Melissa Lawrence

Hi everyone. The summer seems to have gone on strike, doesn't it? I'm sitting here with the central heating on as there is a definite Autumnal nip in the air, possibly because it is the early hours of the morning. Actually, it was more like a Wintery nip when I opened the front door a few minutes ago to fetch the milk in. I'm surprised there wasn't a dash of snow on my red-top. Maybe the summer is having a mid-life crisis, (if summers have lives) which is something I feel like I'm going through at the moment, especially with my writing. It's probably been going on for months but seemed to really kick in when I decided to start sorting out all my unpublished work, namely my large collection of short stories, my eight children's novels and my three collections of children's poetry. I'm not sure what made me do it although worrying about the weight of the filing cabinet on my office floor was probably a factor. I don't think it was the best ti

Hi everyone. I hope you've had a good couple of weeks and managed to get lots of writing done. I'm pleased to say that things have improved quite a bit since my last post  Coping With Criticism  in which I described how a "mauling" of the sample copy of my proposed non-fiction book with the strong link to Downton Abbey by a literary agent, had badly affected my confidence in the material. Thanks to a surprising act of "serendipity" (obviously the Universe hasn't quite given up on the project yet), I was given the opportunity to send the proposal and sample copy to my writing colleague author Dr Sheila Glasbey who writes under the pen name of  Rosalie Warren . Rosalie is an experienced editor and qualified proof-reader as well as the published author of several novels and scientific works. She runs her own editing, proofreading and critique service which you can find out about at http://www.affordable-editing.com/ Rosalie sent her comments back al