Have Rich Teas got weaker?

I only ask because I pride myself in knowing the magic dunking time for most biscuits. But (and it's doing terrible things for my self-esteem), twice in as many days have I lost a signficant portion of a rich tea into my cup of hot brown. Granted these are the Spar own-brand variety as opposed to the Rich Tea standard that is McVities, but I assumed that, like computers, shampoo and cars, they're all pretty much made in the same factory anyway.

So the question is, have the universal Rich Tea manufacturer (lets call him God) changed the recipe so that the O.D.T. (Optimal Dunking Time) has been radically altered?

Or could the fact that thes ones I have are half-chocolate-covered and that's what's making the difference? Damn, that's a whole new calculation.

And to prove that I'm not the only one worrying about this life-changing issue...

Nothing wrong with a bit of healthy (Writing) Competition...

Yes, an actual opportunity to get your novel on the shelves (so now you've absolutely no excuse).

Poolbeg Press are running a competition with the TV3 Morning Show, the prize being a 1-book publishing deal. They are looking for fiction or non-fiction books and full manuscripts must be submitted with, yes, you guessed it...a Synopsis.

Those of you who have been following my fledging career will know that the synopsis is the one aspect of writing I have struggled with since forever. The synopsis for Burning Matches has been re-written a few dozen times over the last two years and was scrapped-and-restarted at least twice in that time.

The most recent one, I will admit, is good...it would want to be, it was recently submitted to a literary agent but, it being me, I'm looking at it now and saying 'That could sooooo be better'.

Aaaanyway, back to the competition, you can find all the details on The Morning Show's website and you can watch the interview with Poolbeg Press's Paula Campbell (about 25 minutes into the show).
The deadline for submission is 17 December so if you have even the slimmest chance of getting a novel (and synopsis) finished in the next few months, this should be the push you need to really get cracking! Opportunities like this come up so rarely, especially these days when the publishers are taking on fewer new writers than ever.

3 months and 4 days to deadline...get writing!

P.S. Thanks to my fabulous friend Y-And-Bump for bringing this to my attention.

CV or not CV, that is the question.

Yes indeed, another procrastination conquered.

I finally wrote my writing CV and, surprise surprise, it doesn't look that bad. I had this terrible fear that it would be half a page of sparce commentary and would include mentions of essays that I wrote in Sixth-Year English.
But it is, in fact, two pages (yes, two WHOLE pages, my dears...well they might be double-spaced) and it includes...well, the usual stuff you see on a CV - experience, achievements (there have been some), on-going projects and even an academic accolade or two.

Right, I must give it another re-read now to see if any of it is actually...yeh know...true.

A long time ago, in the Land of Story...

I am delighted to announce that , in collaboration with film director Ann Marie Brennan, I will be submitting an entry to Storyland III, RTE's internet-based drama series competition.

The show will be in the form of four 6-minutes episodes (I refuse to call them 'webisodes') and after each episode airs, the public vote on whether the show should continue on to the next episode and vote on who wins the competition of the entries who are left at the end.

As we are in the verrrry early stages of development, I won't go into to detail as to what the show is about. Suffice to say it will be fabulous.

Lots more details to follow...