WINNER!

I have just been told I've won the London region prize in a love and marriage poetry competition run my Marriott Hotels, whose venues host lots of weddings. I get a romantic weekend for 2 in one of their hotels and my poem will appear with other prizewinners and shortlisted poems in a little book to be distributed to guests at their hotels nationwide. Whoopee!

The magic of picture books

I have worked as a library outreach specialist with children under 5 for more than 8 years now, introducing the very young to the magic of stories and rhymes, in libraries, nurseries and children's centres... so I was thrilled to be asked to join the book selection panel for Bookstart, the national book gifting scheme. With other professionals who all work in some way with children and books, I sat around a table for 5 hours today looking at and discussing literally hundreds of picture books, old and new, and picking out the very select few that we believe should be given free to the nation's children! A big responsibility, but also a unique and very rewarding experience.
I have been writing a lot about kids' books again lately - in recent issues of Nursery World, Practical Preschool, and EYE. Now the next step for me is to try to get a picture book text of my own accepted by a mainstream publisher, and I have a very short appointment booked with just such a publisher at the London Book Fair in April. I think I know what works when it comes to picture books, and I have written a great little rhythmic, rhyming, read-aloud story, but I am no artist, so I am very reliant on a publisher seeing the potential in my idea and words and being able to imagine the same action-packed and endearing pictures that I see in my head when I read the story, then finding the perfect illustrator to bring it all to life on the page. A big ask, but here's hoping....

Diamonds and Pearls has arrived!

The charity anthology has been launched and is now available in bookshops and on Amazon. A wonderful collection of short stories in the women's mag style, in aid of breast cancer charity www.againstbreastcancer.org.uk
Please buy one!

New Year, New Ambitions

Now we are well into January, it's time I knuckled down to some serious writing resolutions for 2011. So, this is going to be the year when I aim to double my writing income, crack at least two new markets, try to get my first children's picture book published, and make a start on the new novel that's been in my head (instead of on paper) for far too long. I need to get selling my granny books which have been sitting in their box for too long as well - and then start on my next little self-published booklet which will be a collection of stories and poems about pets. It's about half done already. With a 'proper job' to fit in as well, I think that's enough ambition to be going on with!
February will see the launch of 'Diamonds and Pearls', a wonderful anthology, from Accent Press, of short stories by some of your favourite womag writers - including me! - in aid of breast cancer. Well done to Elaine Everest for coming up with the idea and having the drive to get it done, despite being let down by the original publisher. Please do all buy a copy - Amazon are currently the cheapest I have found. None of the authors are taking any money from this, as we all want to help to put an end to this horrible disease.
And a final mention for Write Invite. The competition suffered a serious meltdown last weekend with computer problems preventing most of us from getting access to the website just as we were trying to enter the competition. Hoping all is soon mended. After two weeks of the new 2011 competitions, I am currently top of their winners' league table, having won in the very first week (with a nice £50 prize), although I don't suppose I shall stay there for long once things start hotting up again!

It's been two months since my last post...

Sounds like something I should be saying in the confession box!
Sometimes life just seems to get in the way of catching up on those little jobs you know you really should be doing - like updating this blog. It all comes down to having to work for a living. Without my day job I could afford the luxury of thinking, writing and blogging all day every day - unfortunately the thing I would not be able to afford to do would be to eat! And, of course, going out to work gives me the chance to meet and interview people and get ideas for the articles.
I have written on some really interesting subjects in recent weeks and the end results are popping up in Nov and Dec issues of several nursery mags - taking kids to the panto, making music with bottles, left-handedness, simple science with magnets, Road Safety Week, activities involving moving backwards and sideways, child bereavement, and hairdresser role play (for the under 5s, not something kinky that adults do with the straighteners!)
And I have been trying to sell copies of my great little granny book - about 25% of them have gone now, and the others are languishing in their box like moody teenagers reluctant to get out of bed, let alone leave home! But it's still early days.
Had a go at some more poetry for children in response to a request from MacMillan to send in stuff for a new Key Stage 1 anthology for schools.I have sent them five, on various subjects, so hopefully one or two might get into the book.
Oh, but I do miss the fiction - it's been taking a backseat to the commissioned non-fiction that pays the bills. I did win the Saturday challenge at Write Invite again last week though - my fourth win this year, and I am nestling nicely in the top 5 or 6 in their winners' league table. And Peoples Friend have sent me two more illustrations they need stories for, so these are now pinned to my wall and constantly staring at me in a menacing way until the inspiration arrives and I give them a suitable plot to make them go away.
If only I had the time to write the wonderful bestselling novel that's knocking away inside my head. It's all in there bursting to get out but... Of course, I have to make the time - just as soon as Strictly Come Dancing is over, Corrie have had the tram crash and I know for sure who dies (can't trust the rumours!), and I have done my Christmas shopping. Like I said, life sure does get in the way...

The book is ready!

My granny project has taken over my life in recent weeks, but it's finally ready. Some great little drawings by my daughter have finished it off beautifully. The book is small A5 handbag-size, with 40 pages crammed with stories and poems in celebration of grandmothers, and costs just £3. Orders happily taken now - just email me!
vivienhampshire@btinternet.com

In praise of Grannies!

Coming back home from another great writers holiday at Caerleon, I felt I was missing out - others there had their own books and pamphlets for sale, even if only self-published or self-produced. I want one! But not just a general one. I needed a theme to hold it together. So I have gathered together all my previously published stories about grandmas (grans seem to pop up a lot in my fiction), added a few poems, some written specially for this project, and I have compiled a little A5 size book, to be professionally printed, and for me to sell - hopefully a great Xmas present for people/kids to give to their grannies, as it's small, sentimental, and only costs £3. I took the cover photo myself, and my daughter is doing all the illustrations - a real family affair. And the theme is timeless, so I can take my time selling them, and hopefully will be able to take a few (the last few!) copies to next year's Welsh holiday.
On the more usual commercial front, I have had several more fiction successes with submissions to the Peoples Friend and Womans Weekly, so more stories are due for publication soon. And all my recent ideas for articles in my specialist area of pre-school and childcare (everything from magnets, hoops, 'walking backward' games, and road safety, to the history of panto) have been accepted, so I have a steady stream of paid pieces to work on right up to Xmas.
I am also still loving the regular Saturday half-hour challenge that is Write- Invite.com - and, having won it three times this year already, I have settled in at a fairly constant 3rd in their league table of entrants' successes. This competition really does challenge the brain to think, plan and write quickly, with no time to dither or change your mind, and hardly even time to check for spelling mistakes! If you haven't tried it yet, give it a go. It only costs £3 to enter, with 3 new themes to pick from every Saturday at 5.30pm.
The Mail on Sunday announced their annual opening to a novel winner today, plus details of the next competition, to write the opening 50-150 words of a novel to include the word SET. I didn't make the final 6 this year, but it's free to enter, and great publicity and a wonderful confidence/ego boost if you win (which I did , way back in 1993/4), so I will be having another try. There's nothing to lose, but then that's true of so many writing opportunities - you can't get published if you don't send stuff out there! I just can't understand those writers who are too scared to give it a go. Fear of rejection? We've all had them, and still do - but the first success makes all the earlier disappointments worthwhile, and every career has to start with those first few nervously placed faltering steps. I am so glad I never gave up! My Granny would have been proud of me - so my little book is dedicated to her memory.