Thank you, Fiction Feast

Today I went to see a friend who had a part in a recent W Yorkshire playhouse Production (9 people with no experience of drama performed individual pieces written in co–operation with WYP.)  I expected to watch that, have a bite to eat and head home to crossword class. Instead it turned into something more. She wanted to pick my brain about the difference between womag and competition type stories, then we talked about he Writers Circle and what, if anything, can be done to make it less d–u–l–l. 

After that she wanted my advice about the layout of the room she writes in (don’t ask me why as I haven’t a clue). We covered all kinds of other stuff too. It was GREAT to have somebody to talk to other than John!

Last night’s quiz would have been fine IF I ever read a newspaper or watched the news but as I gave up on both of those, years ago (too miserable) I didn’t have much hope of answering questions about events of 2012. My team came 5^th out of 9!

My ex’s date must have gone well as he’s making plans to see her again next week, PLUS he’s meeting another woman on Saturday. I hope he finds somebody soon as it would be good for both of us.

After seeing my friend, I was too late to go to crosswords so I spent a bit of time thinking about what I’m going to say tomorrow. 

I’m giving a talk on the life of a writer today. I haven’t been promoting my talks as it’s hard for me to get to places because I don’t drive and haven’t yet learned my way round the bus system. My plan is to work from some very brief notes and see what happens. If it works amazingly well and I get a recommendation to do more talks, then fine but if it doesn’t work well and I never get asked again, that’s fine too. I’d much rather run a workshop or talk to writers groups.

When I switched the machine back on, joy of joys I had another sale – this time to Fiction Feast. It’s a 1500 word story so that will go on at least two pages which means more money for me. 

It’s a ghost story. I write very few of those as I didn’t feel I had the knack, but after attending Stella Whitelaw’s short course at Swanwick in August, I was inspired to give them another go, so thanks, Stella.

My final task was to write a brief outline of the workshops I’m running this year for NAWG (September, at Warwick Uni see www.nawg.co.uk). I’m doing one on writing for Woman’s Weekly and another on how to increases your chances of winning a prize in a short story competition. The festival is being rejigged and lengthened and I’m already looking forward to it.