Celebrate the small things.

It's Friday. YAY!!! I love Fridays for a whole host of reasons; some examples are...

Last day of school runs; although, I actually escaped school runs, both yesterday and today. (More on that later)

Asda delivers all the scrummy foods to our door that will probably be scoffed up by Wednesday. Nothing good lasts long in this house; although, I do still have chocolate from last week's shopping. That's rare.

And, of course, it's time for Celebrate the Small Things. the awesome blog hop hosted by...

(Drum roll, please. This is actually where I run and grab the lovely link to the host blog, but "drum roll" sounds so much better)

...Viklits writing blog.

So, without further ado, or quick trips to retrieve links, here's what I am celebrating:

Firstly, my son, bless him, or more specifically his complete bravery and the fact that he has not yet developed the ability that, as a man, he will surely develop of turning even the smallest bug into the greatest illness human-kind has ever known. He has a very bad sore throat that is making him lose his voice and making it incredibly hard for him to swallow without pain. He even struggled to eat chocolate buttons yesterday, which is practically unheard of for Kye, who can normally devour them in seconds. Still, instead of rolling over, as most men will, and proclaiming that he is dying, he has instead been soldiering on and staying very upbeat, bar a few little tears yesterday, when it was very sore, bless him. The only change from normal is being a lot more cuddly, a little more sleepy, and sounding like an old man, when he talks, which he is finding quite amusing. He also declared earlier that this was a day we would always remember, because Kye never stops talking and now he nearly has because it hurt too much to talk.

Next on the list is escaping the school run, especially yesterday, when the weather was vile and Kye and I got to go back to bed and snooze away the morning instead. Lovely. We didn't get up until the sci-fi ringtone kicked in on my phone, announcing that my very geeky editor, the lovely Chuck Jolly, had got my text message, asking him to ring me if I wasn't on Skype as normal and wake me up; which he did brilliantly, as he called just in time to get me out of a horrible nightmare I was having.

MY HERO!!

Moving on.....

Another celebration I am having is my recent wins. I won a couple of books from the Jill Robinson series, T. Deckers blog. (If you're reading this T.Decker, could I have them in Mobi please? I do intend to email you about it; just haven't had time yet, but thought I might be able to cheat this way, lol.) 

And, as if that wasn't enough, I also won another couple of books thanks to the lovely Milo James Fowler and his blog. 

 

Those books are: 

Redshirts, by John Scalzi, and The Sheriff of Yrnameer, by Michael Rubens.

So, a big thank you to both of them for hosting their awesome competitions and giving me a little something extra to celebrate this week. 

The next celebration is again thanks to the lovely Milo James Fowler and one of the books I won from him. It is the celebration of trying something new and that's what I did when I read Redshirts, as it's really not my normal genre and something I wouldn't even normally bother to look at; but, I picked it up yesterday, when it arrived, and finished it this morning. That's why I was a little later than normal getting my celebration post up. I actually quite enjoyed it and it has now left me a little more open to this genre and that's never a bad thing; so, thank you again, Milo. I also did a review, which, if you are interested, you can check out here. if I got the link right, lol. Let me know if I didn't, and I'll try again. 

My final celebration and this might be a little premature, but I am going to celebrate it anyway, because positive thinking does work (please please let positive thinking work); I have signed up to read the ARC for Dangerous Depths, by the oh-so-awesome Karen Amanda Hooper, who wrote the first book in this series Tangled Tides. If you have not read Tangled Tides, what the hell are you waiting for? Go get it, now! It's awesome! I have waited for Dangerous Depths for what feels like forever, so to be one of the first mere mortals to read it would be epic. Please, please keep everything crossed for me. If you loved Tangled Tides, too, and want to sign up for the ARC you can do so here.

So, those are my celebrations. What are you celebrating this week?

 

Love and hugs, Joss xx

P.S. OK, I lied. There were more trips to run and get links, quite a few of them actually; so my bad. :)

P.P.S  If you are reading this and it is still full of epic fails (due to my rushing) then the awesome CJ has not yet edited it, and it is more a reflection of why I need him than a sign that he is a terrible editor; he really isn't. If you are reading this pre-edit you can see just how much work I give him. So, Yay CJ!

Journalling

I have become a huge fan of Journalling, something that until the end of last year, was an ability I had been unable to grasp.
I love writing, have since I was quite young, and refused to let anything hold me back, even being told I was dislexic didn't stop me.
WOW!!!! I wish I still had that kind of motivation now.
See the thing is I have taken a lot of knocks and blows in my life, and been left feeling less than perfect.
So much so, that I had started to believe that it was better not to try, and thus never fail, than it was to give things everything I had.
You see I had the idea that as people already seemd to be of the oppinion that what ever I tried I would fail at, it was easier, to just not try, at least that way I couldn't hear I told you so.
Ok so reality check, they were proberly still saying that anyway.
Recently my confidence was boosted when I won the Mibit compatition, and got two short stories published in magazines.
Oh my god, I never cried so hard, and I don't think I have ever experieced shock like that, I truely believed that my Mibit would simply be cast to the trash can, so when I saw the email that said, I Jossie Marie Solheim had won, my heart nearly stopped.
And the tears were unleashed, and for the first time in a long time, I wanted to call my family members, I wanted to tell them what I had achieved.
I think, that was when I realised just how badly my family had distroyed my faith in myself.
How other people had destroyed my faith in myself.
I needed that win more than I had ever needed anything in my life, and it really boasted my confidence, so much so that I went on to send out two short stories, both of which were accepted straight away.
I hadn't sent much out in my life in an attempt to get accepted and certainly not for a long time, and so to have a win in the Mibit and then both of my short storys accepted, was a real boost, and encouraged me to dive into my Novel once more, and so Insane Reno grew and grew, it all just seemed to be moving so fast, and then the panic set in.
I had started to doubt myself again, I could see Insane Reno nearing compleation and I was getting scared of failure again, and so I stopped dead in my tracts.
refused to touch it, refused to look at it, certain that it was terrible.
I'm picking it up again now, slowly, the break helped in a sense, because having a break from it, and coming back to it again, made me realise that actually it really wasn't that bad at all, and dare I say it, pretty good.
Ok, honesty time, I'm really not a fan of tooting my own horn to strangers lol, but I was reading and I was thinking, wow, I wrote this.
It's so silly because I know I can write, I have been told that time and time again, by my tutors from the Writers (oh blah, and can not spell that word, lol. I'll just guess at it and hope you figure it out) buero, from people in writers groups, and so on and so fourth.
And I have sent out five things, (I know thats bad) and only had 1 rejection, (not so bad) lol.
That has to say something right.
So I've started working on the final draft of Insane Reno, and it really doesn't need much work, but I really do have to push through that fear of failure, after all, if I fail because I gave up, and didn't try, I'm only hurting myself.
So, tomorrow I will be working on cleaning up chapter 11.
I'm gonna set myself an easy target, aim for tiding up, just the one chapter, and anything else is a bonus.
Oh, I should probably add, that I will be trying other methords to keep me going, and if anyone who reads this plays secondlife, then I would be greatfull for your help with this part.
I have opened in world a small writers Cafe called, Jumpin' Jitters writers cafe, I don't know if you'd be able to find it easily in world, as I only finished setting it up today.
But if you search for my avatar jossie Tyrellium, in search and look at my profile picks there is a link to it there.
Ok, I should probably tell you how you can help, Well, quite simply come along, and write with me, I don't mean Insane Reno, but work on your own novels, your own creative pieces, or poems, I've tried to put stuff out to help inspire.
And even if your not a writer, there is an area set up for chatting and sipping virtual coffee and a reading area, where you can click for a selection of classic story's.
We also have a picture prompt each day for poetry, so there's lots to see and do.
And I love to see you :)
Plus, I've found it really does help get me in the writing mood when I see other people hard at it.
So come along, share some ideas, and meet me in world.
thanks for reading
love and hugs
Joss xxx