Wednesday 25 September 2013

I keep waiting for the right time to write a new blog post

and this is not it, but I'm doing it anyway.

Hello - hello - so - I'm roasting a chicken and have about 10 minutes til I have to do something to it, like take it out of the oven. The light is dimming in the room I'm in and I can hear things boiling on the stove in the kitchen and I hope they don't boil over while I'm here. My other half is on the other side of the room working on some things for an exhibition of his work he's having in a few days - words and music and visuals all in one space, which is pretty exciting. We're both hunkered down over laptops, rushing to get words in before it's Chicken Time.

I've been in a sending and subbing work mode for the last few weeks, and stories have gone off to The Sunday Times, Flash 500, The Short Story Net and Literature Works. I've had a few days of stepping back from writing and replenishing a bit (and getting on with day-job type work) and now I'm setting my sights on the next few months, considering how I want to spend my writing time and the few places I want to send work to. In particular there is this - which looks fab - I've been drafting out a letter for it this afternoon, explaining a year in my long-ago past when I behaved like a weirdo for a while. I was very young. I will tell you about it another time.

I was runner-up in a competition to win a day at York Writing Festival a few weeks ago - didn't get the ticket but I made the short list and you can read my entry here. It's about a woman watching a man in a coffee shop. She is a bit weird, but she's not me, honest.


CHICKEN TIME!

3 comments:

Dan Purdue said...

Good luck with all those things, Tree. I've squeezed in an entry for the Sunday Times this afternoon, a whole hour ahead of the deadline (really, why do I do this to myself?). I fancied the Literature Works thing too, but I can't see it happening now. Busy weekend, etc.

I hope Mario's exhibition is a triumph. (That's what they say in the art world when something's good, isn't it?)

Teresa Stenson said...

Thanks, Dan. I think that's what they say. Appreciate your hopes.

Good luck with Sunday Times. I sent the story that the BBC didn't go for, and I have this image of the same Booktrust readers going 'JESUS WOMAN! STOP SENDING US THIS STORY!' Or maybe it'll be more of drip-drip deja-vu thing. 'I feel like I know this story, like it's part of me... must put it through...'

Rachel Fenton said...

Best of luck both of yous. I'm only working on one story for one comp at the mo - half term and two kids and no dosh makes me an unhappy scribbler, but I live vicariously through you, so go do everything!