September already...

Hello readers, I hope you are all well.
Things are busy busy here in Celia's World. Paris was...amazing. I visited the famous literary landmark of the Shakespeare and Company bookshop, bought a copy of the Paris Magazine which I'm slowly chewing my way through. Other than that, did a lot of the touristy things, the Louvre, Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, etc. A good break; not much of a rest but I do like to be busy.

My latest writing goals...I'm currently working on several submissions for an anthology of writing by the women of Guernsey. I thought I'd have this one nailed pretty quickly, but after some light work shopping I decided to convert one poem into a sonnet, of all things, so editing of these submissions has been pretty intense. But I'm hopeful that I'll get it together by the end of next week.
I'm about to start putting together some works for the Christmas editions of magazines like flashquake and Island Ink; it seems like a long way off, but the bookshop I work in is already selling Christmas cards so... that's just the way of the world I guess.
I haven't written any travel pieces about Paris yet but I'm going home next week so am going to have some chill time to get all those bits of writing done.
Working for Suite 101 is going well, just recipes and book reviews at the moment but I'm enjoying it and finding the workload manageable.

The Uganda diaries...I'm going to be sending out copies to my proofreaders soon, particularly those I have included in the story. So that is ongoing.

That's me for now :)

Happy Fathers Day

Hello all, I hope you are having a nice fathers day and that, wherever you are, the sun is shining :)

George's War is all typed up and I have started editing, though I think I'll move onto something else for a little while so I can come back to it with a fresh mind. On the whole I think it's pretty decent. The diary format is always a little bit difficult; I often wonder, would the protagonist really write this in their diary? But, as ever, artistic licence is coming in handy. Just trying to look for somewhere to submit it now. A 10,000 word piece is too long for most short stories publishers, and a little too short to be a novella. So at the moment, I have a novellette on the fairly specific topic of the occupation of Guernsey in WW2...hmmm. Any ideas?

I entered the Wasafiri New Writing Competition with a life writing piece that I wrote as part of my university course. I'm pretty confident that this is a good contender; I worked really hard on it and I think it has a unique flair to it. But we'll see :) I do like submitting to something at least once a month. Recently been branching out and trying new competitions (even ones you need to pay for. I know! Me, a student, giving away monies!) so we'll see what comes of that.

Been reading lots of poetry. Just finished the collection of Sylvia Plath's work as put together by Ted Hughes, which I loved. I have resolved that, whenever I want to write poetry, I should read poetry first as it really inspires me, especially Plath's work that is so lyrical and beautiful to read. Also reading Nick Laird's 'To a Fault' which I am less impressed with, but that is usually the case with contemporary poets.

I've recently been reading about this bookshop in Paris called 'Shakespeare and Company'. They allow emerging writers to stay in the shop for free, provided they help out on the tills during the day. Isn't that a fantastic idea? I'd love to do that - I'm going to Paris this summer for a bit, so I will probably have a gander and check it out for future travelling, because it does indeed sound very awesome. What book worm wouldn't want to live in a bookshop?

That's it for toady :) More news soon!