A lovely award

Thank you so much to Rachna for the lovely L'Aussie Fair Dinkum award, I'm so pleased! Rachna has a lovely warm blog, educational too, if you haven't met her yet, I recommend a visit!

Thanks for all your suggestions for 'writing' books, Stephen King seems very popular and sounds like an interesting read.

I was just wondering if anyone is entering the Amazon Breakthrough Novel award contest?
I've just been having a look, but the young adult section is for novels over 50,000 words and I'm not quite there yet and don't suppose I will be by early Feb when the comp closes.
I'm always looking out for places to sub to and then when I find one I get all nervous and daunted by the whole thing. I'm such a wimp :)
Good luck to anyone who is thinking of entering!!

Reading about writing

Has a week gone already? That was quick.

Writing Advice Books
I must admit, I'm not one for reading 'how to write' books, being a tad sceptical about the benefits of doing so. There is such a vast amount of information on the web now, that I haven't felt the need. However, I have just read about half of Louise Jordan's, 'How to write for children', which had been recommended to me a few times and I have to say, I'm finding it all very interesting and I'm feeling quite positive that it will be helpful.
There is lots of advice for writing for all age groups from picture books to teens, so I'd recommend it.
It's also a benefit to me, to have all that information in one place, because I do waste a lot of time looking things up!
I know most writers have read this, and more besides. So maybe I should have read this sooner. Does anyone have a favourite writing advice book?

I'm happy to say I'm 20,000 words into the new 'girl meets ghost' novel and is still going quite well, I'm hoping my new found advice will help me on my way!

Hmm seem to be repeating myself

Yes, well I was just thinking of how I need to get organized, mainly I need to finish one thing at a time, instead of having half a dozen stories on the go.
I thought I might make a list. As I was doing so it all sounded rather familiar. Was this some spooky de-ja-vu? No, I just had a look at last Jan's post with New Year ish type resolution lists.
HERE
Rather irritatingly, I don't think I've managed any of those things.

1. Sci fi novel: I did do a serious edit and it's finished but...I'm not 100 percent happy with it yet.

2. Girls supernatural story. I have worked on it but it's not finished. I will make it a priority!

3.Pocket novel. Gave up 10 000 words in. Don't know where I'm going with it.

4. Fantasy novel. Have decided it's a teen book and I still love it, but it's not finished.

5. Children's novel. Needed re write and I started but didn't finish...

6.Another children's book. Still not finished, I think I managed one more chapter.

7. Write something for TAB. Still not managed that one!

8.Find home for favourite short story. Sent to a competition, still there, so not sure about that one.

So that's pretty much what I still have to do, one year on. Perhaps this year I should narrow down the list. Just finish one of those darn novels woman!

Sorry to bore you all with my lists. I'm good at making lists, not so good at completing what's on them, how about you? List writer or List completer?

How long is too short?

Well, YA novel wise. After a grreat deal of trawling through publishers websites, the ones which care to give details of requirements, not just the requirement that they don't require anything at all from you new writer, thank you very much, but actual submission requirements, I have found that word counts can vary between 20,000 and a vague 'around 50,000.
So, at the moment I'm around half way through, meaning I will manage about 30, 000 words, but it seems I will be narrowing down the list of possible places to sub, which is pretty narrow already.
Frown.
Hmmph.
The answer is to just get on with it and worry about where it goes later, I suppose.
Which I should really do, having already accumulated a number of 'nearly finished' novels that have no home to go to :(
Do you write for a target market and therefore a specific word count, or just go with the flow and figure out what to do with your masterpiece afterwards?

Mischa doesn't really care either way.

What happened to 2010?

I am beginning to sound like my gran, 'ooh time flies', 'ooh when I was little...', 'it only seems like yesterday when I was...'

But really, I'm sure it was only a matter of weeks since the beginning of 2010. I even wrote 'best wishes for 2010' in some of my christmas cards last month. I'd sealed them and put on stamps before I realised what I'd been writing. I suppose the recipients may just have assumed I was wishing them all the best for the remaining week and a half of the year, or perhaps more likely they realised I'm just a little bit mad.

Oh well, just wanted to say 'Happy New Year!' to you all. (It's now 2011, by the way in case any of you are having similar problems to myself.)
Yes, I have just hovered the cursor over the date on the bottom right hand side of my laptop screen, just to be certain.Monday 03 Jan 2011!
:)