October update

I have been doing well with the People's Friend lately, with at least two short stories due to appear in the coming weeks and a couple more possibles in the pipeline. They seem to like my writing style and choice of themes, and I really like working with them - a very friendly magazine! A poem called 'Harmony and Hope', about the emotional ups and downs of IVF, has been shortlisted in Writing Magazine's terza rima competition - okay, not a winner, but almost there, so I have now sent the same poem off to another, more local, competition, which I hope will have fewer entries and give me a better chance of success. After all, if one judge liked it, so might the next! My article about nurseries 'Linking with Libraries' to introduce young children to the magic of books is in the November issue of EYE (Early Years Educator) which is already in the shops, and is nicely illustrated with photos I took myself... and my first piece for Child Care magazine, about parents and childminders 'doing things differently' will be in their November issue, out on 16 October. I will be writing for them every month from now on. I have also been dusting off and editing a finished novel which I hope will find a home with some nice publisher out there - in fact, it looks as if my progress is going to be documented in a new monthly column for Writers' Forum magazine, on similar lines to last year's successful 'Barbados or Bust' column, but this time all about my efforts to get myself a book deal. If negotiations go well, it should be starting in the New Year. And alongside my attempts to sell the completed novel, I will be working on writing another, and asking readers to share their own novel experiences with me and each other. My writing life is getting ever more hectic, but I love it!