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Apologies I seem to have been in non-blog mode this week. Haven't even read as many as usual, whereas I normally have a good trek through the blog universe at least, erm! well, once every two or three hours. I love reading all about your writing lives, successes, rejections etc, etc, etc.

One of the reasons for my bad bloginess (good grief, is that even a word) is I've hit a particularly tricky patch in The Poisoned Apple. I love the first three quarters, and I think all works well and flows smoothly and is well just plain fun... But the last chapters seem all 'tell' and a little bit flat so they are taking some serious rewriting. Plus if Ignacious bumps into one more tree I am plain going to have to knock him out myself or devise a very nasty end.

Haven't resubmitted 'Lucy Baxter' yet - still haven't come up with a suitable title change, but I will.

Completed another short story - The Old Hubert Place. A creepy tale where a man returns to his old neighbourhood and an urban legend is born. It's out there in submission land so fingers crossed and all that.

There's a poll up on Neil Gaiman's blog, where you can vote for one of his novels to be made available free online for a month. Though I couldn't personally read a whole book online, it is a reminder that I need to go out and pick up some of his books. I've only read Coraline so far. Correction, and 'The Wolves in the Walls', which has to be one of the all-time best picture books. Apologies to anyone whose pb is just as good, but quite frankly, I haven't read it.

All nine (was it 8 or 9, jeez I can't remember how many I sent out now) of my submissions for Lucy B and The Evil Emporium have been rejected, with the final one a personal rather than the typical form letter. I need to formulate a new plan of attack, just haven't figured out the logistics of it yet. I also need to work on changing the title, more on that in a future post.

There was a fabulous Royal Navy battleship docked outside the office on Friday. I took some photos on my phone and a wee video but have no idea how to get them onto my computer. Grr Argh! for the seven-hundreth time, I so need a digital camera. Apparently a group of sailors also came into the office... I'm sure it's a vicious rumour as none came past reception (unless they were very, very small and concealed behind my are-they-trying-to-hide-me counter) and I so, no-way-jose, moved from my desk. They were giving out tickets to go on board. Damn!

Two short stories completed this week - The Collectors (2200 words) and Yee-Haw! (a flash at 736 words), and I am now two-thirds into The Poisoned Apple, which also may be undergoing a change of name...

Oh, and there's something else I want to tell you, but as I don't want to tempt fate (who has so got it in for me), I'm not going to... Read the rest of this post

This should have been posted yesterday, but as I only thought of doing it today, it wasn't... Okay, this is my, what I achieved (or didn't achieve) last month post.

1. Completed 10,932 words of The Poisoned Apple - Catherine procrastinates way too much and must do better.

2. Submitted Lucy Baxter & The Evil Emporium to nine agents. Eight rejections received so far - The Gods must do better.

3. Completed a picture book (actually sent two out - but the first was written over the Christmas period) - sent to 5 publishers in all - 1 rejection - 4 submissions still out there.

4. Completed three short stories: -

The Shoes, The Giant and The Wizard of... Accepted by The Silly Fantasy Anthology - making me a member of the Silly Fantasy Club - hence picture top left.

If you go down to... This has amassed a grand total of two rejections (in the space of a month - I so love email submissions), and after a rewrite, submitted to 7th Dimension.

Frog & The Mail Order Bride. Submitted to Eneit Press' Voices Anthology. Won't hear back on this one until after May 1st.

5. Completed first draft of a short story - Little Frozen Timmy O'Leary - which I think may become something larger - ie my next Children's novel. I have a few ideas sketched out and a title (which I'm keeping under wraps for the moment), so we'll see...

6. And ended the month - 700+ words into another, as yet untitled, short story.

Must say, I'm glad I decided to post the above. I thought I hadn't achieved much - I entered January expecting to complete the redraft of The Poisoned Apple, but as you can see I got waylaid by other projects - but it seems I did.

Here's to a word-filled February.

"The Ideas aren't the hard bit. They're a small component of the whole. Creating believable people who do more or less what you tell them to is much harder. And hardest by far is the process of simply sitting down and putting one word after another to construct whatever it is you're trying to build: making it interesting, making it new."

In my bid to win 'Procrastinator of the Year', I stumbled upon, or should that be 'googled upon' the above quote from Neil Gaiman and it seems so apt today. You can read the whole essay at Neil Gaiman's Journal. To all those thinking - God, I read that like 10 years ago - (it was written in 1997) apologies, I'm always ten steps (or years) behind everyone else.

Anyhow - on to my fabulous idea (ahem! - well someone has to big it up and I only have little old me to do that). I'm about a third of the way through redrafting 'The Poisoned Apple'. A tough, but despite my claim of procrastination, rewarding day. I've spent three or so hours struggling with a measly five short paragraphs, couldn't get them to flow right, but now they do... YAY! for persistance.

On the submissions front. Lucy Baxter & The Evil Emporium (A fellow writer has suggested I change the title back to its working title of 'Lucy Baxter & The Paper Army', as they think the above sounds too Lemony Snicket - comments on that welcome, and I should add I love Lemony Snicket...) - Where was I? Oh yes, Lucy has received 7 rejections so far, out of the 9 sent out. She's a tough cookie though, and isn't broken yet.