What a wonderful week

Today is Wednesday 5th of November 2014

So many things have happened. I received a number 2 rating from RYS.

This is so exciting. It means that the person rating my story thinks it is not far off being polished enough to send to an editor along with a synopsis and an awesome pitch to interest them in publishing. Did you realise no one is ever an overnight success in this industry? No really, never. One writer friend shared her excitement about signing with an agent who had found an interested publisher who signed her on as well and the book, which is already written is scheduled for a 2017 release. It takes a lifetime of hard work to become an overnight success.

Then I had not one but two phone calls from fabulous writers asking me for art. I said yes to both and now I am buzzing with excitement over that.

Then of course November started with all the challenges I signed up for so I am creating art all over the place. Which is odd because I thought my words would take off before my art did and it has not occurred in that order. 

Inktober finished but the participants don't stop drawing and I purchased myself some Fabre-Castell PITT pens and have been playing around with technique and colour. So I shall share them here with you. I am so excited by how far my art skills have come since I began creating every day from November last year because of Linda Sylvestri's SkaDaMo. Give yourself a visual treat and take a look at her gallery. She makes some purely delightful art.

 I am not so good at landscapes but it was fun playing around with the new colours and trying to get a feel for the Australian scenery.

 I wanted to play with shade and my little pale grey marker did a fine job. It will be interesting to compare my art in a year with now and a year ago. I can see changes and depth of skill I didn't have 12 months ago and realise that a little bit every day really is a worthwhile enterprise.

 This is my rendition of a fabulous mask my sister has on her wall.

 The last day of Inktober was on the theme of halloween so I felt a little zombie girl was appropriate.

 This was my first piece using my new Pitt pens, a line for each marker and a little bit of manga style to try out the shading.

Oh for a big deep claw foot bath and plenty of bubbles. I could so go there.













I managed to have time to meet my new little next door neighbour, a gorgeous little boy who looks just like his big sister and brother.
I have an invitation to a 1st birthday, an 18th, a 21st and an engagement this month. That should keep me very busy.
I managed to get myself a speeding fine for doing 54km in a 50k zone. Oh my goodness was I upset when i opened that envelope and I also managed to somehow overlook paying my roadside assistance so I will not be driving far until that is rectified.
This week I absolutely must go visit my grand-baby-boys before I blink and they turn 21.

Voting is on for the Halooweensie Stories on Susanna Leonard Hill's blog, so have a treat and read the finalists, vote for your favourite then read the others too. Mine did not make it to the finals as it was such a high quality competition and the entries were fabulous and mine needed a teensy bit more polish. I am going to keep working on it for next year.
Vote for the Halooweensie stories 

I stopped writing for anthologies a few months ago. It was a decision based on wanting to concentrate on writing for publication under my own name. Quite a few of the anthologies are still in the edit phase and will be launched later in the year. I have signed a few contracts and had some edits sent back for my perusal and one of the interesting things I discovered is the vast disparity in the way words are spelled in different English. American English and British English have some awkward differences which make editing problematic for international writers. I discovered much to my amazement that Americans do not put the word 'and' in complex numbers in either written or spoken form. My American editor assumed it was not grammatically correct and removed my 'ands'. We had an interesting too and fro and finally decided to indicate that my story was in UK English. Yet I am Australian and I know that we use many idioms that are uniquely Australian and my English is probably quite different to that used in England. I love the English language and I am just as intrigued by the varieties of English as I am by the variety in English. I don't love it like a crazed linguistic gymnast but I do love it for its flexibility and I have been known to be a bit of a Grammar Nazi at times. I am a lot more relaxed these days than I once was.

I had a good friend in senior high school. He and I would play verbal word sparring for the sheer joy of it. We would look up and learn obscure words and hold entire conversations in language incomprehensible to our fellow students but it was all English. I miss that kind of Tom foolery and word smithing. One day we both vowed that for that day only we would stick to speaking only common vernacular and our day was boring and blighted. I wonder whatever happened to him?

I best make myself ready for Rostrum. I have a good speech planned on PTSD. Should be interesting.

Have a lovely day, night, evening, morning, where ever and when ever you are. HUGS