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!
:)

I'm sure Christmas didn't used to be like this.

Is it all a fantastical illsusion, this memory I have of happy Christmases gone by? Happy days sledging, eating tangerines ( do they even exist anymore? All I ever get are clementines which are too small and hard to peel) by the fireside. I even remember Christmas shopping as being a fun experience, I remember dragging my mum around the shops buying gifts for all my friends. Although, it's possible I was having fun and she was merely putting on a brave face and struggling on regardless.
Now when I mention Christmas, it's always followed by the word 'stressful'. Grrrgh. And I've got a bad cold. Boo.
I'm fed up with all the adverts on TV, you know, the 'what a great gift idea, only £499' sort of thing. I mean, when did £499 become an acceptable amount to spend on a gift???
That just isn't the point of Christmas is it?
Sigh.
Maybe it was always like this and I was too happy in my own world to notice. Well, I'm not going outside now until Tuesday, or Wednesday next week. I'm staying in with my laptop, my Harry Potter Dvds and my old favourite pc game, Thief. Good times. Sniffle.... oh and my tissues.
I still love Christmas day, presents around the tree and Christmas dinner and oodles of chocolate.
Hope you all have a lovely Christmas!

writing frenzy

Being a bit rubbish with my posts and keeping up with everyone's news. Sorry!
The reason being (well partly) I had one of those really good dreams on Mon night, you know, when you wake up thinking - Wow, that was good. Must write that down. Quick.
You'd think finding a pen and paper in the home of a person claiming to be a writer would be a doddle. Apparently not. Dispensed with idea of jotting down and headed straight for the laptop. When I say 'straight for' it was actually about an hour later after the morning rush, everyone was chatting on to me as usual, but my head was elsewhere. Didn't want to forget the main features of the dream story.
Anyway, when I was reunited with the laptop, I wrote 20 pages. Phew! I have since been trying to do a proper plan and sort out the plot, stage by stage. I think I have the whole story, except (this is a YA novel) the main character is in love with a ghost ( as happens a lot these days) and I'm trying to think of a satisfactory ending that isn't too morbid, (Can't spend the rest of your life(or death) with a ghost-boy, unless you're a ghost-girl)or the same as other supernatural tales.
So, that's where I've been all week. I'm still there, I've managed to so some Christmas shopping today, I don't know how as I'm in a complete daze, I must be on auto pilot. Still managed to eat into next week's food budget by getting carried away buying gifts in Primark.
Oops.
Still, I haven't felt this excited about a story for a long while, so I'm happy! Beans on toast for tea all next week though, hehe.

mixed up posts

I was mighty confused when I checked my blog today and found that my post about Talli's novel had moved, why oh why blogger, why must you confuse me so??

Ok, I figured it out. I prepared the post early so I wouldn't forget (I forget a lot lately) but then when I posted, it had the date I created it, no the published date, Sigh. I still get confused with blogger, even though it really isn't that difficult!
Anyway, congratulations to Talli, apparently her e book made the top 25 on Amazon uk. That's an amazing achievement! Yay!