A writer's week

I'm struggling to come up with a cover image for my new  yoga book, so I went over to see the publisher for a bit of a chat. While I was there, it was pointed out to me that I'm in the May issue of Writing Magazine (pictured), which was a nice surprise. I'm part of the Subscriber Spotlight and I hadn't noticed!

I'm also in the spotlight locally, because our new bookshop has a display of local authors' books, including mine. I'm in the window with Alan Moore!

I'm just waiting for Radio 4 to invite me on and I'll have a hat trick!

How's your week been?

Nose to the Grindstone

Many of you will already know about Grindstone. For a while now, I've been entering writing comps on its site, because they are reasonably priced, they don't go on for ever and the results are posted promptly. Best of all, though, everyone who enters gets feedback on what they submitted. I've yet to be a winner, but I have received some very useful comments on my submissions.

I'm mentioning this because Grindstone has had a face lift and has a new website that makes it easier to enter competitions and promises to offer all sorts of other useful stuff for writers. If you're interested, you can find the site here.

I have a story that's been sitting around for a while that I'm going to refresh and enter into Grindstone's next comp. It's a tale I'm rather fond of, but as yet I haven't been able to find a home for it. I hope there's nothing fundamentally wrong with it - but no doubt the team at Grindstone will tell me if there is.

How old is too old for a story, do you think? When is it time to accept that it's never going to appear in print and simply let go of it?

Work and research

Where I'll be this afternoon

Mr Thorley was on holiday last week, so my normal routine was set aside in favour of lunches out and general skiving. The weather made it very easy to sit about. We both wondered, though: is this what life will be like when he retires? Ground rules will need to be set, or nothing will get done!

Back to work with gusto this week. I covered an extra class at the gym yesterday - 22 people in the group! It was interesting for me, because it was a fresh audience, and, I hope, for them, because they were expecting Pilates and I gave them yoga. Nobody left; I'll take that as a win.

Last night I made my debut as a speaker for the Northants Authors group, when I gave a talk on research for writers to a small but appreciative audience. My main tip was that you need to set a time limit or you could spend the whole day faffing about. Start looking for background information on scullery maids and before you know where you are you're watching Downton Abbey on YouTube.

There were two other speakers. One gave a chilling account of having his fingers burned twice by publishers going out of business; the other spoke about marketing. I thought I was pretty clued up about this, but it seems there are things I'm missing - for instance, I haven't linked this blog to Tumblr.

Today promises editing at home this morning, an in-house meeting with one of my long-term clients this afternoon, then teaching yoga this evening. Never a dull moment!