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 :)

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.

The travelling girl

What a busy month it's been! I've been in Africa for two weeks, doing missionary work down in Rukungiri. It was fantastic, did so much writing, so watch this space...I did write a novel out there, so will be typing that up when I get a moment.
Currently at the Keswick convention where I'm helping out on the Wesley Owen Bookstall - and I've been very good and only bought one book so far. Lots of christian authors milling around up here so hopefully get to speak to some of them!
Walked around Derwentwater lake and have been writing poetry since. What a lovely place the lake district is!
One last note - look what I just found!

http://anthologyofguernsey.blogspot.com/2010/06/celia-jenkins.html