Playing Catch Up

Gosh, I am such a rubbish blogger, aren’t I?

Anyway, the postman brought me a lovely treat this week, a copy of Janet Gover’s new book The Farmer Wants a Wife. Especially lovely, as although it was on my ‘to buy’ list, I actually won the book in a competition run by Nell Dixon on her blog to celebrate the launch of her new LBD book, ‘Animal Instincts’. I love LBD books (and if you’re not familiar with LBD, then all I can say is ‘where have you been!?’) I’m really enjoying Janet’s novel, so many thanks to both Nell and Janet for the treat.

Some writing news of my own (at last, I hear you say), I have stories in these two publications this week:

Shame about Best stopping fiction, just when I’d sold them my first story too after a few (cough, cough) years of trying! Sigh, it’s not the first time that’s happened, I’ve seen out the fiction in a few magazines now. Not that I’m paranoid or anything. Anyway, I’m really pleased with the lovely illustration in Best. It’s a thrill too to be in the Weekly News alongside stories by two of my writing buddies, what an honour!

And continuing the me, me, me theme, I sold a coffee break tale to My Weekly this week.
So all in all a good week that makes up for all these weeks of blanket rejections and brown envelopes from the VAT man and tax man.

And it looks as though the sun will be shining for Mother’s Day tomorrow. Ooh I expect I will be spoilt rotten by the kids, but perhaps I ought to go and give them a gentle reminder just in case... What about you, anything exciting planned?

Blogging Bother

Ooh, we’ve had a bit of trouble this week. Not from me, I might add, but from the other blogger in the house, the teenage boy. He’s been an enthusiastic and conscientious blogger for some time now with a merry following of, ahem, teenage girls. I knew there had to be something in it for him.

I took a bit of interest in the early days, but haven’t really followed his blog for some time now because it’s a bit like reading your son’s diary; you know you’re going to end up learning something you really didn’t want to know.

Anyway, in short, the teenage boy has turned into Piers Morgan with less discretion and ending up getting his knuckles rapped by Head Office of the well-known charity shop he volunteers for after divulging details of a little wheez going on behind the scenes. Then he vented about something at school which didn’t go down too well in some quarters so again there was a lot of fur flying and what can only be described as a colourful verbal exchange.

It would have been okay if he’d kept his blog anonymous, but of course it was linked to his facebook account, twitter and the six o’clock news bulletin. He suddenly became a ‘wanted’ man.

Much to his disgust, ‘what about free speech?’ he’s been heard exclaiming, his blog has had to go underground and he’s not very happy about it all. Ah, the joys of technology, eh?

Still, a couple of good things have come about since he started all this. A while ago someone left a comment on one of his posts saying they liked his writing style and would he like to contribute an article to their website, an American funny tales site, which he duly did. (Mother goes off in a sulk as no one has ever asked her if she’d like to contribute anything anywhere) And he’s been bitten by the writing bug, spending hours locked away in his bedroom writing short stories. Should I be worried about this peculiar teenage behaviour, I wonder? Still, he could be doing worse things up there, I suppose.

So, are you a lone blogger in your household or are there others amongst you?