Too many dolls and not enough writing!

Yes that's my excuse.

Pitiful, isn't it? :)
Apologies once again for the long absence, I have being feeling a bit sorry for myself as I hurt my back a couple of months ago and couldn't do the usual things. I was even seperated from the laptop, just couldn't get comfortable enough to write or do anything much.
Anyway enough of that, it's getting better and I managed to do some editing of the children's book. It's around 15k words and I have been looking around for somehwere to sub to (not that it's polished yet, but to keep me busy!)
I have narrowed down to a few possible publishers that are still accepting unsolicited submissions,

Picadilly Press, (a favourite of mine as they are among the minority of publishers who hand wrote the rejection). They accept stories for 8-12 years, and accept email submissions which is always a bonus.

Phoenix Yard
They are particularly interested in stories for age 6-9.

Meadowside
Junior fiction of 6k-10k words ( a bit of trimming needed there then !)

Anderson Press
Junior fiction 3-5k.

This is a pretty short list, I know there are lots more possibilities, but I'm not organised enough at the moment. The thing is I've researched all the publishers so many times over the years sfor various stories I've written, but did I make a proper list of contact details etc? Did I heck. Organisation skills, zero.

This is a picture of a present I got at Christmas. So cute!

I have spent most of the afternoon in the garden, which is always very inspiring, it has been a lovely sunny day which makes a change. Maybe that's just what I need, a sunny boost!
Does the weather affect your writing I wonder?

XX

deleting bit by bit

I have been trawling through the children's novel, looking for blidingly obvious boringness. What I did find, is that a lot of words are just unnecessary. I have been deleting them, ruthlessly.

For a small example, these few lines originally read:

David’s mum nodded and looked at David with a thoughtful expression, as if she was contemplating whether to say something more about the incident. She obviously changed her mind and looked at them with a bemused expression.
“Ooh, have you seen that girl next door?”

After a ruthless word cut,

David's mum nodded thoughtfully, David hoped there would be no more mention of the incident. To his relief, his mum suddenly looked bemused,
"Ooh, have you seen the girl next door?"

Hopefully David's mother's forgiving change of subject is still apparent, in less words.

I don't know, I think I will be at this editing lark for a long long while. What do you think, better or worse?

Interestingly, for anyone writing children's books, there is a competition to write the best opening paragraph in 300 words on 'An Awfully Big Blog Adventure' Thanks to Nicola Morgan's Help I need a publisher for the link.

It looks like fun.

Well, have a great day x