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Hi all,

Sorry I missed the catch up last week, my monitor died and I had a devil of a time trying to get my laptop hooked up to the net, I eventually gave up before I threw everything out of the window.   Ah, well got another monitor so alls well that ends well.  I have finished my first edit, and am rather pleased with the end result.  Will do another read through this week to ensure I've fixed up everthing as best I can. 

Went to the SCBWI meeting and spoke to some of the published writers there.  Their advice was to not waste my money on a manuscript appraisal and to get my ms out to the publishers as soon as it was ready.  Their motto, keep on trying.  I guess that has to be every writers motto until they're established, eh?

I'm still umming and arring over a manuscript appraisal though, so I did the next best thing to sending my ms out, I sent a query email to Random house!  

I checked their website yesterday and usually they state that they don't take unsolicited manuscripts without a manuscript appraisal but low and behold the conditions had changed and they now accept a query email for unsolicited work! Fingers crossed they like my query enough to ask for the manuscript. I'll continue to stress about my ms being up to scratch until then! 

 And what better way to take my mind off the whole thing?  Ms number two!  I'm itching to get started on it, hopefully next week. 

I think that's all of my news for now.  Happy writing everyone!

Claire x

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All the best Clarea in getting your manuscript into a publisher! I'm a long way off from doing anything like that yet. I'm still in my first draft, 100 pages long and lots more to go! I had a busy week, so not as much writing done as I would have liked. I'll work to do more this week. Cheers Ebony.

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"The world is not enough..." James Bond 007

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Very well done, Clairea. It feels so good to be proactive, doesn't it? I think you've done yourself a huge favour even if Random doesn't ask to see the mss but we'll all keep our fingers crossed for you. I've had a mixed up week but I've managed to stick to my word count. About 33,000 words to go now and the new mss will be ready. F

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Good on you Clairea. It will be exciting when one of the group gets to be published I will keep my fingers crossed for you. Well I have had a shocker of a month. Work has been beyond ridiculous. I have had to make a several trips to Brisbane and Sydney and thought great what better time to get either some editing done or more done on #2 while stuck in a plane but all I ended up doing is having my head stuck in training manuals arghhhh. However because of the long hours at work at least once I get all the training done I'm having a couple of weeks off so hopefully then I can catch up. I have already warned the family that the do not disturb sign is going to be on the door. I think the worse part is no#1 feels like I am so close to being done and ideas for #2 are running think and fast just at the moment but there just doesn't seem to be enough hours in the day. But then again once I get time back into a routine of getting my daily word count done I can guarantee I am going to enjoy being able to write again.

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Good for you Clairea, and good luck!

I've been plugging along quite slowly this week. The patch I'm working on at the moment requires more rewrite than edit, just to bring it more in line with some things that happen near the end. On the bright side, the first-draft writing is smoothing out as I go along so for the bits I don't need to replace it's much easier than the first couple of chapters. I'm currently buried under pages of handwritten stuff though because I've had computer issues (hence my lateness). Fortunately my usb stick saved the day so there were no catastrophic losses.

Hope you all have a great week.

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Morning all!!

Apologies for my tardiness - there's no internet 100kms north of Ceduna.

Well done, Clairea and best of luck.  Here's hoping that the first ms from one of our group members finds its way onto the shelves soon. It'll be champers all round when that happens!

Ahhhh, the good old USB stick saves the day!!  Lesson for all of us in that one - back your work up everyday.

Not a good writing week unfortunately.  I've been getting up early but it's been to work rather than to the writing desk.  It will slow down again, but not for another month or so and I'm just going to have to be patient till then.

Md