I'm BACK!

First of all – apologies are in order. I haven’t quite dared look at the date but I suspect it is over a year since I wrote my last blog. Shame on me. I think my ‘excuse’ would be an absolutely tumultuous twelve months which is far too boring to go into on here and generally being sidetracked by my children and my life. So before I go too much further perhaps an update is in order? And I’m going to drop the pseudonyms that I was using and go with my children’s real names; I’m far more au fait with the internet now and therefore less paranoid.

So, Molly is now almost nine, which makes me feel frighteningly old, and Alice is three and a half. And just to remind everyone Alice has a genetic abnormality called 22q11 deletion, or Di George Syndrome in its most severe form, which Alice doesn’t have. She’s been at our local pre-school for the last year and her development is staggering. At this stage she has absolutely no problems whatsoever and in fact is advanced in some areas, which is so far beyond our wildest dreams as to seem implausible. I forget the statistics but the chances of Alice having no development problems at all are very small, and yet this is where we seem to be. And all the medical advice that we’ve received seems to be that if she has no problems at this stage then in all probability she never will. She’s progressed very well at the pre-school and with this in mind we’ve decided to take a giant leap and start her at Molly’s school in September, which is a private one, and see how she fares in a slightly different environment. This will then enable us to make the best decision for her education before she starts Reception in September 2011.

And actually Molly started at a new school a month before the end of the summer term. She had been due to move in September but the situation became untenable so we were forced to move her early. The school concerned apparently decided to stop giving lessons, for reasons known only to itself. Instead during the summer term the children were doing quadruple PE lessons, excessive amounts of drama and having five playtimes a day. The core subject lessons disappeared into the mist and when you’re paying for this privilege it does tend to grate slightly. When questioned the school said “We’re winding down for the summer.” That’s all very well but I am not prepared to pay £1000 for my child to ‘wind down’. So she was moved sharpish to the new school where, I’m happy to report, such novelties as enforced timetables are to be found.

And – I can’t hold it in any longer – my biggest news is that I finally have a publishing contract!!!!!!!!!! After five years, a few false starts, half-finished manuscripts and more rejections than I can count I was on the verge of giving up completely when a letter arrived in the post saying that a certain publishing house would indeed like to publish my manuscript. They aren’t the biggest in London but you know what – beggars cannot be choosers. My book is called Things He Never Knew  (all the details can be found at www.sarahhaynes.me.uk) and it falls right into the ‘women’s fiction’ category. It will be released on 24^th September this year, which is tremendously exciting. It is also proof that you should never, ever give up on your dream. So I shall be able to document on here in detail the rocky road from being accepted to actually being published. And so far it has not been easy………

Next time: organising my launch party. I have an idea for a venue, an idea about the guest list but I also have that most irritating of things – a budget. How to combine all three….