Last year and during the holidays I was busy busy busy writing and editing and entering competitions and submitting short stories and poems to magazines etc and…
… all my hard work and effort has finally paid off!!!
I thought I would share my excitement with you all 🙂
It all started towards the end of last year when I received an email from Georgie at Creative Kids Tales to say that I had received 2nd place in their “Spread Your Wings” story writing competition! I won a manuscript appraisal by Dee White which was fantastic. With her helpful suggestions and guidance I was able to cut out all the waffle, improve the setting and characters and ‘show’, not ‘tell’.
Then, in another email, Georgie asked if I would like to be the emerging author for February on the Creative Kids Tales Website so of course I said a big “YES PLEASE!” to that.
Just recently I heard back from New Frontier Publishing that my manuscript was unsuccessful, however, it has been selected by Little Steps Publishing who offer partnership-publishing. I’m not familiar with this term and am yet to research it further. Would love to hear from anyone who knows about partner-publishing (the pros and cons) or has had a book published this way.
I also entered many of the Positive Words Magazine monthly short story competitions and a couple of my stories have been shortlisted which is great encouragement. It’s also a lot of fun and a challenge trying to write a short story with a particular key-word in 100 words or less!
And last but not least, the micro-fiction story I entered in the Short and Twisted writing competition (mentioned on Little Rockets) has been chosen for their Short and Twisted 2013 Anthology. Yay!
So, goals this year – keep working hard and aiming high and try to do just as well, if not better!! Hope my roll of good luck continues. How’s your writing going so far and what are your plans and goals for the year?
Creatopath 
Rachel that is fantastic to read and hear. Good on you and yes, it’s brilliant when all your hard work suddenly seems to pay off over night; but of course we know it’s not quite that simplistic! Congrats again on the comp wins and placings. All helps terribly in moving you forward and fining tuning your writing not to mention confidence. Dee is a marvel and whiz at helping one focus on what not to focus on and generally write better. I love her comps and advice always. I received an offer from Little Steps via NF too a few years back for a pb ms. I was very excitied but did not take up the offer then as it involved up front fees which unfortunately at the time, I was not able to commit to. I have known one or two authors, of pbs who have chosen this path and while not stricly vanity publishing, is something I have yet to undertake owing to circumstance. The quality of the work from what I’ve seen is excellent and in all ways like that of a traditional legacy publisher, major diff is you choose a project priced package to suit your budget and requirements and pay for it prior to publication.
Lastly yea ha for Short and Twisted 2013! And congrats again. One of my ‘super’ short stories for kids was accepted too. I can’t wait to have a read of this year’s anthology 😀 sounds like it’s shaping up to be a good one 😉 Keep up your tremendous work. It’ll be one of your launches I’m going to next!!
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Thanks for the info on the partnership-publishing. I will have a look on the Little Steps website and see what sort of costs are involved.
That’s great news that your short story was accepted too for the Short and Twisted anthology. Congrats!
So, what are you working on now?
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Hi RAch, refining pb mss, drafting new chapter books and generally trying to write every day 🙂
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Hi Dimity, How’s the writing going? Doing some everyday? I saw your message on facebook about how one of your stories has been accepted by an overseas children’s magazine. Congratulations! That’s very exciting. Then I just opened an email about the CYA conference and you’re one of the starring authors! Your name is popping up everywhere.
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Hi Rachel, I know a bit crazy hey? but in a lovely way. My problem now is that I have loads I want to write and have to write but less and less time to write it! Usual story I guess. Life has been a bit tricky other than that but we keep on keeping on. It sounds like a more productive year for you too. Wishing you continued best wishes and success. Dimity x
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Congratulations Rachel, so so happy for you right now 😀 You really have been on a roll!
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Congratulations… 😀
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Rachel, congratulations on your successes, this is really exciting for you! I love your blog design 🙂 I am now a follower so I can see how your progressing, it’s very inspiring.
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Thanks for visiting my blog and leaving a message, Suzanne. I applied for the ASA mentorship program but just received an email today saying that my application was unsuccessful. Oh well, there’s always next year! Will try some other competitions throughout the year. How is your writing going?
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