Week 14: In which I reach for the stars

It's been submission central this week and as well as a batch of short stories to magazines I've entered the Orion Books Hometown Tales initiative I mentioned recently, and the Northern Writers' Awards, and applied for a writing gig.

Hometown Tales has two sets of dates depending which website you get the T&Cs pdf from: deadline 31st January, hear by 31st March; deadline 30th June, hear by 31st July. The auto-reply email I got when I sent my submission in didn't give a closing date but it did say I'd hear by September. Your guess is as good as mine, but if I get anywhere with it you can guarantee you'll hear it here first.

It's the second year I've entered the Northern Writers' Awards and it's the second time I've wanted to rewrite my personal statement as soon as I've committed it, despite multiple rewrites along the way. I'm not the only member of Ilkley Writers to have entered, and I know someone who was wishing they could rewrite their synopsis less than 24 hours after hitting Submit. There's always next year.

Scarier by far is the fact that I applied to be writer in residence in a library, this week. Libraries again, eh? Anyone would think I was obsessed. Oh, wait... Seriously though, libraries are important and we forget that at our peril. If you haven't been to your local library recently, make the effort and get there soon.

Meanwhile, I'm off to weep into my tea at the demise of Black Sabbath.