Hi everyone,

I had a great time in West Cork, writing away. I managed to finish Amy 3: Bridesmaid Blitz (working title), and I’m now working on the second edit. Or I would be if The LOving Kind copy edit hadn’t bounced back to me.

Main points: I did not tell readers the colour of any of my characters’ hair apparently – oops. So I’ve had to go back in and weave through some references to conker-coloured/blackberry/chestnut manes/locks/strands etc.

Also – I used the word snorted a huge amount of times in the book for some strange reason – so I had to tweak all those to she gave a dry laugh/wry smile/chucked etc etc. As my characters are not all horses, snorting too much is not good.

But I’m half way through the copy edit and getting on grand.

Oh and the Bubblegum Club Book Bash was a great success. For pics of the day see David Maybury’s site here:

http://www.davidmaybury.ie/journal/?p=2284

More on the school visits later this week – and tips for writers visiting young readers and writers. I could have done with them when I started out I can tell you. ie bring a whistle and if they get to noisy, use it!!!
(no, I’m not joking!)

SarahXXX

More lovely kids – Castleknock National School today – 4th, 5th and 6th class. Great teachers, nice buzz to the place and they are reading Wilderness by Roddy Doyle in 5th class as their class novel – smart teacher. It’s a great book, one of my favourites – adventure, family drama, cracking writing.

Sarah X

St Damien’s in Walkinstown today – lovely teachers, very polite and nice head teacher, great kids. I talked about my life, how I couldn’t read until I was 9, how my parents never gave up on me, reading to me all the time.

How I was Cinderella in the school play and how I nearly ran off the stage when I stumbled over my first solo. But then I remembered my grampa’s words – Fail. Try again. Fail again. Fail harder. Fail better. So I started again and the next solo after that didn’t seem as difficult.

I told them how my first book, Kids Can Cook was rejected many, many times before it was published. And how even now, as a published writer, ideas for books or short stories or articles are sometimes turned down. Such is the life of a writer.

I enjoyed it just as much as the boys and girls did – the sign of a good school visit.

Sarah X