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As I get into the swing of the new year, I’m finding my week is naturally dividing itself into patterns, with two days devoted to creative writing, two days to the website and two days to sourcing and carrying out the freelance writing work that keeps a roof over my head.

Yes, that does add up to around six working days a week, but while I’m doing what I love, I really don’t care. Besides, some days that simply means logging on to check in on the forums (which are currently suspiciously quiet – where are you all?) and delete spam, while creative writing days can include long strolls and longer chats with like-minded people who inspire me.

This week has been particularly fruitful creatively, as I completed a short story yesterday, sent off an entry for a short story competition, submitted a short story to a literary magazine and sent off some query emails to agencies offering support to selective mutes, as the protagonist of one of my novels suffers from that particular social disorder.

Ooh, and then today I found out that a poem I entered for a creative writing competition run by Sense has been shortlisted, which is fab news!

The stipulation for the poem was that it had to be written from the point of view of someone who is both deaf and blind. It was an interesting challenge, but one that meant a lot for me as Diabetic Retinopathy is something that’s looming alarmingly on my horizon.

So I engaged all my other senses and wrote a poem about a deaf/blind person being taught about colours by their lover. I enjoyed the challenge, was pleased with the result, and am now tempted to go through some of my old short stories and see what happens if I remove one of the protagonists’ senses. It could alter the whole slant of the tale, which might utterly revitalise some of them.

So 2010 is looking (and sounding) good already. Now all I need to do is maintain the momentum…

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I have a new approach to short story writing that I’m using to transform some of my woollier, waftier work. It’s very simple really. Basically I finish writing the tale, tidy it up, walk away for a while, and when I return I rip out the first paragraph in its entirety.

It’s rather brutal, but leaves behind something raw and bright, more vivid than the first draft.

It’s like breaking away the rough covering of some tropical fruit to reveal the tender, nutritious flesh within. Sometimes I find I need to sprinkle in a new sentence or two to explain what’s going on, but more often than not it stand strong enough alone, leaving the readers feasting on the luscious fruit at the centre of the tale within the first few words.

It’s a trick that I’ve taken a long time to warm to - at first it felt far too dangerous to remove the buffer of those initial sentences. But not I find I’m addicted to the process, wanting to trim and shed words relentlessly, a urge I have to keep in check so I don’t end up with a beginning and end within a single sentence or find myself writing an entire novel with no words at all, just punctuation; no fruit, only juice…

That said, it’s an immensely satisfying game, and one that I’m hoping is improving my work edit by edit, cut by cut, as I pare down the layers until the light shines right through.

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One of the nicest parts of my job is when people send books to review. This week a package arrived containing the three collections currently shortlisted for the Wales Book of the Year award. In other words, my bedside tables is now groaning under the weight of the work of the three best English-writing creative works Wales has produced this year.

Last night I started to read the book on the top of the pile, Deborah Kay Davies’ Grace, Tamar and Laszlo the Beautiful. It’s a short story collection about two sisters, their relationships with each other, their parents and the world. Apparently this fiction was inspired by Deborah’s own experiences, which leads me to wonder one thing, is Deborah a younger or an older sister?

The ranking in a pair of siblings influences everything in your life. The older brother or sister experiences a period of absolute power that the younger never tastes. They experienced the joy of being the sole beneficiary of their parents love, and then experienced that benefaction being reduced, shared inexplicably with a newcomer. Some older siblings never quite manage to forgive that early betrayal, the usurpation of their position in the family as the youngest, smallest, most irresistibly cute.

The younger sister never experiences being the only child. They are born having to share. Everything they wear, every toy they play with, every stage of development they achieve has been worn by someone else first, played with by someone else first, achieved by someone else first…

Some younger siblings never quite escape their older sibling’s shadow. They live life quietly following in their brother or sister’s footsteps, never quite managing to lead the way.

In case you were wondering, I am the younger sister in my family. In my early years, I’m told, my sister treated me as a doll, dressing me up and tying my hair into tight, fluffy top knots. She tried to make me play whatever role she assigned me to in her games. But, my mum says, as soon as I could walk I learned to wander away from these games, much to my sister’s infuriation.

Perhaps this was my survival technique, my way of learning to be my own person rather than a weak imitation of my sister. Rather than staying in her shadow, I simply walked out from under it, and looked for my own route to follow.