Uganda Diaries, latest draft completed

So I've been working hard at the Uganda Diaries and managed to complete a full edit today. Boosted it from 26,000 to nearly 28,000 in one edit, so very pleased. Was mostly just checking for typos, checking it flowed and that sort of thing. Next edit will be focused far more on bulking it out and adding in little extras. Either way it's very exciting.
I'll probably start the new edit next week once I get back from Paris. Hopefully I'll do a little travel writing out there, aimed at the Telegraph weekly travel competition. I've also been working towards another submission with The Peoples Friend magazine, which I adore. It's so quaint. So I wrote a short story for that which is still in first draft stages but looking promising.
So that's me :)

So this is Summer?

Hello, I hope your day is much sunnier than mine is! What am I saying? I actually quite like the rain, but perhaps, not so much during these 'warmer' months!
So what have I been up to recently? Well I've finished typing up the Uganda journals, 26,000 words for a first draft is not bad at all I think. In the process of involving an editor at the moment, a lady from a small independent publishing house based in Bristol. Then once it's at a presentable stage, I'd like to start submitting it to proper, big publishing houses. The ones I have in mind are two giants from the christian publishing world, Authentic Media and Christian Focus Publishing. Authentic's website is sadly down at the moment, but the CFP one is really good, with a detailed section on how to submit to them for publication. They do a really nice range of Christian missionary biographies where I think mine would fit in nicely. So heres hoping I can get things moving quickly and see where it all goes.
Speaking of authetic media, they are holding a poetry competition judged by Adrian Plass, so I'd like to have a go at that. Other competitions I'm working on - Leaf Books have a really good travel one, a 300 word postcard type thing. I've got two written so far and I'd like to submit four, and the style of them are quite fun rather than your normal informative travel. I did recentyl submit to the Telegraph for their weekly travel competition, which looks really good. I've been eyeing it up for a while and so I'm glad I finally submitted!
What else? I've just had two poems published in Island Ink, a local writing magazine back home in Guernsey. The calibre of the work is getting better every time, and I can't wait to submit for the Christmas issue, and also the 2011 calander. So much to do!
Off to Paris in about two weeks, so I'd love to get some writing done then, lots of travel stuff. So...that's me. Just editing 'Georges War' at the moment and the poetry I wrote in Keswick, hopefully to submit to Other Poetry magazine.
Come on sunshine, just a little! It's the weekend for goodness sake!

Now being published with Suite 101

Hello,
just a short one - I've had my first article published with Suite 101. I'm focussing on book reviews though I have typed up a recipe today too, so we'll see where it goes. Take a look and let me know what you think!
http://www.suite101.com/profile.cfm/celiajenkins

Suite 101

Guess who is now an author with the Suite 101 website? Me! Hurrah! I think how it works is that I submit articles, on pretty much anything, and when they are published I get paid royalties for page views etc. Either way, it's giving me something productive to do and getting my writing out there, so really pleased to have been accepted as one of their writers. I've got a few book reviews lined up to publish, and thought I'd try my hand at the recipes section too, cook the thing first so I can do pictures and then do a write up. Exciting times.
At the moment I'm reading The Sisters Who would be Queen by Leanda De Lisle. I'm really getting into my non-fiction books at the moment, but one of the things I most like about De Lisle's book is that it reads like fiction. It isn't all cut and dry facts but laid out in an engaging way. History books are fun.
My week up in Keswick was really good, I had a lot of fun on the Wesley Owen bookstall. Working there has really opened my eyes to how many christian books there are out there. I had a chat with Simon Guillebaud who writes the sort of books that I want to write, and I picked up lots of useful tips, so well worth the journey for that if nothing else.
Typed up six or seven chapters of the book I wrote in Uganda. It's a sort of missionaries diary, just explaining what we were doing out there and how I felt about all the things we were seeing. I'm really confident that there is a market for this kind of stuff, and because it's quite informal and casual, it'll be accessible for readers of all ages.
Still editing the transplant novel when I have the time, try and get a bit more of that done this week. I'm still hopeful I'll have it done by the end of September.