I hope you’re all fully recovered from the festive season and ready to write again.
Here are a few bits and pieces that might be useful for the new year:
- ‘Don’t Break the Chain’ – nip over to Vikki Thompson’s blog to read about a great method of encouraging you to write every day. It involves using a chart to mark each day that you’ve written something. Hopefully, all these marks will form a long chain that you will do anything to avoid breaking. Follow the link on Vikki’s blog to down load the chart for free. And it doesn’t matter when you start because there are no dates on the chart. So no excuses – you can start any time of the year!
- Prima magazine have changed the word count for their monthly ‘Your Winning Story’ competition. It is now a maximum of 1000 words. The prize is still a Kobo eReader. Email your entries to yourwinningstory@hearst.co.uk and include your name, age, address, phone number and a recent photo. You’ll have to buy the mag. for the full rules plus the address for postal entries.
- Uniquely Dublin International Competition wants entries that ‘celebrate Dublin today’. There are categories for all the arts (music, animation etc) including the written word – and you only need to write 100 words about Dublin to be in with a chance of winning the category prize of 1,000 Euros or the overall prize of 10,000 Euros. Closing date is Jan 28th 2013 and entry is free. Full details are here.
And finally a couple of thank yous:
- I would like to thank Maria’s Book Blog and Jenny Schwartz for my prize of a Kindle copy of ‘Drawing Closer’ – Jenny’s contemporary romance. Maria regularly hosts author interviews and book giveaways, so if you want to win – pay her a visit.
- Last but certainly not least, I would like to thank Susan for nominating me for an Inspiring Blogger Award, which she did before Christmas. I’m supposed to tell you 7 things about me but I’m sure your eyes are glazing over by now so maybe I’ll leave that for another time. But do have a look at Susan’s blog – she’s a lovely lady.
Sally Jenkins 
#1 by Tracy Fells on January 5, 2013 - 3:07 pm
I like the sound of the writing chain. I keep a daily word count in a spreadsheet and record everything I write, even blog posts, so the words do add up. But to write daily is a challenge as I try to keep w/e’s free for family, but then I’m tapping away on your blog on a Sat! Will have a look at Prima – didn’t realise they published stories. Thanks for the tip Sally
#2 by Sally Jenkins on January 5, 2013 - 7:55 pm
Wow, your spreadsheet sounds organised, Tracy! I just do what I can when I can and, unless the rest of the family are all otherwise engaged, I don’t get a lot done at weekends.
#3 by susanjanejones on January 5, 2013 - 6:28 pm
That’s nice of you to say so Sally, thanks. Will take a look at those links as well.
#4 by Patsy on January 5, 2013 - 8:54 pm
I agree Susan is lovely!
Happy New Year, Sally.
#5 by Sally Jenkins on January 6, 2013 - 7:57 pm
Happy New Year to you too, Patsy – and to everyone else who knows me!
#6 by Vikki (The View Outside) on January 6, 2013 - 8:08 am
Thanks for the shout out Sally 🙂
Are you using it?
Xx
#7 by Sally Jenkins on January 6, 2013 - 7:59 pm
Vikki, I’ve downloaded it and printed it and it’s sitting on my desk looking at me. Now that Xmas is well and truly over I need to get back into a writing routine, so I’m hoping the chart will motivate me. So I haven’t started using it yet but I have good intentions!
#8 by Vikki (The View Outside) on January 6, 2013 - 9:58 pm
Good for you Sally 🙂
I’ve been using it since the 1st.
Xx
#9 by Linda on January 8, 2013 - 7:20 pm
The chain chart sounds a good idea. I like to create a ‘picture’ of my progress so I keep a work diary in which I make colour coded notes to record what I’ve worked on each day. A productive day looks like a rainbow, but It’s also very obvious when I’ve spent too much time on blogs and forums and not enough on the serious stuff!
#10 by Sally Jenkins on January 8, 2013 - 7:30 pm
Linda, your ‘rainbow’ sounds like a very cheerful way of recording work done. We all have to adopt whatever method we find motivating – sometimes I think someone standing over me with a big stick would be a good idea!
#11 by Linda on January 8, 2013 - 7:42 pm
Oh dear, that does sound drastic!
#12 by Writer / Mummy on January 22, 2013 - 11:49 pm
You’ve been nominated for the Versatile Blogger Award. Thank you for your wonderful blog…
#13 by Sally Jenkins on January 23, 2013 - 11:45 am
How kind, Writer/Mummy, thank you very much!