<p><span style="font-size: small;">The WIP was a first chapter for the Mills and Boon New Voices comp and that is now finished and posted on the site. Already I can see how it could be better, so I may not look at the text again - only at the wee roses detailing reader approval. If anyone had time, I'd much appreciate a visit and a little fertiliser, please.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">My entry is Beloved Bluestocking and can be found by going to:</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.romanceisnotdead.com">http://www.romanceisnotdead.com/entries/334-beloved-bluestocking</a></span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">&nbsp;</span></p>

<p>Resolutions lead to an overwhelming sense of failure - usually around day two, maybe three - if the open box of chocolates doesn't have any ginger flavoured ones in, so I don't give the brain any conscious signals that they've been made.</p> <p>Diet - having worked in an addictions' rehab, I know the pitfalls better than most. So far today, I've left the kitchen with a cup of coffee in each hand and no goodies in my pockets. Leaving the kitchen to take the H his coffee while also carrying mine, is known as distraction and is amazingly effective.</p> <p>Exercise - Left Church by the side door and kept walking up the hill and then back down to the house. This is known as not anything like enough following the amount of cheese consumed at last night's pairty but is BETTER THAN NOTHING. Did also walk home from the said pairty at 1am. Half an hour rather briskly between showers.</p> <p>Work - Agreed with a friend that her husband would contact me in the New Year (that's now) to assist with the setting up of a universal blog and a website. Must now access a stationer's to buy the gubbins needed to ring-bind my plays. No, I do not smell failure on the horizon. Will tell H of this plan over lunch and he'll see me through it. Every arty person needs a doing person behind them, don't they?</p> <p>More Work - Will stop waiting to hear from the US publisher and get the first chapter of the new Romantic Novelists' Association NWS submission laid down.</p> <p>Happy New Year to all Writelinkers and belated thanks to the Magazine team. I too thought the cover was very eye-catching and loved reading everyone's contribution. I continue to enjoy the challenges which so often stimulate something and have led on to other outlets even if my effort didn't catch our judge's eye.</p> <p>All good wishes for a successful and published year ahead, if publication is your goal, but satisfaction in your work if it's not that important.</p>

<p><span style="font-size: small;">Alistair Moffat was the opening speaker of EWC's writing club year. I'm always delighted by the generosity of professionals who will drive miles, from rural Hawick in Alistair's case,&nbsp;to deliver a talk to us. It must be an intrusion into some very busy lives.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">He spoke about his most recent book, The Faded Map, and intrigued many of the audience by his erudition, which he wears lightly, his accent when quoting ancient Welsh placenames, and his output, which is prolific. Alistair guided us towards the land itself as a way of reading the history that isn't in writing. </span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">My own output is paltry by comparison. This week, I've written a 500 word story for the Flash fiction comp but not posted it as I'm really not sure it makes the grade. A poem which I did enter into a comp and re-written the second of the 3 chaps I've been invited to send in to an editor. Trouble with that is the chaos it causes with the rest of the novel. You've all been there.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">My entry in the new voices comp, Beloved Bluestocking, didn't make the top ten. Thanks to those who stopped by particularly if you voted. Really disappointed and not consoled by the huge entry - 824. Why do we manage to convince ourselves this is the one?</span></p>

<p><span style="font-size: small;">The engineer has been and for a blissful hour the light may have shone unobserved on our Broadband home-hub. We were having lunch upstairs. Come the phone call from the call-centre to find out how it was for us and up goes the 'no-broadband' connection notice. This one may well run and run. </span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">In the rest of my life, I've completed a plot plan for a novella. This is new for me on two counts. I've not tried the novella length before and I've never completed a plot plan. I'm still waiting for a decision from the publishers I sent the last one to, so a novella length seemed like a good in-between answer to the waiting game.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">While the engineer was here, I boiled up some marmalade pulp.&nbsp;The enforced stillness waiting for the pot to boil and settle back into a 'steady rolling boil' allowed me to&nbsp;come up with an article idea. I'll now have to get covered in dust and cowebs while I search for the photographs to send with it. Now that we may be re-connected that sort of thing should become possible again.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">On the other hand, the Gremlin landing pad on our roof wasn't a victim of the recent gales...</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;"></span></p>