Life is accelerating

Annoying - I''ve just typed several paragraphs of entry here, and somehow lost it! That''s my brand-new computer teaching me who''s boss. Certainly not me! I hate learning to use new equipment, and this MacAir with its brand-new updated version of Word is going to drive me, screaming, into an early grave.

Certainly it''s been a busy six weeks here since I last wrote in this column. Trying to get In Search of Anna published is my major project, and several things at the Salisbury Writers Festival were heartening. I did a ''Five Minute Pitch'' to an agent, who seemed interested and has asked to see the whole manuscript, also a publisher''s rep who was very encouraging. Fingers crossed but no chickens being prematurely counted. I guess I went into both those a bit more confidently having won two awards in the Festival - a short listed Commendation in the poetry section and First Place in the Short Story - a lovely bit of reassurance before making the pitch!

Apart from that things are moving close to the book launch for Of Llamas and Piranhas - less than three weeks away now. I have some PR set up, radio interviews and scheduled reviews in journals, but that is now occupying a lot of my time. With David away for four weeks studying Gaelic in Ireland on a scholarship for an immersion course, I have - in some ways - more free time, but in others less. We''ve been keeping in touch with email and text and phone calls - but I''ve also been charting the time in a daily poem called A Non-traveller''s Diary. Which has been fun - but won''t be for publication! That plus a few short stories has been the total of my writing production in these weeks. Everything IS accelerating!