Back At It

My ability to write went on hiatus for the week as the head cold moved in. It took all my energy to cough up both lungs on a daily and nightly basis, but recovery is in my sights and I'm back in the saddle. (Just how many cliches can one blog post hold?) (Quite a few, apparently.)

So, the good news first.  The acquisitions editor at Dundurn gave glowing feedback on my manuscript submission and will present it to the editorial board with a recommendation to publish. And music to a mystery author's ears - she didn't figure out the ending even though the clues are there :-) Her pitching of my book takes place in April so it will be a while before I get final word. She pointed out a few plot loose ends so I have to tidy up the manuscript a bit and resend, but this shouldn't take too long. I'm hoping they will see it as the first in a series - best not to get the cart ahead of the horse. (I know - enough with the cliches already.)

Patrick Walton took some rough footage of CBC Radio's Alan Neal reading from In Winter's Grip in October at the Capital Crime Writers' library day 'A Day to Kill' and made it into a little promo video.  This is a nice little souvenir of an exciting moment for me.  As Patrick's co-filmer said after the reading, "This is the voice I listen to on the radio every day on the drive home. Hard to believe he's standing up there reading from Brenda's book."

I have a little homework for Capital Crime Writers to do today. The president went on holiday and left me to do some promo of the upcoming Audrey Jessup short story contest. I've written a little blurb to send out and will do that later today or tomorrow. Let me just say that the deadline is April 2nd and 1st prize is $150. Word limit is 3500 words and the contest is open to anyone in the NCR (or a Capital Crime Writers member) aged 18+. This is your chance to kill someone off or commit a crime in words and get paid for it. Once you try it, you may never go back . . . .

Well, time for a second cup of coffee before I head out to the grocery store. I haven't bought food in two weeks and even the mice in the cupboards are starting to grumble. One cannot live on takeout forever although we've been giving it our best shot - although Ted did make a trip to M & M's last weekend so we've sort of cooked stuff. However, it might be time to eat something green or yellow that doesn't come in a package.