L plates and a Leg of Lamb...

When I worked as a TV presenter, I often got calls today  from local papers asking me for my New Year Resolutions. What a  dilemma!

As a newspaper reporter forever ago,  I had been there myself – on the skeleton staff, trying to put the New Year paper together with a few quotes to use with photos of  “local faces”.

The problem is that I am rubbish at New Year resolutions – and hence tend not to bother with them.

But back in those TV days, I would always try to come up with something for the reporter on the line.  You know – get back in touch with old friends. Get fit – blah , blah.

The problem would then be the evidence in print. A few weeks later, I would see the cutting hanging around and think – gawd. Did I really say that?

Now, of course, with my telly days behind me – I am off the hook. So I make no apologies in deciding NOT to list my New Year promises for this blog.

All I will say is that if you have your own list, then –  I genuinely wish you all the very best  in sticking to it.

For myself, I will simply be putting a large leg of lamb in the oven later for when my husband finally gets off shift. Oh – and I am also popping on my L plates.

 For I am starting 2013, not with a resolution but learning a new skill :How to format for Kindle.

The very idea of this terrified me initially – but no longer. Thanks to so many fab “how to” videos on You tube and lots of other helpful blogs, I am surprising myself by mastering a Table of Contents ( think – bookmarks and hyperlinks) even as I write this.

The raison d’etre is putting together a collection of my (previously published) short stories as an ebook. The thinking here is simple. I have already been paid for these stories ( published across the last decade in various magazines) so why not put them together for a second outing? Publishers famously say that short story collections don’t sell. But this does not worry me.  I’ve sold these stories already – so I see no harm/loss in giving them a second chance for people who may be interested. And for anyone who is developing their own career as a short-story writer, I hope they will be helpful in showing what seems to catch the eye of fiction editors and readers.

Quite apart from anything else, it’s all rather fun… And our writing life – given all the ups and downs of rejection, must have some fun in it too.

So – leg of lamb on the table tonight.

Table of Contents on the agenda today.

Wish me luck and I will update you very soon with all the lessons I learn along the way.

Meantime I wish you all a Very Happy New Year and the very best of luck with your writing in 2013.

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