Where's your sanctuary?

Being a writer means that ideally, I'd love to spend an hour or two to myself each day. Unfortunately, that never happens. I'm sure each and every one of you knows how it feels to have deadlines, and to have a million and one other things demanding your attention at the same time.
But sometimes a girl just needs a break, and if I'm having a tough day the best thing I find is just to get out the house, come rain or shine. I'm so lucky to live within walking distance of a beach, and there I find my sanctuary. There is nothing quite like listening to the waves to clear your head, and every time I go down there I'm swamped by memories of many carefree years spent there.
The beach to me is also a place of endless inspiration, whether its quite or busy, hot or stormy, there just seems to be stories waiting for me at the beach just itching to be told. I never leave the beach feeling sad or down, and so it isn't that surprising that in times past, the sea was believed to be a place of healing.
But my personal relationship with the seaside had me thinking about where other people go to find a bit of peace and quite, I'm sure we all have a special place, and I'd love to hear about anybody else's.

So much to do...

...so little time.
I have really been feeling this over the last couple of weeks. June and July have been a bit of a mad rush, but I think I've finally started to get things under control. It is an amazing experience to be working with such a good editor, in a short space of time I've already learnt so much about the way I write and how that could be improved.
I have finally submitted all that I wanted to submit, even if it was a little later than expected, I hope this will give me some time now to really concentrate on my next novella, because this is the one I'm the most excited about.
Outside of my writing life, I really don't know why I chose to do the only summer module of my degree the summer that I was having a baby, because trying to concentrate on studying when you feel like a zombie is not as easy as I thought it was going to be.
It's a good job I'm the kind of person who just loves to be busy! Even so, I'm glad my assignments are out of the way so that at least I have a month or so to really knuckle down and get some writing done. I'm really excited about my next novella. I'll keep you posted on how things progress!

Perfectionist!

I had thought that the moment I got my first book contracted, submitting my manuscripts would get a lot easier.
I could not have been more wrong. I have had this manuscript ready to go for weeks, but now it's come to it, I keep re-reading it, and having to re-write huge chunks of it... it seems I have become a perfectionist, or perhaps I am just delaying sending it because I'm now terrified it won't be up to scratch.
Either way, I have now given myself a deadline, and then I will be sending it to the publisher for better or for worse! So keep your fingers crossed for me : )