Steps

Today I took the tablets, did some ironing, acted the taxi, cooked a meal, was cat slave at the back door for our mog and generally kept myself busy today.

Did go out for a nice walk.  One of the old paths I remember being a bit grotty and muddy to walk through, has been properly surfaced. It made it a very pleasant walk.  A lot of old scrub has been torn down too, and now you can see into some fantastic back gardens.

I know that it’s terrible to be nosy, but be honest, who doesn’t look when they can? Some of those gardens are just lovely – really beautiful.  And a lot of them are longer than they look from the front of the houses.  Rather jealous in a couple of cases. I may have been pottering with bedding plants and the like, but I’m not a good gardener.  More a minimum doer because I have to.

The walk was a good hour though, and at a reasonable pace (for someone who vaguely remembers exercise).  At least I got up the hill without collapsing, that’s a bonus.  Though I have to say my legs are rather achy tonight, in a good way.

Recent attempts at getting back into exercise fell at the hurdle of technology.  I know I must do better, or as a friend of my told me on messenger – grab it by the throat and get on with it. Maybe tomorrow. Tonight I’m having a glass of wine (only one), then going to bed.

Also, had some bad news today. An anthology I was a part of has been dropped by the publisher. Shame, I really liked that story. So much so, it may become a new stand alone novel or at least a novella.

Keep on running (even if late)

I’m running late again this month, unfortunately running is the thing the I’ve stopped, one terrible experience at a Park Run and I’ve been right put off.  Still, I will get back into it some time.  This is really just a quick note to tell you all is well.  The depression is under medication  (which I hate taking) and fortunately, these are helping me sleep, but they are dulling any emotions.  Not great downers but no ups either.

I’ve also been very busy.

I’ve finally finished editing an anthology which goes on sale on the 25th.

I have finally finished writing “Locked In”. Yey!   Had some major issues with this.   This is in fact, a full rewrite  – i.e. I threw the first version in the bin and rewrote from scratch. I’d had an edit done on the first version and boy did it tear me apart!

After the rewrite I went back to the comments to check I’d done everything  – and I hadn’t.   So I was in a quandary as to what to do. This was all about a secondary plot line that wasn’t working. So I took some advice that I disagreed with.  Then I ignored the advice and decided to delete all references to the second plot line – and after I had, I’d only lost less than 1000 words. So that’s it, gone.  Sometimes you just have to cut out the deadwood.

And, of course, I’ve been reading and reviewing comics.

So life continues and I hope to blog again soon.

New Year Off To A New Start

Well January went unexpectedly well.

On the 5^th I got a letter from a publisher asking to see the full manuscript of one of my crime novels, Dead Happy, book one of the Murder Tydfil series, so fingers cross for that, I should hear something by the end of this month (February 2015).

Then on the 17^th, I got an email from Xchlyer publishing, telling me that one of my short stories has been accepted into an anthology to be published in May.  This is a steampunk piece, the first steampunk piece I have ever written, and I’m dead proud of it, thoroughly enjoyed writing it.  When I sent it off, I was rather hopeful that it would be accepted. Mind you, who’s not hopeful when making a submission?  But there again, I had passed it under the eyes of several friends, so I’d had a fair bit of reader feedback before I submitted and knocked the worst of the rough edges off.  Have been working with the editors to polish the story, so fingers crossed it’ll be as perfect as a story can be when printed.

On the 16^th I’d had a quiet text chat with the guy I do the freelance editing for, about one of the websites he writes for, asked for an intro, got it and on the 18^th agreed some submissions with the guy who runs the site.  I made my first submission on the 19^th and since then I’ve had two articles published:

• A Flash In The Pan or Just a Firefly a consideration of the series Firefly and its wrap up movie Serenity.
• Kicking Out The 5th Passenger a review of a new sci-fi / horror movie started by a Kickstarter project.

Both of these and future articles will be available on www.warpedfactor.com, a site for the geeks amongst us. I have a further three articles accepted for publication in February.

It’s all unpaid, but it’s interesting and looks good on my writer’s resume. I’ve also managed to get a great website up and running, well okay, a mate of mine managed to get it up and running, but it’s mine to maintain and keep up to date.  So if you want more info on me and what I’m up to, find the links to anything I’ve written, take a look at www.gailbwilliams.com.

Then, in a rather surprise turn of events, I had an email on the 25^th January.  Now the email itself wasn’t the surprise, I was expecting it as it was the results of a recent poetry competition run by the Swansea and District Writers’ Circle, results to be announced on the 4^th, the surprise was that I won!  Poetry is not my thing and I only made the submission to ensure that there were a decent number of entries to judge from.  I would have been happy not to have ranked at all, so winning was a welcome surprise and a huge bonus.

So I’ve had a great start to the year and I hope it continues.  Who knows; maybe 2015 will be the year my writing really takes off.