Bottled It!!

This week I have been trying to give the house a good clean as we have people coming Thursday night and also Sunday.  When I am doing one of my Spring cleans I end up writing a large To Do list of more things to do, but I always feel so much better once the house is sparkling, jobs are done and everything is in its place.

One of the many things on this week's 'To Do' list has been there for a while, and that was to chase up both my pitches.  I had intended to ring them both this morning - as that's what the books say, but after ringing Spirit and Destiny and being told that the line was 'unavailable', I bottled it and sent them an email instead.

This wasn 't entirely wasted however, as about 20 minutes later I received a return email stating that;

Many thanks for contacting us again.

Your original email was forwarded onto the features department who will be in contact with you in due course should the article be of interest.

I gave a big smile - as at least it means I got the right email address - and then sent a similar email to Writing Magazine.  Haven't had a reply from them this morning so far, but still feel excited about Spirit and Destiny.

Have a huge 'To Do' pile at the moment; mostly of my photography stuff.  I have a picture that is to be featured in an exhibition in April / May at The Museum of Lincolnshire Life, so next week I will be devoting my time to that particular pile.  Hopefully, when I come back to writing, there may be a specific feature to finish.  If not, I still have a small pile of 'possible' markets to propose articles for.

Competition Winner (Photography)

OK, so it wasn't a writing competition, but I am pleased non-the-less!

I am a member of a Lincolnshire based Photography group and every month they run a competition on a particular theme.  February's theme was 'Love' and I entered the following photo:



The judge said: I have chosen this winning image for the Shutter Chimps February Flickr competition, Joannes image stood out to me, the focusing and Boken is great. I seriously lost sleep over which image to pick, so many great images to choose from.

First writers pay packet (nearly) spent

Thought I had better upgrade the memory on my little net book as it is getting very slow at the moment.  When I bought it, it was only with the intention to use it for my writing.  However, I now use it for both sending and receiving emails, as well as surfing the Internet.

Unfortunately, as I am about to lose my job in the real world, I cannot afford a new computer, so spent £45 on a memory upgrade....

That's half of my payment for my first article spent.  Do I treat myself to something else or attempt to save it for a rainy day?

Virus Alert

Sat at my computer the other day, ordering stuff for my sons birthday party on ebay, and I briefly remember seeing a message pop up from the firewall, before my computer shut down and I got a screen - which can only be described as - from hell!!



What was especially scary was that in the corner of the screen was a picture of me - taken via my own webcam.  What was even more scary was being accused of looking at child pornography!!   It all looked very real and I immediately woke up my partner to show him. 
Luckily, we had a second computer and so my partner was able to follow instructions on YouTube to remove the virus.  YouTube stated that 10,000 people have already fallen for this, and at £100 a time that's a lot of money being made. 

Third Pitch...

All fired up after receiving payment for my article in Writing Magazine, I polished another pitch and emailed it this morning.

I then sorted through the huge pile of paper that I have accumulated over the past few weeks while I have been full of a head cold and struggling to think.  Within that pile, are two of the magazines I bought at Christmas that I would like to pitch articles to.  I just need to focus on a specific topic for each of them.  However, writing the pitch today has helped me.

Yesterday, I went shopping and after being dragged into a charity shop, as there was a Maisy book in the window, I found that this particular charity shop sells on old magazines.  I treated myself to December and January's Readers Digest for the grand sum of 10p each.  I was hoping for other magazines, but the rest of the pile seemed to be predominately Woman's Own, Woman's Weekly etc. 

So the plan for the rest of the week is to read, read, read and prepare a couple of draft pitches.....

Professional Writer......

Today I got paid for my article that was published in February's Writing Magazine. 
Does this mean I can now put 'Professional Writer' on my passport?

Comments on my article....

So excited!!  This morning I opened March's edition of Writing Magazine to find a couple of letters that praised my article! 

Hopefully, this will help me with the pitch that I recently made, with regards to two further articles for the magazine....