Too happy to write horror...

As many of you know, I was pregnant...well I had a beautiful baby girl almost 3 weeks ago.

She is perfect :-)

I will get back to writing dark fantasy, apocalyptic & horror stories again but at the moment everything is too full of loveliness and light :-)

I will also get around to commenting and reading people's blogs again - once I come to terms with this new "sleep" cycle which mostly involves not sleeping.

She's so worth it though :-) Nothing beats this feeling & even though I'm a writer I can't begin to describe it!

Truth vs Creative Fiction:

..All but one of the statements I made about myself last week were true.

The statements were:

1. Lobsters terrify me.
2. I have no middle name.
3. When I was a child I played the role of Mary in a school nativity play.
4. I love doing bungee jumps.
5. The first time I smoked a cigarette, I was 12.
6. When I was a teenager I was in a samba-style drumming band.
7. I play the same numbers in the lotto every week.

 #4 is the only falsehood. I have never done a bungee jump, though I would love to do one one day, and a parachute jump as well. All the others are in fact true!

200 days

Tomorrow it'll be 200 days since I gave up smoking!!!

Yay me.

There were some difficult days. Like moving house. And exam time. And various other occasions that I always associate with smoking. But I'm glad I quit....will just have to see if I manage to stay off them long term.

According to the facebook app I've added 17 days to my life as well, by not smoking for 200. Well, you know - as long as I don't get hit by a bus or whatever.

There are nearly 5000 cigarettes I haven't smoked too. That's a pretty scary amount for a little over 6 months. Funny how it's that figure rather than the life saved or money saved which tends to hit home for me. 

Busy week so I haven't done any writing, got a few rejections but haven't sent pieces out again...I'll get to it. Will catch up on everyone's blogs as well, haven't been reading or commenting much this week. Hope all is well with everyone & everyone's writing :-)

What I'm working on...

Probably the last regular Friday update for a while. Not that I'm going to go away or anything, but next week I'll have to start studying so I can get a headstart before the baby comes...and then there'll be the small matter of becoming a first-time mum. So now as Summer becomes Autumn, I'm having to accept that I might not have as much time for writing. Nappies and night feeds as well as assignments might have to take priority for a while.

Don't worry though, I'll still update the blog and share stories and poems! Just probably a little less, especially once the baby arrives.

So, what I'm working on:

I finished a draft of the little hillbilly town story, but it needs an awful lot of work yet. So I'll probably try to get some more work done on that. I think now that there might be several stories, set in several different Odd Little Local Towns rather than just the one, as there seems to be too much to fit neatly into one story. Or one town.

I also wrote a piece called Disfigured. Just a flash fiction, but I quite liked it, so I submitted it somewhere as soon as it was edited. Fingers crossed!

It's been a good week, with one story published on Thrillers, Killers 'n' Chillers and another accepted into a Pill Hill Press anthology.

Done some reading this week as well - read The Empress Graves by E. J. Tett, and I'm also reading Stitched Up!, the House of Horror anthology which features one of my stories, as well as some other great tales so far. Since next week I really need to start reading Hamlet and and some chapters on cognitive psychology, a YA fantasy novel and some short stories about zombies are the perfect diversion at the moment!

Now, since it is Autumn, I think I'll light the fire and try to get some writing done while listening to the rain beating against the window, and the dogs snoring. There's inspiration there, somewhere...

What I'm working on...

Friday again, and this time I'm writing the update while sitting with a load of purple hairdye on my hair, waiting for it to take. Much as I'd like to be, I'm not @purplehairedJo naturally. I have to top up the colour occasionally. And at the moment, have to be extra careful with it as it really shouldn't touch my scalp, because of the pregnancy. Hence why I can't bleach it, and I'm only doing the fringe. Still. As long as there's some purple in there, it's ok.

So, back to the update. I finished the erotic horror story! Just need to leave it a few days and then edit it a little. Will definitely be sending it in under a pen name though, so even if it gets accepted, this'll be the last you'll hear of it!

I'm also getting through the story about the little hillbilly town where something strange is going on. I'd intended for it to be a flash fiction, but it's over 1200 words now, it just sort of took off, so I'm going with it. At the editing stage it might get cut down again, but that's what the editing stage is for.

No acceptances this week, and a few rejections, but they've all been resubbed straight away. Now I've had a few acceptances my confidence has gone way up, and I can handle the rejections much better.

Not done much work on any other stories, or poems for that matter, but I did have several vague ideas last night before bed, so they've been scribbled down in my barely legible handwriting in the bedside notebook, and may one day actually become real stories.

Thanks for following and commenting :-) I really appreciate it.