I miss the chickens.
I miss their morning clucking, the sound they made when they were
laying, the boasting that happened afterwards and the crooning when they found
their favourite patch of grass in the sun.
I also miss their eggs. Each
chicken laid differently – at different times of the day, yes, but they also
had very distinctive eggs too. Poppy’s
eggs were renown for having light yellow yolks, thin membranes and HUUUUGGGE
shells. Ruby’s were medium, had darker
yolks, Speckled Gemima’s were small, spreckled and firm. They were ideal for poaching, whereas Poppy
and Ruby’s eggs were best fried.
Someday I’ll get chickens again. I certainly don’t miss de-icing their water
every morning in the winter, or finding red mites in the summer (evil things). The darkest part of hen keeping is when they
get ill. Commercial hens have been bred
to produce eggs at a high rate – an unnaturally high rate. It takes its toll on them and their life span
is lucky to be three years. I know some
keepers who’ve got chickens that last 20 years and up, but this is not the
norm… those are superchicks! The cost of
feed has also hit the roof, making hen keeping more of an expensive hobby
rather than a slice of the good life.
That, has got to be all this rain that keeps threatening crops…
Which brings me to the allotment. I’ve got my seeds ready, the ground is
prepped… it’s time soon to start work.
Just as soon as this cold weather lets up and this heavy drench peters
out. Icy swamps are not good for
growing!
And despite having promised life a slowed down pace… I ended
up sending a mass of submissions out and am getting acceptances! It’s amazing and I’m so excited, but it also
means more work and manic writing. I’ve
re-started my non-fiction writing as it’s nice to have a trickle of income
(even though the per-hour rate is about 10cents an hour). But it’s nice to have a reconnection with
other writers and post interviews of their successes.
So on to my accepted submissions… Firstly, I’m working on
and with an amazing charity anthology for
Springbok Publications – the new
small press that will be highlighting the plight of the African Black Rhino and
all proceeds will go to that charity.
I’ll have a teen fiction slant on my story (I’ll also be submitting a
poem) which brings me to the fact that I’ve had a lightning moment and I KNOW
MY GENRE.
I’m a teen fiction writer (hear
my friends say, ‘duh!’) although I do also write for children (and the child at
heart).
No more horror, no more
steampunk attempts, no more random submissions for women’s magazines.
It’s all about children’s and YA fiction with
a slant on the edgy and dark side.
Okay, okay, I’m rambling again. Back to accepted submissions. My non-fiction Three Victorian Women in
Asylum is also being taken on by Springbok and I’m going to do my darnedest to
help promote it by writing a series of articles and sending them out to (don’t
groan) women’s magazines (so, I may not be writing fiction for them, but a good
article is different ;) I still have to
finish the draft and pay for the photos of the women (in archive at the moment)
but I expect to have it ready by October this year (not the release date, but
the date I send it to my publisher).
Next on the list (whew! getting tired already and there is
still much more to cover) which is I’ve had my stories accepted with provision
to bookstogonow.com which is a fabulous small press that helped my friend and
fellow writer
Tim Reed reach bestselling proportions.
As they no longer publish individual short
stories, I’ve sent them a collection of teen dark fiction – two have been
previously published so they might want fresh new ones and I don’t want to
chuck my ‘wrong genre’ unpublished stories in with the goodies I sent them
earlier.
So we’ll see.
The real up note on this is that I think
they’ll be interested in Downtrodden, my latest teen (well 15+ due to some
graphic scenes – I’ve posted snippits of this book on previous blogs) fantasy
novel.
Did I say I missed the chickens? I could use their calming company. Aside from all the writing tasks I’ve given
myself, I also am developing a line of wedding and engagement rings for
Seadrake Creations. I’ll start them from
cast silver and have prices up for gold and platinum if people would prefer one
metal over the other. Then, and here is
the exciting bit… customers can choose their stone so they know exactly what
they’re getting (unless they want me to pick one out – oooh like a dark, dark
ocean blue brilliant cut sapphire… drool).
I’ve found that working with my hands keeps my head from
spinning new stories and is the most relaxing thing around. That, and going to craft fairs is a wonderful
day out which involves being computer free.
Bliss.
Well, I think that right about wraps things up.
I’ve got my suite101 articles going again,
but I may jump ship to helium as suite is yet again changing things and is very
vague about whether writers will be getting any money at all for their
work.
Ah well, at least I got a few good
interviews in ;)
ttfn!
