Now blogging at...

I'm unlikely to be updating this site any time soon: you can find my latest blog at www.aliventures.com, where I'm writing essay-style content about "getting more from life". Come on over and take a look if you're interested!

Going full-time freelance

I handed in my notice at work on Mon 30th June, and from August 1st, I'm going to be full-time freelancing -- writing and website creation.

To say I'm hugely excited would be a bit of an understatement. I'm utterly thrilled to finally have found what I really want to do with my life, and to have found a way to make a living from it. I've been earning a bit from freelance blogging since February, and have created some pro bono websites for my portfolio. Aliventures is up and functioning (though I won't be adding the blog element till August.)

The last couple of weeks have been pretty manic, trying to do as much freelance work as possible, find more freelance jobs, work on the "business" side of Aliventures (writing questionnaires, terms of service etc) and of course finish off projects at the Day Job ...

Still, I'm hanging on in there. Three more weeks, and I never have to work another 9-5, Mon-Fri week again. I'll be free, and it's going to feel like becoming myself again after 20 months of living someone else's life.

Aliventures site now live!

I've been promising this for a while. I was originally going to combine site + blog from the start, but made the decision last week to turn the blog that I'd been developing offline into a static web site for now (it'll magically become a blog in a month or two ;-)).

The Boyfriend did the design, I turned it into code, and learned a good bit more CSS along the way. And here it is: Aliventures

If you're after a copywriter, blogger, editor or web site creator, check out the services and portfolio pages. I'm doing full web sites (including hosting, email address, design and layout and optimising copy for the web) for just £199 until the end of August. If you're a fellow writer, you could easily make back the money selling just one extra short story or article as a result of having a clear, easy-to-navigate, modern and professional-looking site.

Or if you happen to know anyone in need of a web site or a freelance writer, why not put them in touch? My business email is ali@aliventures.com -- feel free to give that to any friends who you think I could help.

In a couple of weeks time, I'll be emailing round lots of friends to let them know about the launch of Aliventures ... it's one of the most exciting things I've done this year, and I'm hugely looking forward to expanding my writing and web creation work. :-)

Week off work!

It seems like ages since my last holiday -- the four-day Easter weekend. But I have the whole of next week off! We're spending Sun-Thurs in the Lake District (and the weather looks like being good), then Friday will be a day to work on my new website...

As usual, things have been busy. Work's been more stressful than usual, especially with my line manager being away quite a bit recently. I'm trying to cut down on how much I'm doing outside of work and have:

• Put my short story correspondence course on hold till September
• Stepped down as property committee secretary at church (I just have to write up the minutes from last Thursday's meeting, then I'm done...)

I feel guilty about both -- I was really enjoying the course and wanted to get further on with it before Goldsmiths, and although I got rather put on the spot and talked into doing the property committee job, I feel I shouldn't say "no" to Church things. I'm justfying it on the grounds I've taken on a much bigger role in the children's work recently.

My new personal website/blog template is going well: it's taking a long time to do quite small things, and it's a steep learning curve, but I'm definitely finding out a lot. And the design is coming together very nicely, thanks to the Boyfriend's help. I'm hugely excited about this site, and want to get it off to a really good start.

I've also ordered some business cards to advertise my writing and website creation services; those should be arriving soon ...

The Office Diet now has 242 subscribers (over double the number from May 17th's update). I've earned over £600 so far from the staff blogging too ... so much that Paypal have asked me to verify my account information. I'm going to buy myself an HP Mini-Note with some of the earnings ...

At the moment, it still feels like there's a long way to go before I get to where I want to be with the freelancing and with my other writing. But I'm convinced I'm moving in the right direction!

Health/fitness blogger meme

I got tagged for this by Fitarella ... I'm posting here rather than on The Office Diet as I don't tend to do memes there (I think it's a bit too personal for The Office Diet's readers!)

Here goes...

4 Jobs I’ve Had
Babysitter
Occasional office admin work for my dad
Data Entry Associate (that was a really thrilling summer)
User Support, Testing & Documentation

What are 4 ways you know you are living your life’s purpose?
I’m pretty involved with my Church (Sunday School, helping at Café Church…)
I’m writing every day. And my writing is helping people.
In September, I’m starting a post-graduate degree in creative writing J
I’m always learning, growing, improving and pushing myself further.

What are 4 things you do to take really good care of yourself?
Get some exercise every day (and gym three times a week)
Write in a journal, more sporadically than I should.
Eat plenty of fruit and veggies.
Indulge in really good ice-cream. (I’ve just discovered Sainsbury’s TTD toffee/caramel ice-cream. If you’re in the UK, and you’ve never tried it, go out and buy a tub today. You’ll thank me…)

What are the 4 events that have most formed how you live your life today?
Losing weight in my late teens after being chubby for years
Going to Fitzwilliam college, Cambridge university and finally “fitting in”! And especially the Springboard (women's self-development) course I took there.
This one is very geeky but I’m including it for the sake of honesty! Playing a very small online text-based roleplaying game for about six years (aged 16-22). A wonderful experience resulting in lasting friendships … and my boyfriend.
Taking a proper hard look at my Christian faith whilst at Uni – and deciding I could believe it all, for myself.

What are 4 things you do to keep your motivation up to work out and eat healthy every day?
Remember how much I hated being chubby.
Remember how I worked hard to lose weight and keep it off.
Work out at lunch time so I look forward to it (getting away from the office = good!)
Buy healthy, quality foods that I really like.

Name 4 people who have been the most influential in motivating you to change your eating and exercise habits.
Me, first and foremost!
My mum, who was incredibly supportive of me when I went on a diet aged 17, and when I was at uni, always got in the healthy foods I liked when I went home in the hols.
My boyfriend, who loves me whatever I look like and encourages me to relax about food.
“The bully” (sadly, not one individual but several) at school who picked on me for years about my weight.

What are your top 4 reasons for staying off of refined sugar and white flour?
I don’t, really. I go with wholegrains for bread but not pasta, and I’ll have sugar but I do limit how much sugar I eat (I realised that meringues, ice-cream, chocolate buttons, chocolate sauce was leaving me feeling predictably awful after the “crash"...).

List 4 ways that blogging has helped you either attain or maintain a higher level of health and fitness.
Keeps my hands busy so I’m less likely to snack
Running a blog called “The Office Diet” has made me more conscious of my food choices at work.
I’ve been reading a lot of other blogs on health/fitness/dieting – and getting some very useful tips.
I’ve been encouraged and inspired by some of the amazing weight-loss stories out there!



Sadly, I think all the health & fitness bloggers I know have already been tagged ... but if you want to have a go at this meme, go ahead!

Writing on, and on, and on...

I am neglecting this blog horrifically at the moment (partly because I plan on closing it within a month or two, and launching something new ... more on that later!)

The Office Diet is going strong, especially with my good friend Lorna providing guest posts (a real blessing when I'm running short on ideas.) I'm now on 110 subscribers ... quite an increase on the 67 three weeks ago :-) Helped in part by yesterday's guest post on http://www.crankyfitness.com/ which brought in quite a few readers.

In other writing news:

• I've completed all three of the feature articles for Daily Writing Tips and the first has been published, "Creative Writing 101". It's met with a good reception in the comments, and quite a few links from other sites.
• I wrote a guest post for Freelance Switch after they opened up for submissions a week or so ago; they asked me to revise it a bit, so I did, and they're going to publish it :-) And pay $60 which is none too shabby. I'll pop the link here once it goes up ...
• Mum and I have sent in our bookings for Winchester; I've got appointments with two agent/editor types and need to organise some material to send in advance. Going to pitch The Office Diet to one and another non-fiction thing I've been working (sloooowly) on to another.

Other stuff which has been going on:

• I've finally finished my "Bible in a Year" book. I started it in September 2005... which may give some indication of how good (or otherwise) I am at doing Bible reading daily.
• The St Nicholas Church Holiday Club website I've created is up, though it needs a bit more work.
• I'm learning CSS/PHP to make my own Wordpress template for my next blog ... it's going to be a combination of a relaunch of this one, a site to promote my writing & freelancing, and some long articles (even maybe e-books) on stuff I want to write but don't currently have much outlet for. More on that once I get a bit further with it. I strongly recomment http://www.wpdesigner.com/2007/02/19/so-you-want-to-create-wordpress-themes-huh/ if you want to have a go at doing your own wordpress them, it starts VERY basic and goes slowly. I managed to complete the whole tutorial from ... about 5pm yesterday to 11am this morning.
• I've started leading Junior Church, had them last week (lovely bunch of kiddies) and leading again tomorrow. Great to be getting back into youth work again!

That's pretty much it for now... and I'm starting to realise why the last few weeks have felt busy!

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

Worthing

We had a lovely Easter weekend in Worthing: I didn't touch a computer for over 72 hours! The weather was a tad blustery, but we had a few walks up and down the beach regardless. Many of the highlights involved food... ;-)

We highly recommend Bryce's Seafood Brasserie, for gorgeous food at very reasonable prices and extremely good service

The Pizzaria on Warwick stree (I think Pomodoro Mozzarella) for their calzone, and their amaretti-biscuit-with-rum-and-dark-chocolate-ice-cream...

Liming Grill/Restaurant for their Sangria and sharing platter

A lovely cake shop called Marguerite's on Warwick Street which opened about a week ago... gorgeous little dark truffle chocolate cakes and a lovely proprietess.

It was great to be out of London for a few days -- I didn't see a single police car. Managed to read the whole of Celia Friedman's Feast of Souls, a gripping dark fantasy with strong characters, an intriguing world and compelling themes. Also read Jostein Gaarder's The Ringmaster's Daughter which I enjoyed but which seemed a little thin somehow. (The plot seemed claustrophobic, but perhaps that was intentional...)

The Connaught Theatre was a wonderful venue to see a film in: we paid the extra £1 each to have a box! Same price as our local Peckham Multiplex, but considerably nicer. I wish I'd not insisted on seeing There Will Be Blood, though, as despite the many Oscar nominations, neither of us found it as interesting as hoped ... we both agreed that cutting about an hour out the middle of it would have helped. I think I should resign myself to having very low-brow taste in films.

We felt very welcome at Cornerstone Methodist on Easter morning, and if we'd known about their cafe earlier in the week, probably would have popped in for a coffee. A lovely Church building and congregation, and a joyful Easter service.

All in all, a great break. :-)

No more Tuesdays off

Things are busier again at work, and so I'm back in five days a week. I'm really missing having the Tuesday to write blog posts and work on my short story course, but the extra money's going into savings.

Good recent writing-related news:
- I've achieved my goal of finding another staff writer position before the end of March. :-) I sent a guest post to www.dailywritingtips.com and they liked it so much they asked if I wanted to be a staff writer. I jumped at the chance!

- I had a guest post on "I will change your life", a great, very well-written and well produced blog that I love. It's at http://www.iwillchangeyourlife.com/2008/03/19/start-with-your-body-7-life-benefits-from-losing-weight

- I sent a guest post to www.crankyfitness.com which they're going to use (though possibly not for a while)

- I had a story rejected from Woman's Weekly with "much too strong for us, but a good style, so do try us again".


Goldsmiths' still haven't written to me, so I don't know yet whether I have an MA place from September or not ...

Relaxed Weekend

I've had a fairly relaxed weekend, without much writing. Saturday started with a shopping trip to Lewisham in the morning, some writing networking with other bloggers via email during the day, then a very nice evening out at The Village Inn (what used to be Page 2) at the other side of Nunhead. Wonderful tapas (especially the blue cheese breaded mushrooms...) and a nice, relaxed atmosphere. Like most of the pubs/restaurants round here, we were surprised how empty it was -- 8pm on a Saturday night, and we were the only people in the "restaurant" back room (though there were some people drinking in the bar.)

Though, of course, the rugby was on...

I've been thinking over my goals for the next few months, and I've decided that I want to focus on building up some income from freelance writing: I'm really enjoying doing articles for www.diet-blog.com and want to try to find at least one other site to take me on as a staff writer. Skellie's Anywired has been really useful, both with practical tips and in making me think it is possible to make a living from this. My ideal combination would be something involving staff blogging, my own blog(s), writing books (fiction and non-fiction), and some small-site web design.

I'm going to start offering a few guest posts to blogs I've been reading for a while, and try to build up some more contacts. I have a few ideas scribbled in my notebook already...

Interview over, should hear in two weeks...

I think it went okay this morning. Maura Dooley, who interviewed me, was absolutely lovely -- it was much more of a relaxed chat than most interviews I've had! She said they take about a third of the people that they interview, and that they'd let me know within a couple of weeks.

Of course, I always come out of interviews (and exams) thinking of all the extra things I should've thrown in ... but I'm going to put it completely out of my mind for now. Nothing I can do until I hear their decision.

I also drafted the second assignment for my short story correspondance course this afternoon. Not very happy with it; I didn't feel it was working even at the planning stage, and now I've written it, the storyline seems too loose and the "science fiction" elements almost tagged on. Hoping it'll improve after some mulling and redrafting, or hoping I get a better idea to write...

Interview at Goldsmiths', next Tues

I heard yesterday from Goldsmiths' that they want to interview me. Going along next Tuesday at 10, and somehow going to persuade them that I'm worth giving a place on the Creative & Life Writing MA course to.

This is something I've wanted for a long time; I'd hoped it would be UEA and full-time and living a haphazard writerly life, but part-time and evening and weekend essays while working tech support is a price I'm more than willing to pay for the opportunity.

Fingers very very crossed!

Quick update on writing things

Updates on various writing things over the past week:

• Goldsmiths now have my application for Creative & Life Writing MA -- I'm waiting to hear if they want to interview me...
• Now up to 76.8K words on Four Red Spots, and have the remaining scenes-to-add vaguely listed
• Started planning my assignment for Unit 2 of my short story course
• Non-fiction writing, mostly The Office Diet is going well, but I'm still spending a lot of time trying to market it and making very slow headway, if any...
• Had my first post as a staff writer up on Diet Blog last Friday, which was cool :-)

Continuing with Four Red Spots - 71K

I hit the 70K mark yesterday on Four Red Spots; despite waking up late and only doing 750 words first then, then a bad day at work, I managed to hammer out a few more in the evening. Got it up to 71K this morning before spending the rest of the day working on blogging stuff (some writing, some brainstorming, lots of networking/marketing type things.)

I'm becoming more and more convinced that chick lit isn't really my genre. I'm struggling to make it interesting; I think the characters carry the story fairly well, but the scenes all seem a litle flat and frankly somewhat pointless. I'm itching to start work on the Big Novel, the project that's been simmering and simmering away for a year now ... but I also want to get Four Red Spots finished. Still, at this rate, should be done by Easter. Another 29K to go...

Five ways I raise my vibrations meme

Meme from Womagwriter -- thanks! :-)

Five ways I raise my vibrations:

1. Take a shower. For some reason, my best ideas come to me in the shower. Washing my hair seems particularly good (maybe it's something to do with warm water on the scalp, I dunno.)

2. Get moving. I get edgy and irritable if I've not had any exercise, a bit like a small and yappy puppy that needs walking ... Usually, a cycle ride sorts it.

3. Tidy my desk. I work better when I don't feel cluttered (and when I can find things like envelopes and competitions guidelines).

4. Read motivational blogs. I'm particularly into Steve Pavlina's Personal Development for Smart People and recently discovered an excellent blog called Path to Your Destiny.

5. Drink tea from my Shakespeare mug. My mum gave me the mug last Easter, and I always have my "writing" cuppa in it -- so it's become a great cue to put me in the writing mood. If I don't feel like writing, I make tea in the Shakespeare mug and then I have to write.

All very mundane, really, I feel I should've come up with something more writerly but those are what I actually do! I'll tag Sam next...

Writing Tuesdays: Mostly Submissions

Posted/emailed off a final round of submissions for Night of the Empty Moon today, which took up the whole afternoon. If there's no joy from this lot, I'm officially chucking it in the bottom drawer for the foreseeable future...

Disappointingly, one of the very few publishing companies I had listed as a possible has stopped taking unsolicited submissions, and another's website said no SF/F. :-( Still, I suppose I saved on paper/postage...

Got another 1200 new words on the NaNo one this morning, and various other writery bits and pieces -- some brainstorming for possible competition entries, and studying a chapter of my Palgrave book. Also wrote another post in the excuse-busting series for The Office Diet, and made fruit salad, and oat cookies... (there's only so much writing I can do in a day!)

A Cautionary Tale and some NaNoing

I had fun on Thursday and Friday morning last week, working on a "Cautionary Tale" poem for a Writing Magazine competition: "The Man Who Talked Loudly On His Mobile In the Quiet Carriage". The Boyfriend (and the Parents) found it amusing, so after a bit of awkward-scansion fixing, I think I'll send it in.

Didn't get any writing done on Saturday due to various Church things then meeting up with friends on the Saturday afternoon.

Today, I redrafted a short story exercise that might possibly be one I'll send to a women's magazine (waiting for some feedback on it), then -- finally! -- got back into the NaNoWriMo novel this afternoon. I'm aiming to have the first draft (100k ish works) finished by Easter, which means doing about 1,000 words a day till then.

Got 1,500 words of new scenes done today so it's a good start. The subplot of Katie's essay is developing, and a bit more about Jan & Keith's rocky marriage. And some more Sidgwick buttery cookie eating took place...

Finally done all the novel edits - the manuscript is FINISHED!

I spent quite a bit of time last week with the Lulu copy of Night of the Empty Moon, going through every single page and marking typos and clumsy-sentence type errors. It took a while, and a lot of patience. I was even scribbling away in the pub on Saturday afternoon (whilst The Boyfriend and his friend watched Wales trounce England. At least Arsenal won...)

Today, I got all of the remaining type-ins done (had already typed in the corrections to the first 4 or so chapters). It took most of the morning, but it's finally DONE. Either this weekend or next Tuesday, I plan on doing a big mailout ... I've got the list of hapless agents and publishers ready. ;-)

I've also been working away at The Office Diet, which is slowly gaining momentum -- my page views are consistently 100-150 a day at the moment, and I've had some lovely feedback on forums or by email from readers. It still feels like a bit of an uphill slog; I love writing it, but marketing it seems to take a lot of time. I hoped the mythical "word of mouth" would have kicked in by now...