A portrait, two books and seed of an idea

It was raining and after an afternoon of tea and cookies, my neighbour Elaine Laverick Thorne took a photo of me laughing and she used it to do this painting. Now it hangs in my office. Nice, painting, yes? Thank you Elaine.

Here are the writing life highlights for the past two days:

1. The ebook, How to get quoted in the media, brought me a retainer client. We had lunch and he's hiring my company to implement what we talk about in the book. For now, all I can say is, the client is a very nice guest estate in the Northern suburbs of Joburg, Christelle and I toured the facility yesterday and I liked it very much. It's the kind of place I'd want to stay if I was in a foreign city (luxurious but comfortable; a home away from home but much nicer than my own house:-). They have very exciting plans for 2012 that involve kids, and as you might know, kids are a very strong interest for me. So the assignment promises to be fun.

I'm also thinking the place could be a wonderful location for a monthly Children's Book Morning, where various children's authors/publishers can launch their books in a kid-friendly environment, or read their current books for children etc. But the Children's Book Morning is still a lone thought rattling around in my head: it still needs to be fleshed out and a proper plan laid out  and implemented by the right people ( not me. I don't have the capacity). We'll see.

2. Book 6 manuscript came in and I pushed to finish the first leg of my work on it ASAP so it can go into editorial before Christmas.  This puts me a little below the mid-way point through the client publishing project, with 6 more books to go next year. All I can say is, sleeping is starting to sound like a beautiful fantasy.

It's the last working day before the long weekend, and for many South Africans, the last work day until 2012. So enjoy the long weekend and to those who'll mostly be offline for the rest of the year, Happy Holidays!