Sometimes being ill is OK.

I have a heavy cold and deep, chesty cough. I have locked myself away, hoping it will shift soon as I have a lot on later in the week. The strange thing is that I feel better than I have in a long time.

There have been some major shifts in my thinking recently.  For the first time in my life I’ve been looking at relationships sensibly. This is hard for me to explain but before I’ve felt it was my responsibility to make other people happy.  Often that meant I had friends and relationships where I was the one doing most of the giving while they took.  When those relationships hit rocky patches, I did everything I could to patch them up.  I’ve also felt I needed to ‘buy’ friends. I don’t literally mean with money, at least not all the time, but the way my thinking worked went something like this – I need to make sure they’re getting something from this.. It never occurred to me that anyone might want to spend time with me simply because they LIKED me.  The problem was that I didn’t like myself. Now, at last, finally, I get it. I don’t need everyone to like me. I don’t need to be perfect. I don’t need to put up with relationships of any kind that aren’t working for me.  

Right now, I have a huge hole in my heart. I’ve lost a lover, and some people I thought of as good friends. It was hard letting them go, so hard, I’m still hurting, but it had to be done.  

Someday soon, new people will come along, people who will help to fill that void. I have to say I can hardly wait. 

The photo is  one I sent to Amateur Gardening in exchange for a £10 garden token. 

Back to writing now. This morning I sold THREE Christmas stories to my nest market – Fiction Feast – which keeps my record of selling at least one Xmas a story a year intact.

I’d like to tell you about one of them in particular. It came about thanks to a Writers News/Writing Mag competition with a Christmas theme. I’ve wanted to win one of their competitions for years but once again, instead of entering the comp, where the prize was at most  £200,  I sent it to Fiction Feast where the rewards are greater.

Sometimes I wonder if this is the best thing to do. A win in Writers News would raise my profile, wouldn’t it? But as a working writer, I need to make sure I’m getting the biggest reward available. It’s a shame, but there it is.  

 I’ve had an amazing run of sales recently which is great as it gives me a breathing space. I know I need to write some new stories to make up the numbers but the money from all those sales takes the pressure off. Who knows, I might actually allow myself to do the write a novel in a month thing come November.

I’m not saying it’s a plan though…..