End of the weekend

I've had a really good weekend, although I should get the bad news out of the way first.

It would appear that the CEO of Silver Publishing has done a runner, taking with him all of the royalties he owes the authors. Not going to go into too much detail here but I've received full rights to 'Alien Christmas' back and can pretty much kiss goodbye to any money owed to me. It's all a bit dramatic, traumatic and has left a bad taste in my mouth. I can only be relieved that I only had one story with them as there are other people who are out a great deal of money.

LM was dropped with her paternal grandparents on Friday so that she could be there for their 50th wedding anniversary party. She's also having a mini birthday party and spending some time at their church play scheme, so all in all, I think she's having a ball. A little strange for me as I have always been there for each of the kids' birthdays, so to let her go be with someone else on her 10th birthday - double digits at last - feels strange.

I collect her on Wednesday and basically from then on, it's going to be presents, mini party here with my side of the family, and all of her other presents e.g. go-karting experience, getting her ears pierced, cinema trip, etc.

MD and I went up to visit my sister in Cambridge and finally met the latest addition to the family, my Great Nephew. He's absolutely gorgeous with the most striking blue eyes I have ever seen!! I got to hold him and he even fell asleep on me - unfortunately, by the time MD got to hold him he seemed quite grumpy and wouldn't settle. Got to have a nice chat with sister and my Bil, who has said he'll take some photos for MD of her cake work as she's setting up a blog and hoping to go into business over the summer with her baking.

I'll put up links to her blog, etc when she's happy with how it looks.

Last but not least, I sent my galley proofs of '2 Weeks 6 Days 2 Long' to a couple of friends for honest review and got a reply today.

THIS IS A REALLY GREAT SHORT STORY!!! Seriously, you know how picky I can be when I put my mind to it, but this is ready to go as-is.

You hit a nice balance of background, family bonds, and hotness, which makes for an enjoyable and _marketable_ story. (Tougher to do in a short story than with a higher word count; this is nicely concise, yet fully fleshed-out).

I'm really chuffed as I value this person's opinion and she has always been very honest with me about what she thinks of what I've written. So if she likes it, then it's good!! I just hope other people share her opinion!!

I'm hoping that the next few days without LM will awaken my original muse and I can get some writing done.Here's hoping!

Review of 2013

Actually, not so much of a review as a bit of a ramble.

I've been living inside my own head for a few days. The reviews for 'Alien Christmas' really upset me - like, unable to write upset me.  There's no point in going on a long diatribe as to why they've upset me - I'm pretty sure that anyone who's created anything and had to read/listen to other people's views on it will get it - the need to defend and explain that in the end won't make any difference to the reviews you've already got and could prejudice anything for the future. So, suffice it to say that I've had to promise Stripelessz that I won't go off into a fit of depression over every negative review or consider it the end of my writing career as I know it.

I write because I need to. I write what I like, what I enjoy, what I would want to read. And there are going to be people who like it and people who don't. I'm loving writing fanfic at the moment but I also have about four different original stories that I would like to finish and maybe send off to be considered and I won't do that if I keep living in my head.

On a private note, we might be getting a flat which means packing up a four bedroom Victorian house and moving to a small three bedroom flat. Better for us financially and security-wise, but still going to make the next couple of months busy, full of hassle and financially draining in the first instance. I want to make sure I keep writing but I need to start weeding through my stuff - dvds, books, clothes, etc - and deciding what to keep and what to get rid of. I did it 18 months ago but there is still so much stuff there. I need to let go of the past - anything not used/worn in the last 18 months needs to go - gulp!

Christmas was lovely as I spent it surrounded by various members of family. I've not been as sick either - at the moment, it's just a slight throat infection, lightheadedness and a temperature so for me, pretty darn good.

I have an idea for my first taming the muse for this week - the prompt is Cox swain which I must admit made my head spin in several directions as I debated dropping out of the entire thing as I tried to figure out how I was going to shoe-horn that into anything I'm in the middle of writing. The first one is going to be a complete one-shot because getting coxswain into any of my current stories may be above my capabilities!!

It's back to being me, Striplessz and Gidget at home which is good - school starts next week, and there are hospital appointments at the end of this week. I think we're all going through variations of coming down from Christmas so we're living in jimjams and trying to be nice to each other. Can't ask for a better start to the year than that.

Resolutions:
* prove that getting a story published wasn't a fluke;
* stop melting down at every negative review - a work in slow progress;
* finish 'Parental Units' and accept that it may well be one of the last bits of Spander fanfic that I write. I need to finish 'Refuge' with The Lady and I signed up for 'Spangel Rekindled' at the end of January but I think that's pretty much it.
* get back into Atkins and lose some weight.

Hmm, they may be a tad weighted in the writing department - can I consider them as personal growth or do I need to look at other areas of my life too? If you've made it to the end of this, well done on wading through my crap!

I wish you a lovely end to 2013 and hope your 2014 brings you everything you truly need and desire.

S x

Merry freakin' Christmas aka...

...don't visit your book on Amazon unless you've prepared yourself! Very quiet day as no kids and this evening ended up on Amazon. I didn't even realise 'Alien Christmas' would be on there - yes, I really am that unaware. Unfortunately for me, the first review is a bad one - like, they found the story laughable type of bad. I read the review a couple of times and let it sit with me. Then, once I'd got over the urge to submerge my face in a vat of ice cream, I decided it was one person's view. And everyone is entitled to their own opinion.

 I won't say it didn't hurt because heck yeah, to have your first ever published story described as laughable is a hit to the ego, but I knew there would be bad reviews - you can't please everyone. And it's the first story so it isn't going to be perfect. I have to trust in the friends who give me their (direct) honest opinion that it's a good story - it can't be that bad otherwise no publisher would have picked it up! So, big girl pants on and move along.

 On other news, I got some money as a Christmas present so I think I will hit the shops when I get the kids back. Treat myself to something nice, although since my idea of a nice self-present is an Arc writing book from Staples and I already have one in every colour they have, I may have to broaden my range a little.

 I've finished one Taming for the week but still have 500 words to write by Saturday. And that werewolf story isn't going to write itself, so enough celebrating and time to knuckle down and write something. After all, I promised myself 2013 was the year I would send something off to be published - 2014 is the year I try to prove that getting published wasn't a fluke!

 P.s. Still kinda want that vat of ice cream though...