This is just going to be a short one, I haven’t been posting a lot because I’ve been spending a lot of time doing, well, other stuff.

What is this other stuff? You may ask. Well, I have submitted my NaNoWriMo manuscript to a couple of publishers for consideration, so I’m quite pleased with myself for that – it may get rejected and if it does I think I might rewrite it. I feel like the story is good, and some of the passages are good, but there are a few bits which need some love.

I have also entered this same manuscript into the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for an Unpublished Manuscript. This award even has real money as the first prize! I had to print off three bound copies of the manuscript and drop it off to them, I thought it was terribly quaint. It did make it feel a bit more real, I’d written a book, when I saw the slab of paper on my desk with my name on it.

The third thing I’ve done is entered the Monash University Undergraduate Prize for Creative Writing. This one is a short story competition, which also has prize money! I wrote the story several weeks ago and I find it interesting that I can really feel the influence of the people I’ve been reading lately in it. In particular Poppy Z Brite’s novel Lost Souls and Hamlet.

I will keep you all updated on my progress – I doubt very much that I’ll win any of these, or indeed get published, but hey, you don’t win things unless you enter, and you don’t get published unless you start submitting to publishers (or self publishing) so it’s all valuable experience right? As always if it doesn’t turn out it’s all good material!

I’ve also been taking lots of photos of my food recently, so I will leave you with two to make you jealous:

This was baked eggs with spinach, olives, feta and some of the most glorious bread I’ve had for a long time. I had this at Riverland on the Yarra in Melbourne.
This one, while yes I admit, is not technically food was last night before seeing an excellent selection of live acts at the Thornbury Theatre.