Finally catching up

I have a new freelance record this month -- I have had more stories than I could almost keep up with. Don't get me wrong, it was very exciting and I loved doing it, but there were times that I felt overwhelmed.

Besides my regular weekly story for the Fresno Bee, I took on a couple of extra stories for them. Add to that the stories from World Ag Expo (two to three a day for a week) and my agriculture stories -- 10 stories about the county's top 10 commodities, and some regular stories for the Porterville newspaper -- and we are talking more than 30 articles in one month's time.

But ask me if I love it?

YES!

If I didn't have four children and an elderly mother to look after, I'd jump at the chance of getting back on with my old hometown paper. My editor had stopped by a couple of weeks ago and told me that there was a Features Editor position open as well as a general assignment opening.

I keep telling myself that I am waiting for my magazine-writing career to take off. I'm getting close. I have not heard from Readers Digest about my two submissions, but I did get an interesting offer to write an article for a trade-journal magazine. That is just the beginning!

This will be another busy week for me. I will be covering the California Music Educators Association music festival for three of the four days. I love band and love to cover any band-related stories. Plus, it does not hurt that I will have two daughters performing there too.

I still need to complete three agriculture stories, and I have my first interview for the trade-journal story scheduled on Tuesday.

When it comes to my novel, I have not worked on it much. I'm too busy with everything else. I am going to concentrate on completing all of my current assignments first.

Then I can return to my happy midnight writing!

Oh - one more interesting bit of information. I have signed up for a writers' workshop in Southern California. I'll be gone from April 28th to the 30th. I'm very excited about it.
I thought of going to the Mad Anthony Writer's Conference in Ohio, also in April ( especially since I found a great deal on airflight) but I decided against it since I have several other short trips planned in the next couple of months.