Celebrate the Small Things - 1/Feb

Time to Celebrate the Small Things!

The instructions are simple: sign up, post something to celebrate, hop around and cheer on others, bask in warm glow. Full instructions and badge here.

This week I am celebrating:

Going to my Boxercise class. I missed it for a couple of weeks and it's so fun. I recommend punching away as stress relief and good exercise (not people obviously. PADS.)

Going out for a nice dinner with boyf and his visiting brother!

Completing line edits on 6 chapters of the MS being revised. I WILL get to the end.

It being FEBRUARY.

I would also like to celebrate ALL OF YOU for signing up and joining in. It really does cheer me so. I hope you are getting cheer out of it too!

What are you celebrating?

Check out everyone on the hop:

YA Highway RTW: Road Trip!

It is time for Road Trip Wednesday at YA Highway and the question is: What's the most dramatic road trip you've ever been on?

I don't know about dramatic, but a Road Trip that sticks in my mind is a trip to Italy with three of my girlie friends from work, probably more years ago now than I want to add up.

We drove to Monaco, along the coast into Italy, and ended up at Lake Como. We were fairly new friends then, and that trip was a trip where we sang along loud to 'Can't Take My Eyes Off You', attempted to speak Italian to cute waiters, gambled in Monaco and lost, and generally giggled and laughed. We had to cut going to Pisa because we'd been COMPLETELY over-ambitious with how much driving we'd get done in a day. I have still never been to Pisa.

The four of us are still a tight friendship square now, among my very best friends (even though one of us doesn't live in the UK anymore).

One thing we did do, was take part in a Festival, which involved a torchlit procession. We discovered that giving clumsy ole' me a NAKED FLAME is a VERY BAD IDEA. I nearly set fire to the trees. To my friend's hair. To my own hair. My torch was eventually confiscated for my own safety. To this day if we are in a restaurant with a naked candle, they move it out of my way.

Which is probably a good thing.

So: the Girls in Italy. How about you?

Re-Introduce Myself BlogHop

Today I am taking part in the Re-Introduce Myself Blogfest! 

Details and links of the other blogs taking part in the, well, link.

So. My name is Vikki.

Please allow me to (re-)introduce myself 
I'm a woman of (not much) wealth and (I’d like to think some) taste 
I've been around for (I’m not telling you how many) years
Stole (my boyfriend’s heart)
And I was round when …

Okay I can’t keep this up. Rolling Stones I salute you and your song lyrics.

How about...

I'm a writer, I'm a fish-keeper,

I'm a lover and I'm a bag buyer.

I write my words in the evening.....

This isn't working either. Steve Miller Band, I salute YOU.

I'm a Londoner, a thriller writer (mostly YA), a 9-5 worker. I enjoy Revenge and Supernatural and any TV Show with superpowers or aliens in it, pretty much. I'll be excited when the new Star Wars comes out, however foolish that may turn out to be. I like to chat about writing. I'm just getting into Twitter though I've been on it a while. I am part of the Writer Diaries.
This year I'm aiming to be positive. I'm Celebrating the Small Things on a Friday, because I think they're worth celebrating.
I like meeting new people, and getting to know more about those I do know, so please - re-introduce yourself in the comments!

Celebrate the Small Things

Hello Everyone and it's time to Celebrate the Small Things! YAY.

Thank you to everyone who joined in last week and who signed up to join in this week. That is certainly a not small thing I am celebrating. :)

Full instructions including link to the badge are here but in a tasty nutshell: post something to celebrate, hop around and say YAY , WOO, TWIRL to others, feel cheery.

This week I am celebrating:

Starting to get over a bad cold - feeling a bit more human and am sure it'll soon be gone!
Going to my local writing group and feeling encouraged as ever by the company of some awesome writers.
Eating lots of chocolate! : ) (Can't cut it out every week after all.)

I have also spied around some of your blogs and seen these things to celebrate:

Julie's Cover Reveal - how beautiful is that? (And now we're veering into BIG THING to celebrate territory but I wanted to put it in!)
Tara going to an awesome Bookfest - Fun
Jessica going to a local writing group for the first time - YAY so worth it!
Julia not getting chickens - sounds like the right choice for her ;)

In other parts of the blogosphere:
Kyra Lennon and Clare Dugmore both celebrate one year blogaversarys! Not a small thing at all but a BIG THING.

I'm sure I've missed lots of ace celebratory things and apologies if I have.

Have a good weekend everyone!

Here's the list of all the participating blogs - please do visit and congratulate others! I'll be popping round later ;)

YA Highway: Funny Business

Hello! Today am posting for YA Highway's Road Trip Wednesday.

The question is: who is your favorite comedian or funny book and/or movie?

I found this difficult. I clearly don't read enough comedy and so I ask you to rec me a funny book! For my part I think Meg Cabot and Kiersten White are people who write with a lovely, light touch and with humour present. My friend Ellie Phillips genuinely makes me giggle too and has a brilliant writing style.

Otherwise, I struggle to think. Please do rec me!

For my part, comedians I like include Eddie Izzard - I've seen him live and he was very funny. 

I went to see Chris Addison and he was also brilliant. The first part of his set was 'up to date' comedy - it was around the time the Chilean Miners were being rescued and he did a whole bit on them. I was impressed that he'd obviously had to come up with it quite quickly.

I'm going to go for a TV Show rather than a movie and say I love the stylings of The Big Bang Theory. It genuinely makes me laugh out loud and I think Jim Parsons deserves all the plaudits he gets.

I am now going to search out some comedy! What do you find funny?

Do you keep a diary? Is that your blog?

This weekend a group blog I am part of launched called: The Writer Diaries.

I join a group of awesome ladies - all far more fabulous than I - and am excited to be part of it. Please do check it out, and let us know what you think. We aim to share our innermost thoughts on the journey to publication, we write for a mixture of age groups, and would love you to come join us.

There are several group blogs around, all of which perform a wonderful function and all I hope is that people will add us to their visits and that we can find our own wee niche.

Being part of this has made me wonder: do you keep a diary? Do you consider your blog your diary? Do you have a 'private' blog where you record your thoughts? I read lately that 83% of today's teenagers still keep a paper diary. I find that fascinating, because I'm sure if most of us were writing a 'diary style' book we might wonder if that should be a blog. But people still keep private thoughts, private.

So I ask you: do you keep a diary? Is your blog enough of an outlet?

I don't keep any sort of diary or journal. I'd like to, but between blogging/tweeting/facebooking/writing I don't know how I'd find the time.

Would love to know what you think. Would also love to know what you make of The Writer Diaries - anything you'd particularly like to see?

Celebrate The Small Things

Welcome to the first

Celebrate The Small Things! 

Full instructions are here but in a nutshell:
Sign up. Post a small thing to celebrate, congratulate others via the linky list, and be congratulated!

This week I am celebrating:

Not having chocolate for the whole week (NO MEAN FEAT)
Revising 3 Chapters of my WIP (HURRAH!)
Catching up on my TV Shows (BECAUSE IT MAKES ME HAPPY).

Whatever you have achieved this week, be it tidying a drawer or getting a recipe right, or completing a critique for a friend, CONGRATS. BIG HUGS!

*TWIRLS YOU AROUND AND DIPS YOU*
*DANCES YOU AROUND THE ROOM*

*Runs out of capitals*

What are you celebrating?