Pick this...

Note: For those of you who didn't know, growing like Topsy is a reference from Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin.

I got my final university assignment back in the post today. I was very happy. My SO called me a girlie swot. One of the benefits of having a paper completely internally assessed is that I get to see what the tutor thought of my efforts. I like that his comments on my essays and tasks push my understanding even further. I learnt something extra from his feedback. I wouldn't have had that in an exam.

Some of you will already know I now have a picture book coming out next year. I love this story. I mentioned it a while back in this blog with a brief excerpt - The House That Went to Sea. I am so very happy it will be a book. It has happened very quickly (I sent the manuscript off less then a month ago). I am excited to see what the illustrator comes up with. I now have to put head down and bum up to get finishing my World War Two chapter book. The trail went a little cold while I waited for the publisher to decide whether they would definitely take this story, then it got a little more distant while I worked furiously to finish my university assignments. My task now is to quickly bring myself back up to speed with where I was at and where I'm going next, and fall into a pattern, a rhythm of regular writing to complete it. I still feel in touch with the 'voice' and my direction, so it should be reasonably straight forward. I am not sure what I will go on to after that is finished by April next year. Maybe, I hope, a proper holiday ( I will be writing over christmas - even when we go away - to meet my deadline).

I think I might wander up to my local indie bookshop (the fabulous TimeOut) and see if they have the new Scholastic Short Story Anthology with some of my stories in, Pick 'n Mix: Volume One. I haven't seen it yet and I am curious. I have recently been pondering the idea of doing an e-book of my children's short stories. I have an 8,000 word story that has received praise but no publication offers yet, that I think would go in a collection quite nicely, along with the fifteen or so published and unpublished short stories I've accumulated over the years. I will be exploring the mechanics and process of publishing an e-book and will let you know what I discover and how I get on.