Thursday 24 March 2011

Beautiful Spring Weather!

I don't know what the weather has been like where you are, but it's been gorgeous here in Rugby. 18 degrees yesterday afternoon! My mood has certainly been brighter.

My 15 minute writing sessions have been going very well, and I've got a lot of useful material under my belt this week. I have several short stories underway, and it's nice to have a break from the novel.

I've been revisiting my previously published short stories and have started to publish them on a separate blog. If you're interested in reading them, you can find them here: http://www.joderrickfiction.blogspot.com/

Most were published in small press literary magazines in the late 1990s, and some were awarded prizes or were highly commended in competitions. I give a bit of blurb at the beginning of each one, saying where they were previously published etc and in some cases, how I came to write them. It's an ongoing process, and I hope to be adding more in the next week or so. It's very interesting to see how my writing style has changed since then!

It would be great if as many of you as possible could 'follow' this new blog and if you feel like commenting on the individual stories, then even better!

As well as reading competition entries and submissions for The  Yellow Room, I've been reading an awful lot of novels lately. I've got into my old book buying habit. It's my reward for only drinking wine on two nights per week. The money I'm saving on wine, I'm spending on books, but the latter is much more rewarding and better for me! I loved The Help by Kathryn Stockett. I'm not too keen on Val McDermid's latest, Trick of the Dark. I also loved Mo Hayder's DI Jack Caffery series. I spent about £30 in Waterstone's last week, as I had some vouchers. I can't wait to get stuck into those lovely new paperbacks. I'm perfectly happy having about five novels on the go at the same time with the odd biography thrown in for good measure and light relief. You can see a list of books I've read this year so far over to the right somewhere on this blog.

Time is running away with me this morning, and it's nearly time to go to the gym. I wish there were more hours in the day!

4 comments:

nightwishfreak said...

Very interesting and almost jealous but can't be too jealous as I have ordered some books myself, a fantasy, a ghost story and one where a girl turns into a dragon!

Oldrightie said...

It's the same here, long may it last!

Writer Pat Newcombe said...

Even better weather here in Lanzarote! Still, I sometimes miss the spring sunchine of England...
Enjoy your reading!

Anonymous said...

Also liked The Help - quick review on my blog if you want to compare notes!
Will pop along to your new blog when I can.
AliB