Sick as a dog. It’s minging. o.O I won’t give you all the details, just say that I’ve pretty much been in bed for 36 hours and haven’t had a scrap to eat. *sigh* I like food. I miss food. .Why does it hate me so?

/selfpity

All that crap aside I’ve had a lovely week! I know, sounds odd, but following Ileandra’s freak out, I figured it would be sensible to follow suit in having a rest. The result has been a hell of a lot more work done! How does that make sense? It doesn’t, that’s how, but that’s what’s happened and I have a new shiny to show you.

Woohoo! I survived!

Nice, right? I found the details of the submission weekend over on Jennifer’s blog and figured it would be daft not to send them something. After all, why on earth would I turn up my nose at a free, professional critique? Why would anybody?

So I sent in Slippers & Chains. ^_^

Within 24 hours (I know, right? Talk about a brilliant turn around!) I received a lovely email back from one of the editors at Breathless with some wonderful feedback about the opening scene and a clear way to improve. Something that I certainly wouldn’t have thought of myself, but very useful indeed. And the rest of the comments were incredibly encouraging.

Better yet, I have an invitation to submit to Breathless properly when the work is complete! It’s not a guarantee of acceptance or even a promise of ‘we’ll love this when we read it,’ but it is an acknowledgement that there is something in the story that caught their eye and means that it is worth perusing.

Well…! The Funk Master and I always thought this story had legs (*snerk* sorry, private joke) so it’s wonderful to know that others think so too. The positive response from my critique group as well as this latest critique puts me in a bright and sunny frame of mind with regards to this novella. I may even hold fire publishing through Little Vamp Press just to see what Breathless have to say on the matter.

Last week
~Continue reading my indie review book.
Done. It was… interesting. The review for that book should go out in my first post of March, so keep your eyes peeled for it. I’ve also downloaded the next one. Not started reading yet, but with a title like ‘The Life of Pie’ I’m sure I’ll be entertained!

~Start deep edits on ‘Eric & Morgan’
Eeeyup. I forgot how much I like this story. It seems somewhat more gentle than some of the other ones, but I think that’s mainly because I have a soft spot for Eric. Not sure why. Only a couple of pages, but, it’s a couple of pages more than I had done last week. And that’s what counts. Progress is progress. Baby steps add up.

~Make final decision on image for ‘Bill’ cover (on that note, this is a special project I’m working on with the folk on my mailing list. If you want to be involved in that there’s still time. Just join up now and become part of the behind-the-scenes fun).
There’s a poll running at the moment to choose from four potential images. I’m having quite a lot of fun with the subscribers talking about them actually, so, really, if you want to be involved just hit the link above. Sign up and you’ll get access to the private voting page to help me decide what I’m doing. It’s going to be good… let me tell ya.

Okay, that’s that. What about looking forward?

This Week

• Start reading my indie review book for March

• Start deep edits on ‘Eric & Morgan’

• Write up review for February’s indie review book

• Close the Slippers & Chains poll

That last one is getting to a point now. On 23 February 2014 voting will close and I’ll get started on producing files. Though, to be honest, I may have to hold fire on that until I hear back from Breathless. Regardless of whether they want the novella or not I’d still like your opinion however, so that I know how to proceed if I take the original publishing route. Remember, here is the poll.

Beyond that, all that remains is for me to say; have a good week! Don’t do what we’ve done and work yourself into a mess, take it easy, be realistic about your goals and, above all, remember to rest and take time for yourself if you need it.