) commercial break

My short story Kerb Drill is published by Alfie Dog Fiction today.

It’s a feel-good, family story about a problem every parent has to face sooner or later: how do you let go of your children, yet still keep them safe?

Available HERE for just 39p!

In a variety of e-book formats – if you haven’t got a Kindle, iPhone or similar gadget you can download Alfie Dog stories to read on your ordinary, old-fashioned computer.

Happy Halloween

I’ve never celebrated Halloween and, to be honest, I don’t really understand what other people see in this mishmash of ancient superstitions and modern commercialism. But I did enjoy painting pumpkins and other autumnal vegetables at last week’s art group meeting. They’re a lot trickier than they look, but I thought this one came out a treat!

 

Of course the main significance of October 31 for thousands of people all over the world is that NaNoWriMo starts tomorrow. I’ve decided not to do it this year, but I’m also having pangs of regret as I feel the excitement mounting all around me.

So I’m going to compromise and set myself a mini-NaNo challenge:

 1,000 words a day throughout November.

I won’t be creating a new novel, but I’ll try to use the NaNoWriMo energy to increase my writing speed as I work on several projects that have been clogging up my brain and computer for far too long.

If you’re using Halloween as an excuse for a party – have fun!

And if you’ve signed up for NaNoWriMo – good luck!