Skip to main content

Year of the Rat




I hope you’ve all had a very good start to your New Year. Many are asking what the year of the Rat holds for us. For myself I’m hoping the rat’s aptitude for survival and its prodigious breeding capacity bodes well. I’ve thankfully survived the bad bout of migraines brought on by my Lupus last year. It made me reassess my needs and how I want to live my life going forward. I made the tough decision to give up my teaching which has provided me with the bulk of my income to date. For years I’ve wanted to concentrate solely on my writing and I think now is the time to do it, nerve-wracking though it may be. I’ve got a clutch of stories, poems and novels incubating and ready to hatch.

Those born in the Year of the Rat are said to be ‘industrious and thrifty, diligent and positive’. While I’m not a product of one of the Rat years I certainly hope the traits of this particular rodent will rub off on me. I’m going to need all these to complete and publish the projects I have in mind.

Here are my current WIPs and what I’m aiming to do with them all:

Memoirs of a Feline Familiar – Advance Reader Copies will go out to readers at the end of this month. Readers will have all of February to read, comment and suggest alterations. Depending on how many changes are needed it will then be published in March or April. If you wish to join my Advance Reader Team details will follow in my next newsletter at the end of this month.

Zoo Nation – Complete the final stages of format and length of this collaborative poetry collection with my fellow poet Dr Bev Cross. Send out to Advance Readers in April and publish in May.

The Witch Adoption Project – Complete edit and send out to Advance Readers in June/July for publication in August if there are not too many revisions required.

The Prodigal Relative – Complete edit of this short story collection and send out to Advance Readers in October/November for publication at Christmas.

Too ambitious?

Not in the slightest. I was already working on these projects last year before I became ill. So this year I need to get them out to you and the world in general.

This is the Year of the Rat after all.




Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Thank you for taking the time to read my blog. It's much appreciated as is the time you take to write a comment.

Popular posts from this blog

Guest Post: Creative Recharge

Lindsay Bamfield started writing fiction about 10 years ago. She has written a number of short stories and flash fiction pieces and has been published in Greenacre Writers Anthology , Voices from the Web 2012, The Best of Café Lit 2012, Mslexia, Writers’ News and Writing Magazine.  She has won prizes in Writers’ News , Writing Magazine and Words with Jam competitions and has been shortlisted in others. She is currently re-working her first novel with advice from an editor and has a second novel on the back-burner.  How do I recharge my writing batteries? I’m not sure I’m the right person to answer this as my batteries are still somewhat depleted after illness and debilitating treatment, but my writing activity, although still less than ideal has bounced back to some extent. It was only after being ill that I understood just how much energy writing requires. Exhaustion does not engender creativity. After a frustrating dry-spell when I wanted to writ...
5 comments
Read more

Why I love living in Herne Hill

While chatting about current reads with my friend Bev, she mentioned how much she enjoyed reading Bill Bryson’s The Road to Little Dribbling .   And how too it had made her think about the reasons she loves living in the UK.   So, considering it a blog worthy idea, I asked her to write a guest post (to feature later this month). Now however, it’s my turn. My residency in the UK was totally unplanned.  Back in 1987 my parents and I were all set to move to Canada where two aunts and an uncle live.  But the Canadians decided not to grant us entry so hey presto, lucky old Britain got us instead. After our arrival we lived in a variety of areas: Edgware, Arsenal, Fulham and finally Herne Hill.  But it is most definitely Herne Hill where I find I want to stay.  When I’m on my travels it’s the place I get homesick for if things are not going according to plan on my journey. And why exactly is that? ONE I have 4, yes 4 parks in my...
2 comments
Read more

#Amreading

So, it’s six months into this crazy Goodreads 100 book challenge I set myself and I’m happy to report that I'm now two books ahead.  This is largely due to the fact I’ve also been reading children’s books at breakfast.  Without this saving grace I believe I’d be whimpering in shame at this point.  “But is this reading of children’s books thing allowed?” I hear you all asking. The simple answer to that is: YES As I work with children, primarily instructing them on how to improve their creative writing, it is only fitting that I check out the books deemed to be totally read WORTHY by the kids and also by those who reckon they’re in the know. It will come as no great shock to you that I have disagreed with the Know-It-Alls from time to time but NEVER with the kids. However, this post is not about that.  What I would like to do now is give you a run down of the 5 books I’ve found most enjoyable thus far.  You would assume there’d be at ...
2 comments
Read more