Penguin Accepting Unsolicited Manuscripts

For three months Penguin Books (United Kingdom) is accepting unsolicited manuscripts from writers. The three month period will last until the end of October 2010. If they like your book, they will publish it regardless of where you live.

 Email your synopsis and brief introductory note to submissions@uk.penguingroup.com before the end of October 2010.  

Go to the website for details, but here is a brief synopsis.  Thanks to Rick at IWW for this.

“We ask that email submissions comprise a brief covering note and synopsis andnot a full manuscripts. Please do not send attachments, please write out your cover note and synopsis in the body of the email. We remain unable to accept hard copy submissions and will not return or be responsible for the safety of any that we do receive, so please do not send any original or hard copy manuscripts to us. We will not contact you with feedback on your submission and will only enter into email correspondence with you if an editor within Penguin is keen to progress your idea.”

Good luck with your submissons!  I'm off to email mine.

Achieving Goals

August 8, 2010

In May I decided I'd had enough of being out of shape, having the arteries of a 66 year old woman, and none of my clothes fitting.  I finally set my mind to do something about it and made it a priority.  I am now back in my clothes, 15 pounds lighter and much more muscular.  My cholesteral, previously 328 is now normal.  All in less than three months after whining for three years about how hard it is to write and stay fit.

My writing did suffer.  I wrote two novels in a little over a year and now my writing is much slower. But life is better.

So what now?  Setting goals seems to work for me.  I am determined to send out queries for Deceptions, keep my fitness level and maybe improve it, run a 5K in September, and start another book.

But more than that, I want to be kinder to this world.  Each week I want to do something, no matter how small, to make the world a better place.  So I'm going to focus on that for a while, until it's part of my routine.  First I'll need to be more mindful of opportunities. Routine daily actions like recycling count. But I can only count it once for the week.

I'm also ready to have more experiences.  I have so many blessings and I don't need any more material things.  I need to sell or give away some of what I have.  But as the New York Times pointed out today, happiness lie in relationships and experiences.  I can have more of both if I spend less, work less.  That's where I'm headed.