Weddings and back to the grindstone.

Married life continues, and I still possess that warm, smug glowing feeling inside that I've finally made that move of ultimate commitment! Above is one of the pictures that I've so far seen from the wedding (I'm sure I'll get told off by the web designer for breaking the blog, but as she is my wife, I'm sure that she will forgive me).

On the writing front, I'm now working on an edit of 'Orb of Arawaan' as well as developing a short horror story. No idea of timescales as of yet.

After the wedding the work continues.

So this is what married life feels like. In the most it isn't really that much different, but on the other hand it seems that there is a deeper unexplainable bond between myself and my new wife (it was a civil partnership in case anyone is confused). This bond is probably borne out of the deeper l;evel of commitment for each other that we have shown publically. Indeed, we have even started making arrangements to get rid of duplicate books that we own - now that is commitment to each other to give away copies of Terry Pratchett books that we have owned from University.

With the wedding over (and what an amazing wedding that was!) my thoughts are slowly returning back to writing. I have started work this morning on the editting of 'Orb of Arawaan' ready for a better revised edition. It also will serve the purpose of refamiliarising me with the plot , story and charectors ready for writing the long awaited sequel.

I have also begun jotting down other ideas. One of these is another horror book set in a housing estate. It comes from a very surreal and creepy dream that I had last night. The dream was so vivid that if I had been a child I would have described it as a 'mightmare'. I think that means it should tick all the boxes for horror. Unlike 'Bringing home the stars' it will be pure horror and not have a sci-fi theme to it. I need to keep developing the idea on paper and in my head though to get enough of a vivid idea that I can sit down and write something from it. Like 'Bringing home the stars' though, I may be tempted initially to try it as a short story and see how well it goes. Possible a radio dram too?

On the subject of radio dramas, the awards ceremony is coming up the weekend after next. I'm looking forward to it, as it is a chance to wear another posh frock (I do hope it fits; I've been hitting the food of the good life over the wedding weekend rather a lot). I still have fingers and toes crossed for whether I might be in the running.

And finally, we bought a Wii fit yesterday. We were so incredably lucky to get one. As those in the know know, these things are still like golddust. Some people have even bought them second hand for more than double the rrp. We popped into Argos in Manchester on the off chance. They must have just received stock, because when we checked their computer terminal, it listed two available. By the time we were paying, that had dropped to just one, and I suspect that there were several very disappointed people in the queue behind us. I can't believe just how fortunate we were. Even the guy who served us said that we were lucky getting the last one. Zoë has now found the skiing game, and I have a feeling I'm going to quickly become a Wii fit widow as she will never be off the damn thing!

Wedding stresses

I apologise for not writing much here at the moment. The wedding, with less than a week still to go to it, is soaking up all my time. Not to mention trying desperately to hold down a job with unpredictable hours. It all makes for a very stressed out Jenny. I'm told that this stressfulness is normal this close to a wedding, but that comment does not help me much. Still, I'm sure I'll feel much better on the day; I still have to write that speech I'm giving though. Bah!

On the writing front, two more short stories have appeared in print in a magazine. I'm doing quite well on that tally. I still haven't heard back from the agent though; I guess he is quite busy too. I'll give him to the end of the week then see whether he has had a chance to have a look at it by then. Fingers crossed.

I'm coming across more and more people who have read or are reading my books. That's quite an ego-swelling feeling. I'm not sure yet which of the six in-print books are coming out tops, but for some reason 'Syndicate Dawn' seems to be mentioned quite a few times. Also the short ebook of 'Bringing home the stars' (the short story version) seems to be prooving very popular - all the more ammunition to convince an agent to take it on! Until after the wedding though, don't expect knew material from me; there simply isn't time and I am stressed like an elastic band at full stretch. Bah!

All stop for wedding

The wedding is getting awfully close, so not much time to write. At least I got 'Bringing home the stars' completed though. I haven't had a single moment since to looks at the next project or write anything, and I suspect that until after the wedding that's how it is likely to be.

It's all very stressful!

On progress and procrastination.

This last week has been the busiest since the week before Christmas. Why? Because I worked nearly 70 hours over six days. Phew! So it means that I've had very little time for anything else. Well, it is a good excuse - there can't be too many people pulling those kind of hours in a week and still achieving a hell of a lot besides. I did manage around 4,000 words of writing, but clearly my progress has been slow.

I am a little ashamed to admit that despite having sent off the first part of 'Bringing home the stars' to the agent, it still isn't actually finished. *hangs head in shame* It just keeps on growing, and although there is an end in very near sight, I just haven't quite got there yet. I've been doing a little writing this morning, but there's still a couple more bits to do. In the paraphrased slogan of the old and useless British Rail: I'm getting there.

Today is another day to be sacrificed to the wedding. It's hair consultation day, and to be honest I'm not the kind of girl who enjoys all things hairdressers at the best of times. So I'm not really looking forward to today. Still, it has to be done I suppose. Maybe tomorrow I'll be allowed a day to myself to get back to pottering through the writing?

I'm already thinking over the next project. It will be a relatively simple edit of 'Orb of Arawaan' to refresh my memory of characters and plot before I launch into writing the long awaited sequel. I've been thinking of titles, but I actually am struggling. I need something that says: 'Fantasy fiction' but doesn't scream it too loud. Still, I've got around 120,000 words to come up with one, so no particular hurry.

I hear a scraping noise. That must be my nose going off to be pressed back to the grindstone.

Deploy the white wine spritzer.

'Bringing home the stars' was sent off this morning after a hurried finish of the synopsis. I then went off to work a fifteen hour day, so it was quite reassuring to check my emails when I got home to find an email back from him. He let me know to remind him if I haven't heard from him in two weeks. He is impressive. Of all the agents I have had dealings with, he is one of only two who actually seem to have a real passion for their work and actually treat writers like they are intelligent humans.

I'm going to eat a pizza to celebrate then go to bed. Well, it is late and I'm tired.

Of books that lurk in the night and the reprise of the 7" single.

'Bringing home the Stars' the book is now all but finished. There's a little tidying to do, and a little bit at the end, but by and large I'm finally done. Woot! The first 25,000 words should be being emailed to the agent tomorrow after Zoë has penned the synopsis for me. She's doing this from a rambling voice recording, as I am useless at doing synopses. I rambled instead for ten minutes into a dictophone, and she should sort out the rest by the time I get back from the 'day' (night?) job.

After that it's all hands on deck for the wedding, so don't expect me to be writing much at all except the blog. After that I really would like a little time off to devote to relaxing as I feel like the last 18 months have been a rollercoaster with no time to myself. I'm planning on getting that Wii cheerleading game completed for a start! Given my workaholic tendancies though, I'm sure that I'll start work again sooner rather than later. I want to do a re-edit of 'Orb of Arawaan' and this should be closely followed by the long awaited part two of the trilogy. I'm one of those authors who does like to vary the genre they write in. So far the list, in order, has been: sc-fi; comedy; sci-fi; fantasy; sci-fi; biopunk/thriller and now sci-fi/horror. I think sci-fi can safely be described as my first love, but I've not baulked at trying something a little different.

Today I was on the radio. I did a featured programme playing nothing but 7" vinyl singles. I just wanted to be a little different. Actually, it worked very well. They've got excellent turntables at the radio station, even if they see infrequent use these days. I tried, bar two 7", to stick to stuff from the last ten years, to prove that 7" singles never died. My newest were two from 2008 ('Ghosts' by Ladytron and 'Hometown Glory' by Adele) and if it had hurried up and arrived I would have had an even newer one in the form of 'The Fear' by Lily Allen, but alas it remains lost in the sorting system. I covered every year from 2000 to 2008, as well as Blur's 'Beetlebum' from 1997.