The blues

Not the music, nor my favourite blues bar
Ain't Nothing But, on Kingly Street,
which you should go to if you haven't already.

I'm not talking about the shades of it in the sky
or The NYPD.

I mean the blues that make you feel heavy
When you wake up in the morning.

The ones that make everything darker
Than on other days.

I mean the way you feel when you're
Standing at the bottom of a mountain.

When it towers over you,
Casts a shadow as far as you can see,

And looks impossible
To climb. 

Still writing. You can't see me, but I am

So here I am. Writing to win. Writing, sending, writing some more. That makes me sound really busy. I shouldn't lie. I was out in the sun today reading, and felt my skin get hot and begin to tingle and lose its jaundiced look.

Yes, I'm serious. About the colour of my skin and the heat. The sun is out in London. 21 degrees, yes sirree bob. So get out there in your lunch time and take your clothes off. Your statutory rights will not be affected.

Now I'm back in the pink room and as my dad's is a south-facing house, no more sun for me.

What was my point? Oh yeah, writing to win. Well, no knocks on the door yet. I have had an email though, and it wasn't an automated one. A person (other than a friend) actually wrote to me to say that if I don't hear from her in 45 days, get back in touch.

Er, thanks for that.

I must admit that this did make me kinda happy, even though it was to say, see ya! wouldn't wanna be ya!

I should also tell you that I've marked in my calendar when 45 days from now is.

Writing to WIN!

Here are 14 tips on writing for competitions from WritingCalendar.com that I wanted to share with all writers, or in fact, anyone working on anything:

1. Read the rules and follow them. 
But rules are made to be broken, right? 
2. If you send off for more information always include an SAE. 
That's fair enough 
3. Don't play chicken with the closing date.  
Deadlines are really not my strong point. I do play chicken 
4. If there's a theme, use it.  
Oops. So you mean I can't just send my story with its theme EVERYWHERE? 
5. Keep to the word count.  
Okay. Just five or ten more doesn't count 
6. Don't publicly slag off the competition because you lose or aren't placed above someone who you think is a poorer writer. 
Oh right, you mean like Jacqueline Howett? http://booksandpals.blogspot.com 
7. Use a typewriter or wordprocessor.
I can do that
8. Spell check and punctuate.
Now, that's where the wordprocessor is a bonus
9. Don't pester the organisers. 
Of course not, I'll just give them a quick call... 
10. Don't use fancy fonts, coloured paper, or attach balloons etc.
Some Marks + Sparks chocolates?
11. Make sure you attach enough stamps and use a decent sized envelope.
Weighing it means queuing at the post office and at 5.30pm the queue is all the way down the road... Do I have to?
12. Include your contact details. 
My facebook page?
13. Never give up your copyright.
Yes, Sir.
14. Keep trying.
Finally, we've cut to the chase.

"My boss sucks her thumb!"

Well now, that's not really something you ever want to hear, is it? And no, thank the lord it's not my boss that sucks her thumb. I don't have a boss, remember. I don't have a job, ha.

My boss is called Guilt. Guilt if I haven't written anything, Guilt if I have slept in, Guilt if I've got caught up in the afternoon Masterchef. My boss can be pretty nasty sometimes, can make me feel really bad. I've had others, too, that weren't too kind. But I'm happy to say I've never had the misfortune to have a boss that sucks her thumb. All day. With her index finger tickling her nose.

That sounds enough to have to deal with, but on top of that, of course, you have to take the power struggle between you and her, because she has to prove herself, defend her position, flex her muscle.

So the whole thumb sucking thing has a lot more to it. I'll stick with Guilt for now.

Signed, sealed, delivered

I've sent a short story to a couple of competitions, yay! I've filled out the forms, written the cheques, printed the story double spaced, size 12 and stapled the left hand corner as directed. They should get there on time (I sent one way too late a week ago).

Surely that already puts me in the pile, right?

But, which pile?