Write A Romance Novel

Now I know there are many budding romantics out there, some of whom can write, and write well, so if you fancy yourself as someone who can bring true love to the page, well the competition below organised via Circalit might be exactly right for you!

WRITE A ROMANCE NOVEL

Competition closes in: 1 week 4 days

Competition information:

Romeo had Juliet, Bella had Edward, Harry Potter had... well, Ron. Love stories are not only timeless; they are universal. Roughly 50% of all novels sold fall under the Romance category and famous love stories from throughout history have found their way into all our hearts. Finding a story today that is not influenced by romance is a difficult task.

Circalit wants to be swept off its feet - and it turns out we’re not alone. Anna Jean-Hughes, editor at a major international publishing house, is equally keen to read stories that capture the hearts of readers. With this simple desire in mind, we are therefore launching The Circalit Romantic Fiction competition to find romantic reads from Circalit’s best up-and-coming writers.

We are looking for a complete novel that captures the idea of love or romance in an original and insightful way. Whether you’re writing afresh or tweaking something finished, Anna’s curious to see. The novels that receive the best reviews will form a shortlist from which Anna will choose the final winner. The winner will receive a feedback report from Anna worth £120. So pick up that pen/keyboard/harp and get our heart-strings twanging...

Entry Fee: FREE

Host: Anna Jean-Hughes

How the winner will be selected?

The top-rated entries will automatically be shortlisted as voted by the community. Our judges will choose a winner from the shortlist.

Prize: You will win a feedback report on your novel from Random House editor Anna Jean-Hughes.

Rules: Your submission must be your own original work.

You only need to upload the first three chapters of your novel.

All entries will be judged on the strength of the first 3 chapters.

A detailed synopsis must be included with each upload.

Link to enter HERE

Reading Not to be Missed! 19th December 2011

Now I know you are all really busy, being the 'busy time of year', but it is always good to have a little rest and relaxation, along with wonderful readings from some creative folk. 

Which is why you shouldn't miss tomorrow night's readings on Monday the 19th December 2011 at Tallaght Library (7pm).

Kate Dempsey will be reading from her recently published “Dinky” book of poems along with Ann Marie Mullins, Ray Mullen and Trish Best.

You can find Kate here at  Emerging Writer, a brilliant site for keeping you in touch with everything going on in the writing scene.

The Echo Newspaper have been a great support to all the writers who have featured as part of this reading series which has been facilitated by Hennessy Literary Award Winner, Eileen Casey.  You can find out all about the writers, and read some of their work, including myself, here.

Hope to see you there!

Thought for the Weekend - Courage

This week's thought for the weekend from Anne Tucker is short and simple, but very true.

'All art requires courage.'

- Anne Tucker -

New Picture for Writer Profile

My wonderful daughter kindly took photos of yours truly last night, so let me know which you prefer, black and white, or colour?

Thought for the Weekend - Free Will?

Here's something for you to get your teeth into this weekend, nice quote from Scott Adams, plus enjoy this brilliant cartoon sketch from David Hume.

"Free will is an illusion. People always choose the perceived path of greatest pleasure."

 - Scott Adams -

Publication in Revival Literary Journal

Revival is a quarterly Literary Journal which has been home to many wonderful artists over the years.  Last week, I was delighted to hear that my flash fiction piece Role Play forms part of the Oct/Nov/December issue.  The piece was originally created for a guest blog post with Derek at Rant with the Occasional Music, and Friday Flash. 

It is one of five prose pieces in this edition of Revival, along with some wonderful poetry and reviews. 

Please find details regarding submissions for the next publication below:

Revival Literary Journal is calling for submissions from local, national and international poets and writers for the next issue (No.22) which will be published in Limerick, March 2012.

Submissions, poetry and short fiction or extracts (500 words) are now being sought for the next issue, alongside Review and Criticism pieces. They are also interested in receiving black and white images/line drawings for inclusion.

Deadline: Friday 20th January 2012 Hard Copy Submissions should also include a CD disc of the submission.

Send to: The Editor, Revival, Moravia, Glenmore Ave., Roxboro Rd., Limerick.

Email: revival1@eircom.net

Submission guidelines HERE : www.revivalpress.com

What's in a name?

Well actually quite a lot, or so it seems. 

I attended a workshop a couple of months back as part of the RTE Guide/Penguin Short Story Competition, and the whole area of domain names came up.  The advice given was that even if you are not a Famous Writer YET - you should purchase your domain name before someone else does.

Well it made sense and I thought about it, but sadly my name was already gone for the .com URL, and with .com being by far the most popular one, I was pleased at least that it was owned by a lovely photographer, which is way better than an axe murdering weirdo - so no panic.

Anyhow, I decided today (via Blogger) to see if I could get the domain name www.louise-phillips.com and yes I could, so I did.  Now I did all this via @120Socks not realising that over the next few days my blog address will go from http://120socks.blogspot.com to http://louise-phillips.blogspot.com or www.louise-phillips.com 

It looks like most of the information will remain in tact, and there should be no problem as you can still access via either addresses, and  more importantly, visitors will be automatically redirected from the old URL address to the new URL address in about 3 days time - fingers and toes crossed.

However, it would be great if you could amend your blog links to the new one (www.louise-phillips.com/) over the next while. 

Also my entire bloglist seems to have gone off into the galaxies somewhere, so anyone who was on my blog roll and would like to be on my blog role again, please, please send me a comment/tweet or email with your URL address on it, and I will update this manually myself.