The Best Bit

The best bit about following my dream of becoming a published writer has got to be all the wonderful people I meet - both in person and online. Email makes it so easy to stay in touch, but meeting up again is so much better, and that's what I did last weekend in London. We met up at Victoria and Albert Museum to see the Grace Kelly Exhibition, which was really good but sadly photography was not permitted, so I took a quick photograph as we left.

Harrods was the next stop, where we browsed the food hall, perfume department and used the famous
Egyptian Escalator.

As we all met in Tuscany on Sharon Kendrick's course at the Watermill, we finished the day off in a Tuscan Restaurant.
I travelled home on Sunday through picturesque Costwold villages and stopped at Broadway Tower, a Folly built in 1799 for George William, the sixth Earl of Coventry.

I climbed the narrow stairway to the top and had a spectacular view of the surrounding countryside. A plaque at the top told me I could see the Black Mountains fifty miles away, which I would later pass on my way home.

View to Black Mountains

New Voices

Competition fever has gripped every aspiring Mills and Boon writer I know - myself included. So yesterday I travelled to Nantwich for a talk given by India Grey, offering tips on writing for Mills and Boon and those all important tips on creating a successful competition entry.

Nantwich is a beautiful town, full of lovely little shops that sadly I didn't have time to explore, but I hope to put that right another day. The buildings of the town are old, some lovely black and white ones and St Mary's church dominates the town with its magnificence.

The talk took place in Nantwich Library and was full of helpful tips on writing for Mills and Boon and entering their New Voices competition.

These are some to the tips I came away with.

• Get the Hero and Heroine on the page together as soon as possible.
• Show don't tell.
• Use dialogue
• Keep it pacey, don't put in lots of back story in the first chapter.

The afternoon ended with tea and some fabulous cupcakes India had brought with her and the sunshine disappeared just as I made my way back to the station and it poured with rain.

With India's advice and tips fresh in my mind I read again my entry on the train journey home feeling both nervous and excited about uploading my entry at the weekend.

  

Just some of the lovely buildings in Nantwich.

Poetry Success

It's hard to believe that in the small village in which I live there is a thriving writing group and within that group we are celebrating more publication success.

Brenda Old's first publilcation is titiled Late Blackberries. I love that title and the poetry she's written.

Sue Moules has just been nominated poet of the month with her latest publication, The Earth Singing.

As a group we are in the process of preparing an anthology which will be available next month. This will be our second such publication and will be called Of Cakes and Words.