Third place winner

I am so excited right now I could do cartwheels (except for the fact that in my decrepit mid-30s state I can’t actually do cartwheels anymore without endangering myself LOL). Literary agent, Ms Mary Kole posted the third place winners in her query competition (there are two – it was a quality field) and yours truly just happens to be one of them. You can read my query for yourself over at the Kidlit website. And for my prize, Mary is going to critique not just the first 5 pages of Operation Raspberry as advertised, but because she likes my concept so much, the first 10! I decided I had to let go and let God on this one and perhaps, just perhaps, the timing is right. Ahhhh, what a lovely start to my day. Happy writing!

NaNoWriMo – Day 4

Well, a lot can happen in three days (in my life at least!). After a flying start on my planned NaNo novel, Emma Delaney, I was suddenly struck by how disinterested and uninspired my writing was. I’ve had times when I’ve questioned whether my writing was any good or whether I was capturing what I was trying to capture, but this was different. This was a level of ‘don’t care’-itis that both surprised and rattled me. This was the novel I’d spent all of October planning and had thought through in great detail. By Day 2 I had written 7,500 words of Emma Delaney and was still just as uninspired. I decided I had a choice. I could white-knuckle my way through November and reach the word count easily but have not a lot of fun doing it, or I could come up with a Plan B. I chose Plan B.

NaNoWriMo – Day 1

It’s officially Day 1 of National Novel Writing Month. I was going to get up at 5am to work on my novel but we’ve had some lovely friends stay with us for the weekend and I ended up being up till after midnight. Rather than go to bed and have to set my alarm, I decided to start writing straight away. I’m delighted to report I’ve written 3,000 words and have finished my first scene. They’re pretty average words, (OK, VERY average words) but it’s a first draft and the goal is to get the story out, not write prize-winning prose. And that means I’ve only got 47,000 words to go. It’s looking more achievable by the minute. Check with me in a week and it might be a different story, but for now this NaNoWriMo train has left the station and is chugging along at full speed. Choo choo!