And before we know it, Easter will be upon us.

Hello! Feeling a little more human today so actually got some work done, though I daresay this cold will be lingering on painfully for much time to come! So...work, hurrah! I have a few deadlines coming up which I've been cracking the whip on. My sudden prose author study (for which I have written about the lovely Raymond Carver) I've had written for a while, but of course there is never an upper limit on editing, is there? So editing away I shall be, hopefully even get some of that done today (hopefully I haven't cursed my productivity by saying so...)

Also due in on the same week is my creative folder for my Writing for Children course - which I adore :D It's been difficult selecting what to pick. It's 2500 words, which most people groan at, but to be honest I can't stand low word counts - it's so much easier to add than it is to take away. So for my folder I so far have three pieces - the text for a picture book aimed at really young children, the entire text of my awesome nonfiction book about penguins, and an extract from a piece aimed at the 'read alone's, so 8-12 years. Hopefully this will be demonstrating a good range of my talents. I have a few hundred words left so might knock up another piece at the eldest of the children's categories, the sort of teenagey section. I could always chuck in something from my novel but really I want to save that for my general folder, and one can't be too careful about plagiarising one's self, so I'd better not risk it!

Still haven't heard back from Mslexia about the flash fiction piece I submitted, but still keeping my fingers crossed. I should really post some more stuff out soon, I like to post something every month, keep myself in circulation, but I haven't got round to it yet for March. I guess I could try again with the rejected pieces but at different venues.

I keep meaning to rewrite my travel writing about Wales but haven't had the time. I hope to do a longer piece about Guernsey when I go home for Easter, so fingers crossed that one is more successful.

Tomorrow night is my literary favorite of the month - storytelling at the Raven. God bless Bath and it's amazing hippies. Tomorrow night is going to be a special one - it's getting filmed for the songs of praise or something, so I can't wait to see who'll be performing (aside, of course, from the fabulous Bard of Bath).

Inspired by an article I red in the Independent, as of tomorrow (hopefully. we all know how you have an 'awesome' idea that, the next day, seems far less appealing) I will be starting my haiku hundred. I will try to write a haiku every day for a hundred days, and hopefully by the end, I will have at least a few that are worth publishing! This will be difficult, mainly, because I don't really know what a haiku is. I don't really do technical knowledge for poetry - I wouldn't know a sestina or a villanelle if it bit me on the bottom. But hey ho... off to wikipidea for some explainations :) So... look out, haiku's about :)

Isn't this year just soaring by?

Well, into March already and I can't say I'm glad...though of course I am really because the weather is FINALLY brightening up in drizzly old Bath. But where does all that time go? Not on writing my novel I can tell you!
So what has been going on recently? Right now it's the Bath Literary Festival, and I'm sorry to say that I haven't actually been to anything to do with it yet (apart from the poetry pub crawl, which was indeed a groovy night out). Nothing has caught me eye really, not compared with seeing Wendy Cope last year. But perhaps I shall force myself to go see something unusual, I might even have fun! My main news involving the Lit Fest is that they are publishing a daily poem, as a way of exhibiting the work of local people, and on Tuesday this week, I was their daily poem with my piece 'The BBC Stole My Crocodile Clip'. So I was very please with that indeed!
Other poetry news, I just received my latest rejection slip, this time from 'Magma' magazine, one of the most prolific poetry magazines in the country. So that is disappointing, but at the same time I wasn't really expecting to get in anyway, them being so good and all, so chin up and carry on. Every time someone says 'No' I am one 'No' closers to someone saying 'Yes'. :)
There are a few other magazines I have lined up to look into, so maybe I'll try them out next, see if I fare any better.
Bath Spa is indeed keeping me busy with assignments at the moment, they've all sort of crept up on me! But I'm not too worried about any of them, despite being surprised that they are finally here I have been, on the whole, keeping up with things and so it's all manageable. I'm very much looking forward to Easter, obviously so I can relax and spend some lovely time with my family, but also to get a lot of work done when I don't have to timetable it around lessons and jobs, etc.
But Easter is still a long way away when I think of all the assignments I need to hand in first, not to mention another bout of car journalism, woe is me!
Who'd want to be a writer? Tish.