Remaining Undiscovered

For those of you who have been following, the Novelicious Undiscovered competition - a chance to get your female fiction novel noticed - has recently announced the top twenty finalists.

Sadly, my name wasn't among them. I can't say I'm not disappointed. I'd be telling rather a big porky if I did. But I'm trying to focus on the positives. I did make the deadline for the entries, even if it was a bit close, and that, initially was my main goal. Of course, once it was in, the thoughts started to float around of how great it would be to get to the finals. Still, clearly it wasn't to be. I have worked on more of the book since the entry but at the moment, I'm leaning a little bit towards the 'well, it obviously wasn't good enough, so what's the point', but hopefully that will pass. I liked the idea of it, so perhaps it's just a case of giving it some space for the moment before returning to it with a fresh perspective.

I'd love to hear how everyone else got on? Congratulations if you made the finals, and commiserations if you didn't. Either way, do leave me a comment!

Is it me?

Apologies for the delay in this post. Life is definitely on the hectic side and I'm paddling like mad to try and catch up - on everything!

I thought I'd talk about reading today, bearing in mind it's World Book Day. Had it not been chucking it down outside I'd be more inclined to go out and do something fabulous and literary, but instead I'll stay in, keep dry and make my wordy contributions to the day on here.

As you'll see from my Reading List, I recently took down 'Lucky Jim', by Kingsley Amis off the shelf. It has been on the To Be Read shelf for some time now, different shelves, different houses, and different countries, but I finally decided it was that one's turn the other day. I'd been watching My Life in Books on the television and one of the guests chose it. Their opinion was that it was hilarious and that was the idea I'd gathered over the years.

Unfortunately, I didn't find it so hilarious. In fact, I found it rather tedious and boring. The characters weren't appealing and I had absolutely no interest in what they did, or didn't do, with their lives. I slogged on until I was about two thirds of the way through, hoping that I would suddenly 'get into it', but the moment never came. When I've got a book I'm enjoying, I can't wait to get to my 'reading time' but I had no inclination to keep picking up this one, and tended to avoid it if I could. I don't know if it's me, or whether the book has now dated, and its humour with it. Normally, I'd give up on a book I was struggling with earlier than this, but because it's classed as a modern classic, I felt I ought to give it a little more time, but it still didn't help for me. I have noted it's got fairly good reviews on Amazon, so I'm beginning to think it is me. And that's fair enough, but I'd be interested to know your opinion on the book, if you've read it.

Along with that, are there any other 'classics', that you've been looking forward to, or highly recommended, that when it came to it, you just didn't enjoy?

And before I go, good luck to all those handing out the free books today! Happy World Book Day! (oh, and Happy Birthday, Mr Shakespeare too!)

I did it!

I had rather a mad moment yesterday. Pondering over my failure to enter the Novelicious Undiscovered competition, I decided to check the closing date again. I had it in my mind that it was the 3rd of April, and upon going to the website, found that I was right.

But it wasn't actually closed until midnight on that date. So, I had a mad four hours or so of cranking out the extra 2000 words I needed to be able to enter the competition. And I did it! My entry has gone in and I am officially now in the mix.

Enough to say my brain hurt a bit yesterday evening, but I was really chuffed that I'd managed to complete the task I'd set myself.

I'd like to just say thanks to my fellow writing bloggers who mentioned this competition on their various blogs, as I probably wouldn't have been aware of it, if not for them.

Good luck to everyone who has entered this, and any other, competitions lately. I've got my fingers crossed!