Apologies for the lack of posts...

Life's been hectic recently. So here's a rather whistle-stop round-up of the good things:

• I'm taking baby steps towards project management at work -- had a pre-project meeting and started writing the technical specification for a (very small) project last week. Great experience for the portfolio/CV.
• I finished the website I've been designing/coding/etc for Micah Mobile Ministries. It was a bit of a struggle to fit in with all the blogging and writing stuff, but I really enjoyed doing it, and it was a great charity to have some small involvement with. First site for my portfolio...
• The Office Diet is now up to 69 RSS subscribers and over 15,000 hits since the launch Jan 1st. I've not sent out any more book proposals, but I'm planning on pitching it to some editors at the Winchester Writers' Conference in June.
• Daily Writing Tips have asked me to do three "feature" posts (at $50 each) :-) I actually suspect they'll be easier to write than the "awhile vs a while" type ones I've been doing, which I have to research quite a bit -- though I'm learning a lot from the process.

I think those are the main highlights! I'm in Oxford for the first May bank holiday weekend, and looking forward to seeing the family (why is it I appreciate them all so much more now I've moved away from home...?)

Book Pitching

I wrote my first proper book proposal at the weekend, for a book based on The Office Diet, and emailed it off to White Ladder Press. They replied impressively promptly today (alas, to say that whilst it was an interesting idea, they don't do diet books...) Still, it was lovely to have a personal reply.

Next plans are to:
- Look at who publishes the most popular diet books on Amazon
- Trawl through the Yearbook for non-fiction publishers

Going to Goldsmiths!

I heard last Thursday that Goldsmiths are giving me a place on the Creatiev & Life Writing MA!

This made the last week a mad dash to get the AHRC funding form to Goldsmiths, but finally got everything sorted out yesterday for them to have it, all signed off, today. Things have been a bit manic, so I'm looking forward to a slightly less busy weekend.

And I'm also really quite excited. :-) I've realised in recent months how much I miss being part of a university ... having that social and academic network around me, and being a member of something much bigger that myself. I'm really looking forward to having access to a university library again, so that I can have somewhere quiet to work at the weekends: the public libraries nearby don't have much private study space. And I'm going to throw myself into the extra-curricular side of things, this time round ... I want to make the most of every opportunity.

Perhaps the thing that delights me most is that they think I'm good enough. Being accepted seems like more validation that I at least have the potential to be a good (great?) writer. And having my 3rd prize winning short story published on the Writing Magazine site has been an added bit of encouragement this week:
http://www.writersnews.co.uk/showcase/hale2/default.asp