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Okay, this is my regular 2008 what I achieved last month post.

1. Finished my children's novel THE POISONED APPLE - woo-hoo! And to cap it off, have almost finished the synopsis - currently at draft number six or seven.

2. Sent Lucy Baxter & The Evil Emporium back off on its travels to two publishers this time.

3. Signed the contract for and proof-read 'The Shoes, the Giant, and the Wizard of...' which will appear in the Strange Worlds of Lunacy anthology. The picture at top left is the artwork for the cover - excited, some.

4. Completed four short stories:-

The Collectors - Submitted to Doorways Magazine.

Yee-Haw! - Submitted to OMG! The Book of Awesome Stuff anthology.

The Old Hubert Place - Has amassed the grand total of one rejection from the Bloody October Anthology and is now sitting on the desk of, or hiding in the computer of, Afterburn SF.

Science Fiction - A bit of fun written on 'Black Tuesday', when everything that could go wrong went wrong. Will probably post on my blog sometime this decade.

5. Begun work on my next project, a novella titled 'The Eurydice Satellite', which is a blend of horror & sci-fi.

And that as they say, was February... Hope yours was as productive.

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.

Caught a fab new show last night on 'E4' - REAPER. From the US of course. A dark comedy in which a 21 year old discovers his parents sold his soul to the Devil before he was born. Some wonderful laugh out loud moments - he reluctantly becomes the Devil's bounty hunter and has to track down souls that have escaped Hell. He sends them back by means of, of all things, a 'Dirt Devil'... The best bit - when he and his buddy kit themselves out in things from a DIY store (very Ghostbusters) - including smoke alarms. CLASSIC!

I'm a member of The Silly Club - check out the below award - which is issued to all writers featuring in the upcoming Silly Fantasy Anthology... Cool! Plus it adds a nice little picture, to my seriously picture-deficient blog posts. Must get me a digital camera...

What a turn around... Seventy-two hours response time. Far removed from the old snail mail days. Building up my suspense here... Wait for it...

The short story 'The Shoes, the Giant and the Wizard of...', which I was hoping would be accepted for inclusion in Residential Aliens Silly Fantasy Anthology has been ACCEPTED!!! First acceptance of the year (she says in the hope that there will be more, more, more).

A few whoops, and jumps in the air, and an urge to run around the room only it's very, very, broom cupboard small...

And for anyone thinking of submitting a story. Here are the details you need.

What: Silly Fantasy Anthology
Word Count: 100 to 3000 words.
When: Submissions open December 1, 2007 through March 1, 2008
Where: Submit stories to SillyFantasy @ gmail . com
How: RTF or Word Doc attachment, Type "SUB [Title]" in the subject line.
Who's behind this: Crystalwizard & ResAliens(Residential Aliens is the Sponsoring Zine!)
Payment: 1 copy of the anthology for free. (Contributing authors can get more copies for the cost of printing and shipping)
What do we mean by silly fantasy? You silly person, have you never watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail? Make us fall off the chair and roll around on the floor, laughing.
Target audience age: 14 and up+ Keep it PG 13 or cleaner
Stories, bad puns and other sorts of silliness will be happily considered.