All around the world this month, people are writing like mad. How many of you writers are talking part in NaNoWriMo this year? If you think you cannot write enough words to complete the exercise, think again. It is very good practice and you may well surprise yourself. On top of that, you may end up with a novella ready to edit before publishing. It’s not too late – it finishes at the end of November, so you’d need to get cracking if you want to try it. 50,000 words are the goal.

I did complete it for two years running, but shame to say, the two efforts are still sitting on my PC with little polishing or editing. It is my hope to look at them again and see what I can make of them. The first year I took part I had several hospital appointments, and used the waiting time to scribble away like crazy. It certainly helped my word count.

Now I’d like to say a big thank you to Tania Walsh – her blog is http://tmewalsh.wordpress.com/

Tania has kindly nominated me for an award – Award Winning Blog.

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Recently Tania has released two of her books on Amazon Kindle. They are ‘For All our Sins’ and ‘The Principle of Evil’ and I anticipate a good read with both of them. I can’t comment too much at present as I have only just begun to read ‘For All our Sins’. Judging by her previously released ‘Broken Palace’, an exciting short story, I am in for a treat.

I made little progress with my writing in October. I submitted an article to Crystal Magazine. The only success I had was a letter published in the Daily Mail. Sometimes when I am involved in longer work, I also try to write letters to newspapers and magazines. On occasions they pay quite well. Sadly not on this occasion!

How do you reward yourself when you’ve had a success, or finished a big project? Enjoying a glass of wine sometimes(!) I keep a bottle of bubbly – usually Cava – in the fridge. Unfortunately the current bottle is having a long wait, but it will be opened soon. After all, I can’t risk it deteriorating can I?Acer in autumn
Finally, an autumnal photo for you. The small acer tree is in our back garden, and sometimes the colour is just wonderful. Happy writing, enjoy autumn.