Wednesday 9 December 2009

The Urge To Blog!


I haven't got anything particularly useful to say, but got a sudden urge to blog this morning, as you do!

The window fitters are sawing and hammering away in the background and no doubt Radio 2 will be blaring out of their little battered radio before too long. It's quite nice to have company in a weird sort of way!

I've been ensconced in my office since Monday morning, printing off dozens of postage labels for Issue 3, most of which have now been posted. I get very nervous that some will go missing. I don't entirely trust Royal Mail!

I hope to get more feedback on this issue of the magazine, because the Readers Letters page is looking very scrawny (unlike me!). My thoughts are already turning to Issue 4 and which stories I'll publish. Again, I only have a few copies of Issue 3 left now and I think it's come to the point where I need to do a bigger print run. This is a good sign that the magazine is selling well and is starting to be quite popular. I'm not sure I'll ever reach the heady print runs of QWF days, but we'll see.

The Yellow Room Autumn Short Story Competition, which closed on 30th September, is giving me a huge headache. Drawing up the shortlist is a nightmare. I thought I'd cracked it the other day, but there are niggles. I optimistically announced that the winners would be notified by 1st December 09. Fat chance! Eight days past this date and I'm fretting. What if the top three stories have been sent elsewhere? I'm reading as fast as I can (trying not to get too distracted by Monica Seles' great book, Getting A Grip) and hope to announce the winners by early next week.

My car failed its MOT this week and the repairs are going to cost the best part of £300, so I have the hassle and expense of that to sort out very soon. Why do such mundane things get in the way? And don't even mention Christmas! I still haven't written all my Christmas cards and wonder why we bother sending any at all now we have great things like Facebook?

More next week......

Oh, and the photo was taken back in the summer, reminding me of sunny days and lovely walks.

Tuesday 1 December 2009

So behind with The Yellow Room and Comp!



Apologies everyone, as I'm still very behind with reading competition entries. I've almost drawn up the shortlisted entries now and hope to announce the top three next week.

I've just heard from Biddles, the printers, that Issue 3 won't be despatched until 7th December. This is a week later than they promised last week. I'm so sorry about this. It's agonising when I said that this issue would be out in October. I just hope subscribers can be patient enough to wait another week or so. It's really not ideal for me to be sending out magazines in December when I have Christmas shopping to do, presents to wrap, cards to write etc etc.

To add insult to injury Needhams are coming to fit new windows and doors next week.

It could be worse.... it could be freezing cold!