Scattered writer

Feeling a bit scattered. Baby is back and she's being clingy. It makes sense, considering we haven't been together for a month.

Too bad I had to leave the following day ( Sunday) to come to Cape Town. It was one of those days when a number of little things go wrong, almost causing disaster.

Nanny was an hour late, I needed to get some cash so I had to go to the ATM, but my house/work keys fell into the paper recycle bin, where people throw their banking recipts.

Don't ask how the big bunch of keys made it in there; I was trying to take somethig out of my purse put the keys on the ledge and the next thing I knew the keys had fallen.

Had to have bank security come get them out. And that was just minutes before I had to check in for my flight to Cape Town. And the queue at the check out counter was long, I got lost looking for the departure lounge.....it's a miracle I made it onto the flight.

Submissions

The good news is yesterday I sent out a non-fiction book proposal to Oshun Books (parenting, non-fiction) and did a lot of research for the book. Because the subject is something I'm very familiar with, the book proposal was easy to finish and I now have close to 100 pages worth of reports and articles that I can refer to when I do the actual writing.

All I need to do is interview the sources identified in the proposal before I can start writing and that will be very easy to do because they are people I deal with in the course of my work.

The only disheartening thing is that publishers are tough customers to sell to. Some don't even bother replying to proposals from writers.

However, I hope that Oshun Books agrees with me that this book is viable and offers me a contract. It's a subject I'm familiar with, and feel very passionate about.

I also submitted a half completed youth novel to Hibbard Publishing. I know submitting is the job of my agent, but they seemed so perfect for the manuscript, and I am impatient.

Now all I need to do is finish the youth novel I'm submitting for the Sanlam Prize for Youth Literature. Deadline is end of September.

I visited Jane Yolen's web site and she inspired me to keep writing and submitting. The woman is prolific! I want to be just as prolific.