Twisting in the wind

I can’t believe I am thinking of doing this. Does everyone know what NaNoWriMo is? National Novel Writing Month, and it’s November. Thirty days of blank looks at the husband when he asks what’s for dinner and I drag myself out of my make-believe world, unaware it’s past supper time. Thirty days of cold pizza, burnt hamburgs, pots of coffee, frantic typing and bleery-eyed morning. It’s total immersion in story, it’s writing frenzy and the growing word count. I’m not sure I can do it this year. I’m working full-time, trying to clean up an old farm-house, taking a night credit course and I like to eat daily. So does the husband. And did I mention grand-children who like to play with their Nanny? Oh, my and oh, well.

I start tomorrow. It’s in the category of  women’s fiction and I will try to update occasionally.

I know all about events happening in a person’s life that can throw them completely off track. Sometimes you can push the emotions surrounding such events down and away and get on with what you love … and sometimes you can’t. You feel flat and dead inside while you go about your daily business. Been there and bought the T-shirt. I think the best thing I’ve done for myself was my trip away. I drove off on a bright sunny morning and left everyone else to do what needed to be done at home. Ba-Bye. No calls to remind anyone of this or that and the next thing. Nope. I shrugged off the worry and concern when they niggled at my brain. Nope. Not there. Can’t do it.

I’m home and my work in progress is once more ‘a work in progress’ after being dormant for 2 years. I am writing again. Which having just said, I must go… I have plot bunnies to chase.

Thousand Islands Storefront Writing Contest

The Thousand Islands Writers Festival will hold their first annual Storefront Writing Contest, Saturday August 27^th, 2011 in downtownBrockville. Patterned after a similar contest inBruton,England the contest will pair individuals who write from downtown storefronts creating short stories of approximately 2,000 words in the genre of their choice.

Participants meet at the Brockville Library at 9:30 a.m., on contest morning to register. Store locations and prompts for the contest will be randomly drawn. Writers will proceed to their chosen sites to begin writing at 10:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m. Completed work will be turned in at the Grindstone Tapas Lounge with a post-contest social hour.

Entries can be produced by pen or laptop. Laptop users are asked to bring a memory device to download from. Participants are encouraged to dress in period costumes, but it is not necessary.

The entry fee is $5. The deadline for entries is Friday August 19^th, 2011. Entries should include the participants name, address, phone number and e-mail address. Drop off is at Leeds County Books, 73 King St. W., Brockville or mail to Thousand Islands Writers Festival, 13 Duke St, Brockville, Ontario K6V 3J2.

Further details may be found at www.tiwfestival.org.

Contacts:

Doreen Barnes

Chair,Thousand IslandsWriters Festival

(613) 345-3365

Russ Disotell

Vice-Chair,Thousand IslandsWriters Festival

(613) 342-0793

I just posted a review on Chris' book on Goodreads.

If you like full-bodied historical tales, stories that cover a 
larger scope of time with characters that evolve, you will 
LOVE ‘A Salt Splashed Cradle’. 

Chris Longmuir writes with strength, with knowledge and with 
an attention to historical accuracy that allows you to feel 
the heat of the hearth and the icy spray of the sea. Her characters
are well-developed with both good points and failings, much like 
friends you care about but that exasperate you at times. 

Her plotting and story line is sure; as a reader we wonder 
where the story is going but she leads us along the path in 
steady steps that make it hard to put the book down. We need 
to know what Belle is going to do, or Jimmie, or various other
characters in the book... whether or not we like them. 

This is a story of life, not always happy, often sad and tragic, 
but very real (although fiction). A story well told.

http://www.chrislongmuir.co.uk/

A trailer for the book here: http://www.youtube.com/user/Chrislon1?ob=5#p/u/0/nGxQDeiVOfg

http://www.amazon.com/A-Salt-Splashed-Cradle-ebook/dp/B0052ENBFA