The Heroine Addicts

Heroes of the Past

2012-02-09T05:49:00.013-05:00

I’ve been thinking a lot about heroes lately (yes, day dreaming like Anna said) because there’s a new one “brewing” in my mind. I know what he looks like already and I have his back story, so now I’m slowly figuring out what’s going to happen to him. And I know one thing for sure – the ladies love him! Since the story is set in the 18^th century, however, that got me thinking about whether the ladies of that time would REALLY have liked him, or if that’s just my 21^st century view of him?

Obviously, he has to be attractive to today’s readers, so I’m subconsciously adding details that would appeal to us. But surely, a handsome man would always be a handsome man? Brad Pitt looked just as good as Achilles in a little skirt as he did in Ocean’s 11. But maybe that’s just me ...? Because if you look at the sort of man who was idolised in his day, tastes have definitely changed!

I recently attended a celebration in honour of Lord Byron’s (224^th) birthday and it was clear that he was the Regency equivalent of our A-list celebrities. Famous, handsome, sought-after and “mad, bad and dangerous to know”. In other words, a bad boy hero, just like the ones in romance novels. But looking at the portraits of him, I couldn’t see the attraction myself. I guess you had to be there in order to fall under his spell? Or was it his superb poetry that did the trick? I don’t know.

There have been many such men through the ages, the kind everyone seems to find charismatic and attractive. I tried to think of a few and came up with:-

Henry VIII, who was supposedly very handsome as a young man, although it’s kind of hard to see from the later portraits. Apart from anything else, the fear that he might chop my head off would probably have killed any feelings stone dead for me!

Sir Walter Raleigh – yes! Now here’s a man I think I could have fallen in love with. Just look at those bedroom eyes in the miniature of him, they’re decidedly wicked.

Rupert of the Rhine – I think I’ve mentioned him before and apart from being tall, dark and handsome, well ... no, what more do you want?

In Victorian times, maybe Dante Gabriel Rossetti? Another poet – hmm, maybe there’s a trend here ...

Going forward a bit, Douglas Fairbanks Jr? – no, not for me.

Clark Gable? Hmm, maybe, but he reminds me too much of George Clooney and I’m not a fan.

James Dean – yes, maybe, I like the motorcycle and bad boy attitude.

It is strange though, how different the tastes were. So who, from the history books, do you think you would have fallen for? I think Sir Walter’s bedroom eyes are definitely calling to me, so I feel another day dream coming on ...

Please come back on Sunday to hear from Liz.

Daydreamer

2012-02-05T10:30:00.004-05:00

I've been daydreaming a lot lately.

I've always made up my own stories in my head. My first ever published novel came about that way. I had picked up a book that read like one of my own daydreams and thought, "blimey, I could actually write down one of my stories and someone else might want to read it...."

Blimey, they did.

When, like Julie (see below), picking something from the To Be Read pile seems daunting or unsatisfying, I will genuinely make up stories of my own as an alternative to reading them. The characters are fully-fleshed and well motivated, their dialogue comes easy. I go over and over a scene in my head, experiencing the mood and emotion, feeling my way around where the most captivating parts are, wondering where to go next.

I have taught myself NOT to mutter the dialogue out loud. This is sometimes interpreted as something less socially acceptable than a good imagination....

I'm not fussy about genre. Sometimes they're what you might call fan-fiction, taking a character or scenario from TV or film or PC game* and playing with that. Sometimes they're sci-fi or historical, thriller or romance. Occasionally I take a starring role, most of the time I'm building new characters.

When I'm not writing, life isn't quite right, but it's fixable. When I'm not daydreaming, either, life is in a bad way.

I've been daydreaming a lot lately. It's rather nice.

Are you a daydreamer?

*I always feel like I ought to be embarassed about this. But I'm just not. Skyrim** utterly rocks, so there.
** Ha! Now we have a Skyrim post label. I am content.

commitment phobia

2012-02-03T04:28:00.003-05:00

January was a great reading month for me. I blasted through five or six novels, all of them excellent. My lovely long-suffering husband The Rock God gave me an e-reader for Christmas and it's so easy! And so light! And so small! And I was spending time writing in the local library too, and it's impossible to go to the library and not come home with an exciting book or six.

And now we're in February and I've suddenly lost my reading mojo. It's not that I don't have good books to read: I've got stacks of them (literally) both in real life and downloaded to my e-reader, all of which I'm really excited about. But for some reason I don't seem able to make the commitment to any of them.

Because reading a novel is a commitment. It requires you to leave your own world behind for several hours, and give yourself over to the author and their world. And right now I just don't seem to have the energy for that commitment.

'It's not you,' I feel like saying to my tottering To Be Read pile, 'it's me.'

Part of it is because I'm coming up with a story of my own, feeling my way into it, and I'm a little bit afraid of being too influenced by other writers' work. Part of it is because some of the books I have to read are books that I do *have* to read, and while I know I will enjoy them, probably a lot, the duty aspect is making me drag my heels, because I'm contrary that way.

Plus, let's admit it: when we writers read a novel that's really really good, that we wish we'd written ourselves, we run the risk of getting jealous.

Or alternatively, when we read a novel that's so-so, but it's sold in its shedloads and is on all the bestseller lists, we run the risk of getting angry.

Reading is fraught with emotional peril. It requires bravery and trust.

I'm still reading a lot; I'm just not reading novels. Short stories are perfect for when I'm in a commitment-phobic mood, reading-wise, and I'm making my way through a brilliant and thought-provoking Phillip K Dick collection at the moment. But I hope I find my reading mojo soon, because when you find a novel that really does sweep you away...you forget about being commitment-phobic.

Do you get into reading 'moods' like this? What do you do to jolt yourself out of them?

The Sounding Board

2012-02-01T10:43:00.013-05:00

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

My bedtime reading for the past few nights has been Lawrence Block's Writing the Novel: From Plot to Print. I don't read a lot of writing guides, but I've always liked Block's for their humour and practical view of the craft, and it's rare that I don't find some statement that resonates strongly while reading him.

Last night the comment that struck me was tucked in his chapter about what to do when your story stalled, and among other suggestions Block wrote that it sometimes helped to talk that part of the book through with somebody.

"Not every friend will do for this process," he warned, "and you have to experiment to determine which of your acquaintances serves you best as a sounding board. Some people—well-meaning, certainly, and often creative themselves—serve only to stifle your imagination. Others prove enormously helpful, perhaps because they're capable of listening so attentively. The person you select may be an agent or an editor. It may as easily be someone unconnected with the business, someone who doesn't even read much. You can try different people to see who does you some good..."

The reason this piece of advice struck me is that I realized I do it a lot—all the time, to be honest. My mother's my sounding board.

We talk at least once a day on the phone, and whenever I'm trying to work out a kink in the plot, or decide what my characters ought to do next, I will often discover the answer by talking it through with my mother. Or to be more accurate, by talking to my mother, since she doesn't actually have to be saying anything back to me at the time of this discovery (and to be perfectly fair, when I'm talking on the phone, it's hard for anyone to get a word in edgewise to begin with).

The conversation usually goes something like this:

ME: So the characters are heading to the airport.
MOM: Oh, yes? That's nice.
ME: Unless...unless they stop and see her grandfather...
MOM: Uh-huh.
ME: Yes, they could stop and see her grandfather, and maybe he could give her something...maybe...
MOM: (Respectful pause)
ME: ...a book. Hang on now, what if she's already phoned him ahead of time, asking if he could loan her the book, and then they could stop on the way to the airport, and while they're there I could sort of bring out the complications of how they get along with each other, and then he could give her the book, and if it had maps and old photographs in it then it might come in useful to them later on.
MOM: Uh-huh.
ME: And maybe the reason he doesn't mind giving her the book is that he never really wanted it in the first place, because he doesn't want to be reminded of where he came from, and maybe it was a gift from her father...

And on and on it goes, until I've got a whole new scene I never knew that I was going to need, complete with new thematic threads and everything.

This only works, for some reason, when I'm talking to my mother. No one else provides quite the same kind of a sounding board (much to my father's dismay, since I usually phone while they're washing the dishes and he has to finish up all by himself while my mother sits off to the side saying "Uh-huh" for half an hour...)

I'm not sure why this is, or how the whole process works, in all honesty, but reading Lawrence Block's book last night started me thinking, and wondering...

Anyone else have a sounding board?

(Sorry I'm late with this post, by the way—it's been crazy at my house this week. Come back Thursday for Julie's next post).

New Year, New...

2012-01-26T14:14:00.002-05:00

I know we are almost at the end of January but things havebeen a tad hectic and I haven’t managed to properly post here since Christmas.

I usually hate new year and I have to say this year hassurpassed all expectations in general ickiness. I am pulling myself hand overfist towards February with increasing desperation. As a result I haven’t quitegot round to any sort of new year resolutions except make it to the middle ofnext week.

But what about after that? I can’t spend the rest of theyear crawling my way through each month, ticking off the days until we hit2013. I have to figure out what will 2012 bring me and what will I bring to2012?

I do know one thing. The book will be heading to an agent. Iknow we have heard this before but this year I WILL DO IT! I have six chaptersleft to revise. There is no excuse (except for my tax return… that I do need todo).

The other plan for this year is for me to figure out a wayto get to the States and get to stay. Some things changed at the end of 2011and I am no longer thinking in terms of ‘me’ but am thinking in terms of ‘we’.A big change but lovely. Logistically problematic. I can only hope that I canget it sorted fast but there is a lot that can go wrong. Many a slip twixt cupand lip.

So here is to getting to February and to kicking2012’s behind. YEEE HA!

Come back on Sunday to hear from Susanna

Twitter - For Promotion or Not????

2012-01-22T01:32:00.000-05:00

There has been a great deal of discussion about Twitter recently especially in regard to promotion. Joe Konrath made some very interesting points on his blog here and I tweeted the link because I felt it was well worth reading…then a new tweep came back...

@liz_fenwick Breaking Joe's rules by tweeting you but thanks for highlighting the post. Really thought provoking.

My reply

@juliastagg true but i don't tweet for publicity but for friendship and sanity...writing is a lonely business and twitter is company

This is really the point of twitter for me because the more I learn about the world of publicity and books the more I know that my efforts in the PR area will sell very few books. My activity on twitter which is not PR motivated will sell a few more, but not enough to call it a promotion tool. Lately there has been a few excellent blogs about twitter and over promotion…Nicola Morgan for one here. And if you are on Twitter you will know of a few author who are shouting about their books all the time – in one form or another and it’s a turn off even the ones I know in person. I can’t bear it.

However twitter is wonderful and it does promote books, but it’s not straight forward. I have bought many books on the recommendation of one of my twitter friends because they loved it. I trusted them and their judgement and it hasn’t sent me to a bad book yet. And I know friends have bought books on my recommendation. Let me say that again. My friends have bought on my recommendation…not on my retweet of someone else’s recommendation. A retweet can give an author or a book name recognition…but Joe Smith’s tweet that A Dark Night was the best book ever doesn’t carry any weight with me because I don’t know Joe Smith from Adam. However if Julie Cohen tells me a book kept her reading into the small hours…well I know it’s a good book.

So now to my point... Twitter for me is my community. It’s my colleagues and friends at the coffee machine. Most of my ‘work’ day is spent alone. I live in an imaginary world and wonderful though it is I need people, distraction and the brilliant procrastination.

Twitter is the place that I go to share news…I can’t call DH in the middle of the day to say I’m dancing round the dining room table because a book club has chosen my book for their summer read…so I tell twitter. I’m sure twitter thinks I’m absolutely mad and I am, but it’s wonderful to jump in a share and be a part of other people’s lives…from the exciting to frankly dull, but it’s real.

Now some would say that tweeting about being chosen by a book club is promotion and it is…but it’s not going to make anyone else go out and buy it, it’s not saying go and buy my book, but it does increase name recognition…

I have been tweeting with Colette Caddle for a while. She is a lovely person or is on Twitter. So one day browsing in a bookshop here in Dubai faced with thousands of titles and one jumped out at me. Yup, it was one of Colette's...and I bought it, but it wasn't until I was home that evening and on Twitter that I realized I knew her...name recognition in action....

I have to come clean…I, in an indirect way, ‘got’ my agent on twitter. Heaven forbid that I pitched to her on twitter…that is instant death. But we became twitter friends which led to meeting in person and drinking wine friends and of course shoe friends…So when I felt my book was ready, really ready, I pitched the proper way (letter, synopsis, and three chapters) but because of the friendship I didn’t languish on the slush pile….(it also helped that 3 other agents received the same submission at the same time and were interested...a little competition is a motivator)

At the recent RNA meeting there was an industry panel and I heard through the grapevine that Waterstones Publisher Relationship Manager, Cathy Rentzenbrink aka @cathyreadsbooks, held up a proof copy of The Cornish House when asked… “What lifts your heart when a book lands on your desk?”…why did she do this…according to my sources the Cornish theme and twitter…

So moral of the story…twitter works but not as many would have us believe….Are you on twitter? Why?

De-Cluttering

2012-01-19T04:21:00.006-05:00

(I'm afraid I'm going back to the trivial here, as I couldn't think of a way to follow Julie and Anna's moving posts - sorry!)

It’s a new year and I’m sure we all made some resolutions – some easier to keep than others! I broke my first one within hours (it IS hard to stay away from the chocolate in the fridge when it’s calling out to you!), but my second one I’ve actually put into action – de-cluttering.

I started with the cupboard under the stairs. What is it about cupboards under stairs? It’s just so easy to chuck stuff in there and forget it ever existed. Until it gets full, that is, and you can’t open the door without something falling on you and if you want to find something, well, forget it!

Cupboard finished, I decided to tackle my office. I call it an office, but really it’s just an alcove off the bedroom. And it’s truly amazing how much you can fit into an alcove if you try! I’d been collecting stuff there for six years without a clear-out. It was definitely time to do something about it.

A couple of weeks later and I’m still not quite finished, but almost. I can see the carpet, the files are all tidy, I have a new bookshelf which isn’t even full yet (hooray, good excuse to buy more books!) and I found some things I’d forgotten I had. The dust is gone (temporarily) and it feels really good! So there are still a few piles of papers to sort out and dispose of, but it was really satisfying to carry out five or six bags for recycling – cleansing, both for my office and for my mind somehow. And if you’ve got a pile of magazines (unopened, still in their plastic wrappers) that you subscribed to three years ago and haven’t read by now, then surely you don’t need them? I figured not, and they’re gone.

This kind of spring cleaning mania is supposed to be something that grips mothers-to-be in the weeks before their baby is due. Can’t say that happened to me (being the size of a whale isn’t really conducive to bending or carrying stuff if you ask me), but I know now what they mean because all this clearing out and de-cluttering has made me feel ready to sit down and produce something – some fresh writing. Does that count? Maybe it’s not quite the same, but writing a book feels a bit like giving birth sometimes, so I think I’ll keep the analogy. And I know lots of authors clear out their offices each time they finish a book in order to start afresh as it were – from now on I intend to do the same.

And speaking of new years – apparently it’s the Chinese Year of the Dragon coming up, and not just any Dragon year, but a very special one – Black Water Dragon, which apparently means it’s going to bring unexpected happenings. Let’s hope they’re good ones for all of us!

Did you make any resolutions, and if so, have you kept them? Let me know while I’m still feeling smug about keeping one of mine (even if I did eat a lot of chocolate in the meantime ...)

And please come back on Sunday to hear from Liz!

Reasons to Write #3 - Because they said so

2012-01-15T12:20:00.002-05:00

Julie's post about Don was so moving and so... so... just right that I found myself thinking hard about what to post today. I didn't want to put up anything trivial, but I didn't want to change the subject entirely, either.

So I've picked up a thread from Julie's post - the one about inspirational people, the people who are genial shadows at our shoulder saying, "go on! You can do it!"

It starts with Mum, I think. It was Mum who taught me to read at an early age (so early, in fact, that when I went to infants' school, Mum was told off for having taught me to read, because, "now she will have to un-learn it all so that we can teach her properly."

Ahem.

Mum took me to the library every week or so, where I could have four books, and only one of them could be Asterix.... I think I spent most of my childhood with my nose in a book, and there was never any shortage. We had a houseful of books, and I made the transition from Famous Five to Mary Stewart and Desmond Bagley without ever thinking about what was a "children's book" or what was a "grown-up's book". They were just good stories.

Dad read aloud to us on holidays, giving a different voice to every character, teaching me about emotional punch when he read about Aslan's sacrifice with a catch in his voice. I can remember now the smell of the tent and the sound of his voice telling us "he is not a tame lion" through the canvas walls of our sleeping compartment. He also gave me his old typewriter, handling it with the reverence due to a tool for creating words. I typed my first story, aged seven, on it.

Then there was Mr Bennet. Mr Bennet my English teacher from age 11 to 18. Mr Bennet who stood on the desk in front of me to read my work because I told him I didn't like people reading over my shoulder. Who let two of us study Mansfield Park when the rest of the class were doing The Chocolate War. Who introduced me to obscure books by unheard-of writers, leading me to leap across genres without giving the classification a moment's thought. Who helped me love Chaucer, Shakespeare and (eventually) Milton with the same heart that devoured Terry Pratchett and Roger Zelazny.

These are the people who helped to generate the love of words, of stories, who nurtured it. None of them were remotely surprised when I expressed a desire to write.

They just said, "go on! You can do it!"

Who are or were the personal influences in your writing life?

A Real Writer

2012-01-12T04:12:00.009-05:00

I joined my local writers' group over ten years ago, when I decided I wanted to become a Real Writer. I remember bringing in my first chapter of my first romance novel to a critique group session, and having one of the members tell me, kindly but strictly, that having a character look into the mirror so that she could be described to the reader was a horrible, horrible cliche. (I haven't done it again.) A letter-writing workshop led me to my first publication in the UK: a letter to a supermarket magazine about Marmite, for which I received £10. I bought a Barry Manilow CD.

It's a varied group: until he passed away recently, we had one member who had belonged since the 1950s, and we have another member, now a university graduate, who joined when she was 14. There are men and women, and people from countries around the world. We've had members who write everything by hand or on a typewriter and photocopy it, and others who bring laptops or tablets to the meeting to take notes. We have poets and science fiction writers; we have memoirists and journalists; we have romance writers and children's writers, thriller writers and literary writers. We have some members who aren't quite sure what they want to write yet—they just have a burning desire to get the words on paper. We have some members who write every day, and some who haven't written for years. Some of us are published, and some are not. Two of us are professional writers who rely on our writing income to live, but many more of us write for the pure joy of writing, and regard any income as a bonus.

Our secretary, Don, used to field all the enquiries for people wanting to join Reading Writers. He would tell each person who asked: 'The only requirement to join is a love of writing. We celebrate each member's successes, whatever they might be.' It made, and still makes, for an egalitarian, supportive, respectful group.

When Don was diagnosed with malignant melanoma, he made light of it. He called the radical surgery he had to have on his face to remove the tumours his 'face lift'. He continued to bring in his stories, wonderful, gritty, humorous slices of what he called 'the lives of low-lives': small-time thugs, drug dealers, hookers, drunks, all with vulnerabilities and hopes. Although he'd been a copy writer for many years he'd never had any fiction published; he told me that he enjoyed sharing his stories with the group, and he felt he learned a great deal by listening to our comments and revising his work. That was enough for him.

He took me aside during the tea break at one meeting and told me that the cancer had spread to his liver. He had about six months, he said. He was getting everything ready—writing his will, planning his funeral, making provisions for his beloved wife and family. He was also still working on his stories. 'I'd like to make a gift to Reading Writers before I go,' he said. 'You can use it as you like.'

Between the group and Don, we decided to create an annual award in his name, to be given to a member. But Don was vehement that it shouldn't necessarily go to the person who was the most obviously successful in a writing career. It should go to the person who has made the most significant personal progress with their writing, whatever that success might be.

Don himself showed us what kind of personal success he meant. He kept on coming to meetings for as long as he could. He kept on writing and reading others' work. He put aside time, in the midst of his other arrangements, in the midst of seeing his family and saying goodbye, to improve his stories and submit some of them to the group anthology we were doing. In hospice, he made jokes, told stories.

He was a writer all the way till the end.

At his funeral, we all got terribly, stinkingly drunk, because he'd told us to. Twice now, we've voted for the winner of the Don Louth Writers' Award. Last night Don's wife presented it to Don's hand-picked successor, the current secretary, Josh.

And we remembered what being a Real Writer means.

(Come back on Sunday to hear from Anna...)

Getting to Know You

2012-01-08T19:54:00.027-05:00

While doing my daily round of the internet last week, I noticed that, over at Dear Author, Jane's #5 wish in her List of Things She'd Like to See in 2012 from the Romance Genre was More Courtship.

"I am not sure whether it is paranormals and the fated mates that have led to the slow devolution of the courtship, but whatever is the reason, we need to put a stop to it," Jane writes. "I love the courtship. Dating is so rife with opportunity and conflict. Where is the slow build of attraction?"

Now, don't get me wrong, I believe in the concept of instant attraction and people who simply belong with each other, but watching while two people start to become more aware of each other is wonderful, too, and Jane's post got me thinking how much I love those films and novels in which the main characters actually go out on dates, get to know one another, prolong the suspense for us. Will they or won't they? The almost-kiss can be as sexy to me (sometimes sexier) than sex itself.

Case in point: Scarecrow and Mrs. King. If you were born in the 80s or later, you most likely won't have a clue what this is, but for a romance-loving teen like me in 1983, it was The Best Thing on TV, my favourite show.

Bruce Boxleitner played a suave CIA spy, teamed with Kate Jackson as a divorced mom of two who got drafted by circumstance into the spy game. Their chemistry steamed up our little TV screen, and watching their feelings develop and grow brought me back every week thinking, "This is it! This is the week that they'll kiss!" Their interrupted almost-kisses were the thing of legend, but their first Real Kiss, right at the end of the Third Season (!) made my heart happy because I had watched all the small little moments that led to it.

Back in the mid-18th century, the Irish writer Laurence Sterne (of Tristam Shandy fame) wrote that "Courtship consists in a number of quiet attentions, not so pointed as to alarm, nor so vague as not to be understood."

Those "quiet attentions" are why I so love books like My Love, My Enemy, by Jan Cox Speas, with its pairing of the young American heroine, Page Bradley, and the dashing English spy Lord Hazard, set against the War of 1812, when a brave but rash action by Page throws them (literally) both in the same boat (well, ship) and Lord Hazard decides that, with Page on her own, he is honour-bound to guard her honour, however attractive he finds her. Which means that they don't even kiss till the end of the 14th long chapter, by which time we've watched while they break down their differences, overcome prejudices, notice each other's small faults and discover the things they admire in each other.

Again, it's those stray little moments: the times that their eyes meet, the times they say small things that mean something more, the few times they touch.

It's those same moments, I think, that mark the progression of real-life relationships, too: that first meeting, or first introduction; the first time you notice what colour his eyes are; the first time you go out together; the first time you hold hands; the first time you sit up until 2 a.m. talking; the times that you wish he would kiss you; the first time he actually does...

It's not all smooth sailing, mind you. Both in real life and in fiction there is angst, and plenty of it, and it's not a state I'd want to spend forever in. It's too exhausting. But whether it takes a full year, as it does with Lord Hazard and Page, or three seasons on TV, or one unforgettable day spent with Gregory Peck (Roman Holiday, pictured above), I'll admit I'm a sucker for stories of courtship.

What about you? What's your favourite example of courtship in fiction, and do you agree with Jane that we need more of it?

(Come back on Thursday, to see whether Julie comes out of her luxury bolthole...)

News Report!

2012-01-06T14:36:00.003-05:00

Our Roving Reporter tells us that two Heroine Addicts who shall remain nameless met at an undisclosed location in London this afternoon.

'I can't tell you what we're doing here,' said BC, otherwise known as The Woman In Black. 'It would compromise national security. Let's just say that it has...something to do with writing.'

'Or Post-Its,' added JC, otherwise known as The Other Woman In Black. 'Definitely either writing, or Post-Its.'

'Possibly both,' said BC.

Neither Heroine Addict would confirm or deny rumours that one of them is too busy revising her novel to put up a proper post on this blog, and that the other is too busy hiding herself away writing to a deadline, possibly in a super-secret luxury bolthole, to put up a proper post either.

Wine and/or coffee may have been involved. Keep tuned for further developments.

Happy New Year

2012-01-01T06:27:00.001-05:00

@Suburbman just said on Twitter...'There's a special kind of melancholy to New Year's Eve.' It made me pause. It is a time so bound with hope, promise, excitement balanced by the feelings regarding the year about to close. It has never been my favourite holiday until quite recently.

I remember childhood New Years watching television with my grandfather (my parents presumably were out at a party). I would snuggle close as we'd watch King Kong and then I would wake to see the New Year in to sound of Guy Lombardo's orchestra playing Auld Lange Syne...

The teen and single years were fraught with not looking back, but looking to the possible...the possible boyfriend that is...that New year's kiss that could be the start of something couldn't it??? Alas it never was and by the time I reached the second half of my twenties girl friend and I would head to the mountains for New Year's Eve. We'd have a great dinner, enjoy a few drinks in the bar and disappear before midnight....well, we were there to ski after all. The slopes would always be deserted on New Year's Day until about two...

Then I met the man that was to become DH and we spent our first New Year's Eve together with his family in Cornwall. I can still remember standing out on the balcony looking down on the fireworks at the Ferry Boat Inn across the river as a new decade began...

That was the beginning of the change for me...I had found my soul mate so there was no more need to be searching for that perfect kiss that would begin something new....now it was a kiss that keeps building something wonderful.

So as I sit here in my kitchen preparing for New Years Eve...rib of beef etc...I realize this might be the last year for a while that I will have all my kids with me. DS1 will soon bore of our black tie dinners, family games...and go and seek out the perfect kiss....

Wishing you all a wonderful New Year. May 2012 bring you good health and blessings and if you haven't found your perfect kiss....maybe this will be the year.

Post-Christmas Slump?

2011-12-29T08:23:00.003-05:00

So Christmas is all over for another year – the preparations, the excitement, the cooking and decorating. And I think I’m suffering from post-Christmas “slump”. I even thought it was Wednesday today, so I must have missed a day in between there somehow, but I’ve been rushing around doing stuff for so long now, one day here or there doesn’t seem to matter. They all pass in a blur. Does anyone else feel like this?

I enjoyed Christmas, of course I did, but it’s all over too quickly I think. All that food you cooked – gone in ten minutes flat. Presents – opened in a flash and squirreled away, leaving the tree looking a bit naked. But to be honest, I have to admit I love the preparations more anyway – the run-up to Christmas is the magical time for me. Starting at the beginning of December with the lighting of the first Advent candle, then shopping for presents, sending cards, baking, cooking and present-wrapping as well as buying the tree and decorating the house, it’s all such fun! The build-up is the exciting part, not the actual day itself.

In a way, it’s a bit like writing – the pre-writing time is so much more exciting than actually working on a novel. I love that moment when you first get an idea for a story and it starts to tease at your brain. The characters take shape in your mind and you spend hours thumbing through name books (or looking at baby name websites) trying to find the perfect names for them. You do some research, start a new file, try to think of a great title for your story. Then you sit down and type, getting carried away.

Before you know it, the book is finished and it’s all over! Post-book “slump”? Yes, but luckily not for long, because the great thing about books is that you can start another one straight away if you want to. Unlike Christmas, which only comes once a year, you can write as many books as you like – well, thank goodness for that! Actually, come to think of it, I have this great idea so what better way to beat the post-Christmas doldrums? I’d better get writing ...

Happy New Year everyone! Hope 2012 is a brilliant year for all of us!

Merry Christmas

2011-12-24T02:08:00.002-05:00

Whatever you like to do this Christmas, whether you like to hide out from the revelling hordes......

... or wonder at the beauty of all those decorations.

Whether you think wrapping presents is sometimes more fun than receiving them.....

..... or you can't wait to get ripping into them.....

.... we hope you have a wonderful holiday season.

Merry Christmas, from me, and from all of The Heroine Addicts.

Christmas on a Deadline

2011-12-19T16:20:00.014-05:00

I'm out of practice with writing to deadline.

I haven't really had a hard and fast one for a long time...not for fifteen years, in fact, when I working to complete Named of the Dragon to fulfill my two-book contract with Gollancz. That was the first time that I'd ever sold a book before I'd written it.

With all my other books, I've signed my contracts after finishing the manuscript, which means I'm used to writing to an ever-shifting deadline of my own creation—if I need a few more months, I just re-set the goalposts and keep going, so I never have to hear that famous "whooshing sound" that Douglas Adams used to claim his deadlines made as they flew by...

But this time I signed contracts first, and so I have a deadline, and not only can't I move the goalposts, but I have to watch them getting closer, day by day.

Which isn't terrible, by any means. I love this book I'm working on, the writing's coming well, and there are few things I love more than spending time within my story. But...

It's Christmas.

And this year, since I'm working to a deadline, I've been spending more time in my writing room, and letting everything else fall behind.

My Christmas cards (the paper ones) are sitting on the kitchen table, waiting to be signed and sent. I only got the tree up this past weekend, and I still don't have my mantelpiece cleared off, so we can hang our stockings.

Normally by this time I'd be well into my Christmas movie-watching spree, but this year all I've managed is Love, Actually.

I've felt like I've been chasing after Christmas all this month. I'm having to do everything in fits and starts—a moment here to wrap a gift, a moment there to put my little birch-log reindeer on the porch, but never time enough to truly catch the Christmas spirit that I wait for all year long.

And then tonight, as I was rushing out to buy, of all things, dog food (having spent the day too wrapped up in my novel to remember that I'd used the last tin yesterday), I found myself for those few minutes driving past the houses in our neighbourhood, all lit up with their Christmas lights, so beautiful against the darkness, and the radio began to play "Christmas is Calling" by Roch Voisine, and all of a sudden, well, there it was: Christmas.

The feeling I'd waited for. Fragile and perfect.

The Grinch knows whereof he speaks. Christmas will come, whether I'm on a deadline or not. So this year it may not be the wallowy sort of a season I'm used to, with time to indulge, time to read, time to visit. I'll still find it, moment by moment.

What moments make Christmas for you?

(Come back Thursday, when Christmas will be even closer, and Julie is posting.)

Christmas Wish Lists

2011-12-15T06:36:00.002-05:00

In the Coady Clan we still write out Christmas lists for what we want for Christmas. This is a way to ensure there are none of those useless presents every year and that everyone gets what they want. Every year from the age of 8 until... *mumble mumble* I have had a pony on the list. It is the leftover Christmas wish of my younger self. It is the continuity and also the family joke that I am sooooooo deprived because they never bought me one.

In fact below is the list they got this year (including my commentary)

"Hello Dearly Beloved 'Rents

I have made my list and I've checked it twice. I KNOW I'm ALWAYS NICE!

So here goes (you might see some familiar requests from previous years)

1. BOILER - monetary donation (new in at number one this year)
2. PONY (this is a seasonal favourite - comes round every year much like Cliff Richard's 'Mistletoe and Wine')
3. Noise cancelling headphones (a trend for these seem to be creeping into the Coady Clan but proved their worth during some building work)
4. Rigby & Peller Gift Certificate (an uplifting addition to any Xmas list)
5. Sherlock DVD (BBC remake from last year) (new in this year but sure to be a regular returnee as long as the BBC keeps making them)
6. Bones - Season 6 (an old favourite - the Xmas tree would be lost without it)
7. NCIS - Season 8 (nothing says Xmas like Mark Harmon saying 'Ya think?' - be still my heart!)
8. Vintage Dress Clips (a sparkling entry at number eight)
9. Kindle Light (to keep my reading going even in low light - i.e. when Mummy makes me turn my light out)
10. Filofax cover(Malden/Finchley/Aston) - Pocket sized - red, brown or black (going retro in my stationery)

That is my top ten. If anything changes I'll let you know.

Love your VERY NICE daughter
Bxx"

But what do I truly want for Christmas? What is on my REAL Christmas Wish List?

I think it would read something like this:

"Dear Father Christmas,

I know we haven't spoken for awhile. Are you well? Back still giving you jip?

If you happen to be in my vicinity on Christmas Eve I have rather a nice bottle of Sauvignon Blanc with your name on it. Have a few glasses, tell a few tales... interested?

Oh and if you are in the area if you could just, maybe, if it isn't too much trouble... see your way to the following:

1. A Literary Agent (you know if you just happen to have one on the sleigh)
2. A book deal (they sometimes come with agents in a bulk buy scheme)
3. A film deal (I know this is a bit out there but what the hell... yes I have already been at the sherry why do you ask?)
4. Benedict Cumberbatch (in for a penny in for a pound! *hic*)
5. World Peace
6. Cure for Cancer
7. Rich man (if you can make number 4 rich it is a toofer)

Love and kisses
Bxx"

What would be on your Christmas Wish List?

Come back on Sunday to find out whether Susanna has been naughty or nice

When A Book No Longer Belongs To the Author....

2011-12-11T09:06:00.000-05:00

Now this is something I had been warned about...once your book is out in the wide world, well, it's no longer really yours. Your book becomes the reader's book. They create a 'new' book by bringing their experience, reactions and emotions to it.

So now THE CORNISH HOUSE is beginning to wend it's way out into the world via the uncorrected proofs, I am in a state of unease.What are people thinking? Love it? Loathe it? Killing themselves laughing at the typos....there are a few humdingers in there...

DH has read the book - and thank God he loved it. He would say that, but I have also known him long enough and well enough to know if he was lying. The best bit about him reading the book was to finally be able to discuss it with him. When he finished the book he stared at me in shock and said...so this is what has been going on in your head...Umm, yup. He has had to look at me differently. He became caught up in the story and found it hard at time to remember it was his wife who wrote it. This, of course, is good.

It was also interesting to hear his thoughts as he knows the landscape of the book so well. He placed things in different locations, different pubs when I hadn't used a name, and responded to some characters and actions in an interesting manner. So he has proved a test case for me....

DH is not my first reader, but very few people have read the book...even some of closest writer friends haven't. I had never really thought about it. My mother has read it twice...helping with the typos and I think consumed by curiosity...what was her daughter saying. So DH is the first person to read it for pleasure without any other purpose....and now the list grows.....gulp. I need to let go and focus on the next book. I needs to be better than THE CORNISH HOUSE...the joys of being a writer....

How did/do you feel when you release a book into the world? As a reader do ever think that your version of the story will be different that of the writer's? I suppose in a way when a film is made of a book we experience this.....someone else's take on the 'our' book...

I want to fall in love ...

2011-12-08T06:33:00.007-05:00

No, this isn’t an announcement that I’m about to divorce my husband or looking to replace him in any way, I promise. But I do need to find a crush because if I don’t, I can’t write my next book.

Like many other authors, I base my heroes on a real person’s looks, although obviously I make up their personality to suit my story. And just as in real life, it’s seeing them for the first time that gives me the biggest spark. Like falling in love but in an imaginary way. If I’m lucky, just the sight of this potential hero triggers a scene in my mind, which becomes the basis for the rest of the story. If not, I can at least use this instant crush feeling when writing about the hero and heroine meeting for the first time. And falling in love ...

Sure, I have an archive of photos I can flick through and I also have a pin board next to my computer with lots of pictures of possible heroes, but sometimes that just doesn’t work. Right now, I need to find someone new, a man I’ve never seen before, but who will set my mind off on an imaginary journey where he’s the hero and I’m the heroine. Someone who sets my pulse racing and makes me tingle all over when he looks at me (even if I’m only pretending he’s looking at me of course).

Actually, that’s not quite true – sometimes it works if I see an actor in a new role at the cinema, one where he’s different from normal in some way. Take Johnny Depp for instance – I loved him in the film Chocolat and could happily have based a hero on his character in that, but he didn’t do it for me in any of his other films. Then along comes Captain Jack Sparrow and “wow!”, there’s the spark again.

Some actors are definitely chameleons, while others play much the same role in every film (like Hugh Grant). That means of course that the Hugh type is only good for one starring role in my novels, whereas others can inspire me over and over again. Right now though, that’s not working either – I need someone brand new.

So does anyone have any recommendations? Any films I absolutely must see over the Christmas holidays? Please let me know because until I find him – THE ONE – my next book just isn’t going to get written.

Please come back on Sunday to hear from Liz!

Reasons to Write #2 - Pyjamas

2011-12-06T04:09:00.000-05:00

Lately, while hibernating from writing, I've been thinking about the reasons we write (and the reasons we don't).

Lying in bed this morning, contemplating a day-job-free day, I started thinking about what attracted me to writing as a job of work. Certainly something about balance, which I've blogged about before. There's something there about creativity, too, which I'll blog about before long, and something about feeling connected, which is an odd reason for such a solitary profession, but which makes sense to me personally.

But this morning, writing from a netbook propped on my knees, which a cat either side of me, and one UNDER my knees (under the duvet!) I started thinking about pyjamas.

Lovely things, pyjamas.

Soft, squidgy, supremely touchable and huggable. Relaxed. COMFORTABLE.

I have long found it odd how much we'll put up with dramatically uncomfortable outfits in pursuit of style and glamour. I like pretty as much as the next gal, but at the end of the day I'm focussing on two things: getting OUT of the bra, and getting IN to the slippers.

And pyjamas.

I would quite like a job where the closest thing you get to 'office-wear' is a set of py-jams. Balanced, of course, by the occasional need to get glammed up for an RNA party.

That sounds like perfection to me, right?

So, okay, so far in Reasons to Write we have "Balance" and "Pyjamas".

This blog series is looking good to me....

What's your favourite 'work-wear'?

comfort zones

2011-12-01T16:21:00.006-05:00

Crows by Vlado, at FreeDigitalImages.net

Sometimes, as a writer, you have to step out of your comfort zones.

Sometimes this is to do with what you're writing. Today, I wrote a 1000-word article for a magazine which actually involved real facts and truthful quotations. And I am here to tell you, I have a renewed respect for journalists. Writing articles is so, so much harder than making stuff up. For one thing, unlike fiction which just comes out of your head, you can get real facts wrong. For another, unlike fiction which is designed to be interesting, real facts have the potential to be a little bit boring and you have to figure out how to present them in an interesting way. Also, in an article you need a beginning and a middle and an end, but a different kind of a beginning, middle and end than in a story.

I was pulling my hair out by the end of it.

I've written a few short stories recently, too. I never thought I could really write a short story, but then I went to a workshop led by Sue Moorcroft, who writes and sells a ton of short stories, and she inspired me. But a short story is so...short. So much depends on every word. And whilst this is wonderful for a nitpicky writer like me, it's also sort of scary.

Sometimes you have to step out of the comfort zones of your writing routines. Usually, I write whilst flying by the seat of my pants, with little idea of where the story is going to turn out. But for this next novel, I'm planning it out first by writing a coherent, and hopefully interesting, synopsis. I wrote this synopsis this week (before I wrote the article...hmm, maybe that's why I have an extreme craving for wine and chocolate). It's an interesting experience, and I think it will actually help my composition process. But...

Yup. Scary as hell.

Sometimes you have to step out of the kind of books you write, into something different. Sometimes you have to make the leap from unpublished to published author. Sometimes you have to put something aside and start something new. Sometimes you need to step out into thin air, with only a hope that you'll land somewhere good to be.

Writing is never safe. To do it, you either have to be brave, stupid, insane, or perhaps a little bit of all three.

Here's to every brave, stupid, insane one of us.

Letting Go

2011-11-27T08:55:00.015-05:00

Malick Bowens and Meryl Streep in Out of Africa, 1985 © Universal Pictures Ltd.

I have this scene I'm writing in the current work-in-progress, and it's taking me a long time to complete. I'm not avoiding it, exactly, but I know I'm taking more time than I should, and only yesterday I realized it's because this is the last scene for a character I've come to really like.

No, I'm not killing him off, but it's still a goodbye.

I'm not good with goodbyes, whether real life or fictional, and in a film a farewell breaks my heart even more than a death, sometimes. (All I have to do is look at that picture above and I hear Malick Bowens's voice saying: "Then you must make this fire very big..." and I go all to pieces...)

The rational side of my brain knows this character needs to leave, needs to move on, so the story can move on as well. And I will get to see him again in revisions and rewrites, and when the book's finished and published I know I can visit him there in the pages whenever I want.

But the rational side of my brain isn't writing the book; that's the problem. And so I've been slowing down...finding small jobs that need doing...re-working a line here, a paragraph there...catching up on my research.

It won't work, of course. Either later today or tomorrow I'll write his last scene, and I'll probably cry (which is good for the book, in a way), and then that will be that.

But I never like saying goodbye to a character.

What about you? Do you have the same problem, as writers or readers? How well do you cope with goodbyes?

(Don't forget to come back Thursday, for Julie's post.)

Pride And Prejudice: In Search of an Agent (with apologies to Jane Austen)

2011-11-25T11:00:00.005-05:00

When an agent and writer meet...

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that an unpublished writer in possession of a good manuscript, must be in want of an agent.

I have to say that for me this is true. I know that others have been successful without having an agent and I admire them greatly. However knowing how I am, I feel more comfortable having some one else do any negotiation on my behalf. In work I can wheel and deal with the best but when it comes to my writing I know I am not the best person to be out touting it about.

So in the past year or so I have been quietly collecting agent’s names and recommendations. In some cases I have agents who have requested to see my work. I am now putting together a list and hope that none of them say:

“She is tolerable; but not handsome enough to tempt me.”

Rather I would like to hear this:

“I have been meditating on the very great pleasure which a fine manuscript in the arms of a writer can bestow."

Of course this is jumping the gun somewhat. I still have to finish the revisions and polish it all before sending it off… but we must remember:

“A writer's imagination is very rapid; it jumps from polite interest to representation, from representation to book deal, in a moment.”

Come back on Sunday to hear from Susanna

Joy

2011-11-21T11:02:00.000-05:00

I'm a day late and my mind is blank. It could be because i am trying to write the annual Christmas letter. It could be because i have my marketing, pr, being a mother, trying to organize Christmas hat on. Or it could be I'm just tired.

What ever it is I haven't got anything insightful or interesting to say. However the one thing that this huge in my life - writing and other is that the bound uncorrected proofs of my first book have arrived. They are beautiful and i still can't stop stroking them...so i thought in the absence of words I'd just post a picture of my beautiful cover and tell you what the blurb says...hope this is okay and I promise to be interesting and inspiring or something next time....

When artist Maddie inherits a house in Cornwall shortly after the death of her husband, she hopes it will be the fresh start she and her teenage step-daughter Hannah desperately need.

Trevenen is beautiful but neglected, a rambling house steeped in history. Maddie is enchanted by it and determined to learn as much as she can about its past. As she discovers the stories of generations of women who've lived there before, Maddie begins to feel her life is somehow intertwined within its walls.

But Maddie's dream of a calm life in the countryside is far from the reality she faces. Still struggling with her grief and battling with Hannah, Maddie is unable to find inspiration for her painting and realizes she may face the prospect of having to sell Trevenen, just as she is coming to love it.

As Maddie and Hannah pull at the seams of Trevenen's past, the house reveals secrets that have lain hidden for generations...

And now - relax ...

2011-11-16T18:08:00.006-05:00

Who knew that partying in cyberspace could be so much fun?! Ogling all those men in kilts or buckskin breeches, drinking loads of whisky and champagne, eating all the canapés, ice cream and other goodies on offer. The only problem is I’m exhausted now and I’m sure you are too! What we need is a proper, relaxing break, but as authors – do we ever really get one?

The thing is, writing is a compulsion and it never completely lets go of you, even when you’re doing other things. You continue to live your normal life, whatever that is, but inside your head you’re only paying attention with half your brain because the other half is working on characters and plots, checking out settings and listening to dialogue. It’s something you need to do to stay sane (well, author kind of sane), and you do it because you want to, because if you don’t, you feel lost. But although it’s enjoyable, it does make it difficult to ever have time to yourself and a complete break.

Sometimes circumstances compel you to turn off the author part of your brain because you need to concentrate on important things like sick children or work. However, there are also times, when you have to force yourself not to write and do something else for a change. If not, there’s a chance you’ll completely run out of steam.

So maybe we should have a pampering weekend here on the blog to recover from our partying? What would be your dream way of being pampered? If you had the chance to be looked after and relax, how and where would you do that?

I’ll start the ball rolling by hiring a housekeeper to take over all our normal everyday tasks and I’ve got a library full of books and lots of chocolate. And I’ll get someone in to do some aromatherapy – how does that sound?

Please come and join me and tell me what you’d like. Anything is possible here!

Please come back on Sunday to hear from Liz!

The Summer of Living Dangerously Party

2011-11-10T03:25:00.017-05:00

Julie carefully steps through the crowds of people celebrating Christina's new book, picking up scraps of smoked salmon, whiskey bottles and at least one discarded kilt...

Hey everyone! It's Thursday and that means that we're officially still partying! Because we Heroine Addicts are frenzied party animals and also because my latest hardback, The Summer of Living Dangerously, comes out today.

If you're new to this here super party, here are the rules: everyone brings something special (including a date, if they fancy some company), and in return the Guest of Honour tells us Five Fast Facts about her book.

In this case, I'm both the Hostess and the Guest of Honour (I've always been quite good at multi-tasking, especially when it comes to having fun), so here's the cover blurb for The Summer of Living Dangerously:

Alice Woodstock has been running away.

Well, not literally. She spends most of her time glued to her desk, writing about grommets and model aeroplanes. No, Alice is avoiding the real world because there's something—someone—in her past that she's desperate to forget. So when she's commissioned to write about life in stately home Eversley Hall, she jumps at the chance to escape into Regency England, even if it does mean swapping her comfy T-shirt for an itchy corset. Perhaps she'll meet her own Mr Darcy...

But then her past resurfaces in the shape of Leo Allingham and Alice is brought down to earth with a bump. Reckless, unpredictable Leo reminds Alice of the painful price of following her heart. And the new Alice doesn't live dangerously.

Or does she?

I am so excited to party with this book because, with the Regency costume connection, it's the perfect excuse for us all to have hot dates in tight breeches. Here comes Brigid with a tall gentleman...

Brigid: I'm bringing Ciaran Hinds as he is in Persuasion. He is the perfect Captain Wentworth...pity I couldn't find a picture of him in tight breeches, but you can well imagine.

Julie: Yup. We can well imagine. Look at that smile on his face. That is the smile of a man saying, "Dude, I look gooooooood in these buckskins."

Next is Susanna, along with Christina:

Susanna: I'm bringing a beautiful regency gown for the heroine, Alice, to wear (modelled here by its maker, our own lovely Christina Courtenay, at the Romantic Novelists' Association's recent Regency Day). And my guest will be the dashing Richard Sharpe, because I love a man of action (and his uniform fits rather nicely...)

Julie: Since my heroine is a big reader, there are some Sharpe references in the novel...and also a dashing young gentleman who dresses in the uniform of Sharpe's regiment, the 95th Rifles. Good choice. And Christina looks so gorgeous in her gown! Here's what she's bringing:

Christina: I'm going to bring a fan because it always gets so hot at these parties and if there's Regency dancing - well, we know how strenuous that is! But then I get very hungry afterwards, and I absolutely refuse to eat macaroons, so I've made you a special strawberry cream cake to celebrate the launch of your novel - enjoy! I would like an escort this time (the dog I brought to my party was kind of exhausted so didn't want to come) - how about Chris Hemsworth? I love his old-fashioned manners in the movie Thor and I bet he'd look great in a Regency outfit :D

Anna: I’m feeling very lucky – I’m bringing Leslie Howard in his Scarlet Pimpernel guise as my date! A little out of our period, but I’m willing to stretch a point for that amount of intensity and charm... mmmmmm. And since we’re going to need some cooling off, I’m also bringing some ices like the ones they served at Gunters. What a treat!

Liz: As I am deeply fond of dry sherry...(a taste I acquired a summer I spent doing something akin to studying at Oxford) I would like to bring some, along with a beautiful Regency convex mirror that I have longed for. And of course never one to miss the opportunity of bringing a date and date in breeches...and as soon as I say that it has to be Colin Firth as Darcy.

Julie: So now that we're all here, I guess it's time for me to answer Five Fast Facts about my book.

Favourite scene in the book: My favourite fun scene is one of my heroine Alice's first days at Eversley Hall dressed as a Regency gentlewoman. She goes for a turn in the garden with another costumed interpreter, Miss Selina Fitzwilliam—the younger sister of the gorgeous Mr James Fitzwilliam—and to their alarm they see Mr Fitzwilliam's spaniel darting into a fountain, where his collar gets stuck in the decorative plants. Alice immediately throws herself into the fountain, rescuing the dog but also soaking her very expensive and historically accurate gown. Mr Fitzwilliam proceeds to rescue Alice, much to the chagrin of the beautiful but bitchy Miss Isabella Grantham. It's sort of my turnabout answer to Colin Firth in that lake.

Character who surprised you the most: I was constantly surprised and delighted by Leo Allingham, who is Alice's ex-husband in real life. He's a bit of a shady character at first but he has such depths to him, and such pain. And he rides a motorcycle.

A scene that made you smile: There's a big portrait of the original Mr James Fitzwilliam in Eversley Hall, and Alice discovers that every day at 2 pm, a rainbow is reflected from the crystal chandelier directly onto Mr Fitzwilliam's crotch. (This is something that we Addicts actually witnessed in the Trafalgar Tavern in Greenwich. I stole it and put it in the book.)

A scene you hated writing: There is a lot of pain in Alice and Leo's shared past, and that was hard to write about. There is a very short chapter in which they both lose what they love most in the world, and they're unable to share their emotions with each other. It was very difficult to write and I still cry when I read it.

A book your hero probably has on his bookshelf: Well, I sort of have two heroes. Leo Allingham, the real-life hero, would have The Motorcycle Diaries and Mr James Fitzwilliam, the Regency hero, would have Pride and Prejudice.

Like Christina, I'll give away a copy of The Summer of Living Dangerously to a person who joins the party and leaves a comment below! Just tell us what you'll be bringing to the party...at this point, Alka-Seltzer is probably welcome, but personally, I shall be swigging champagne.

I'll leave you with a photo of the beautiful, summery flowers my publisher have sent me today. And thanks for coming to celebrate with us!

Highland Storms Party and Giveaway!

2011-11-06T11:19:00.038-05:00

We're doing something different on the blog today... Since Christina's new book is just out this month, and since geography makes it a challenge for all six of us to find somewhere to gather to celebrate, we thought we'd celebrate here, and begin a new Heroine Addicts tradition: The Launch Party!

Simple rules: Everyone brings something special (including a date, if they fancy some company), and in return the Guest of Honour tells us Five Fast Facts about her book.

Here's the cover blurb of Highland Storms, to help us set the mood:

Betrayed by his brother and his childhood love, Brice Kinross needs a fresh start. So he welcomes the opportunity to leave Sweden for the Scottish Highlands to take over the family estate. But there’s trouble afoot at Rosyth in 1754 and Brice finds himself unwelcome. The estate’s in ruin and money is disappearing. He discovers an ally in Marsaili Buchanan, the beautiful redheaded housekeeper, but can he trust her? Marsaili is determined to build a good life. She works hard at being housekeeper and harder still at avoiding men who want to take advantage of her. But she's irresistibly drawn to the new clan chief, even though he's made it plain he doesn't want to be shackled to anyone. And the young laird has more than romance on his mind. His investigations are stirring up an enemy. Someone who will stop at nothing to get what he wants – including Marsaili – even if that means destroying Brice's life forever...

And now, are you ready to party? Here we go...

And look, Brigid is bringing...wow, look what she's bringing!

Brigid: Why a Scotsman in a kilt? I have always had a soft spot for a Scotsman. I don't know whether it is my Scottish ancestry or that in my younger years there were so many Scotsmen among my parents' friends that they imprinted on me. But add a kilt to a Scotsman and I become a little weak at the knees. There are a few men in kilts in my past...a man called Dugald in a kilt, rugby shirt and builders' boots *drools*. So if we are having a party for a book set in Scotland, then I'm bringing the man in a kilt. And hands off, ladies...he's coming home with me!

Susanna: That photo above comes courtesy of HotDamnStock.com, wherein you'll find a plethora of handsome men in kilts.

And since I share the general love of kilted men, I'll bring a piper to the party, because...well, it's not a party, really, till you have a piper. For full effect, you might want to detour to this YouTube link and let the pipes play in the background while you read on...

I had some trouble deciding whom to ask to be my date, but in the end I settled on the man who, in my eyes at least, is still the hottest thing in kilts: Sir Sean Connery, shown here in this film.com photo.

Julie: I will bring some salmon, which I believe features large in the cuisine of both Swedes and Scots.

I had the most gorgeous salmon of my life in Stockholm on holiday, gravadlax with dill potatoes and lingonberries. Mmmmmmm. And I will not hear of Christmas without some Scottish smoked salmon as a starter.

I will also bring Scot David Tennant as my date. Cuz I can. And he seems to be bringing a Dalek. I hope nobody minds.

Liz: I'll be bringing whiskey to warm our hearts and free our imaginations and it goes really well with smoked salmon...and with that if I may can I bring a roaring fire and a big tartan covered sofa for all to collapse onto and to keep the male companionship up may I suggest James McAvoy....

Anna: I’m going to bring.... the wild, sweet, peaty water of Scotland, without which the salmon has no freedom, and the whisky no flavour. Whenever we return to our favourite place in Scotland, the first thing we do, whatever the weather, light, or time, is take a walk along the rushing river to the almost forgotten Old Bridge of Minnoch, which has arched in graceful elegance across the torrent for more than 300 years. The air is sweet, the bridge is waiting, and the water is singing to us, forever and always.

I'm also bringing Gerard Butler. After all, he is the physical model for my hero Gareth, in Danger: Deep Water.

Christina: You thought I’d bring a man as my guest – a handsome hero in a kilt no doubt, but sadly Jared Leto wasn’t available so I brought the next best thing – my favourite character from the book, the deerhound Liath. I knew from the moment I “met” him that he’d be having a starring role and I totally fell in love with him. I think everyone else will too and he’ll be only too pleased at any praise/pats/dog treats that come his way during the party. He loves being the centre of attention!

Right then, now that we’re all here, it’s time to have Christina tell us Five Fast Facts about her newest novel, Highland Storms…

Favourite moment in the book – when the hero Brice comes out of the loch after a swim wearing only wet breeches (no shirt à la Mr Darcy, sorry!) and the heroine realizes that there’s no way she’s going to be able to ignore this guy however much she wants to.

Character who surprised you the most – the villain’s son when he started thinking for himself instead of following his father blindly. I hadn’t planned on including him much, but he ended up in quite a few scenes.

A scene that made you smile - when Liath the dog, the heroine’s faithful hound, refuses to obey her for the first time ever and chooses to stay with the hero because he’s wise enough to know a good guy when he sees him.

A scene you hated writing – when the hero gets beaten up by a bunch of English soldiers (on the orders of their sadistic captain). I had a hard time writing this because although I sympathized with the Highlanders who were persecuted after the Jacobite uprising, I didn’t want the English to always be shown in a bad light as there were good and bad people on both sides.

A book your hero probably has on his bookshelf – Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe (as the hero himself has travelled to China twice, I think an adventure story like this would appeal to him).

(That portrait of Liath, by the way, was drawn by Christina's very talented daughter, J. Fenton)

And the party continues...

Christina has offered up one signed copy of Highland Storms as a giveaway prize for the best thing anyone else brings to the party, and she'll send it anywhere in the world, so...what are you going to bring to our party?

You have till next Sunday to comment, and we'll let Christina pick the winner.

(Don't forget to come back Thursday, when we do this all again for Julie's latest book!)

Second Chances

2011-11-04T07:01:00.000-04:00

Second chances are on my mind at the moment. Admittedly not because of writing but it does make you think. Sometimes you just aren't ready the first time an opportunity comes your way. It is all in the timing. You might meet the right person but if it isn't the right time then it isn't going to work. Different goals, different dreams and ambitions and when you are younger you don't necessarily know how to compromise. OK I don't know how to compromise... (control freak that I am)

But time moves on and you grow up. You have your edges knocked off and somehow you learn that you can compromise (with grumbling). You fall in love and get hurt by other people but you dust yourself down and get up bloodied but not beaten.

And sometimes when you think of Paris or when you ski, you think back fondly and wonder 'what if'. You hope they're happy. You might even google them or look them up on Facebook (this isn't actually stalking if you only do it once in awhile). You look at the smiling photos and the feet deep snow and sighing wish them well and tuck your memories back out of sight.

But occassionally you get a second chance. Grasp it with both hands and live in the moment. This might be the last chance you need but even if it fades you'll know that you gave it your all.

Here endeth the lesson! (normal service with Brigid will resume soon)

Come back on Sunday to here from Susanna

Copy Edits or the Ghost of Sr Mary Eleanor

2011-10-30T02:13:00.000-04:00

Pitcure by http://tiny.cc/sv5mu

Another milestone has arrived in my writing life - my first set of copy edits. Gulp. Lashings of red everywhere and it's easy to feel a huge failure. This really plays to my insecurities a bit like Christina's last post about reading aloud - they are tied together for me. I am dyslexic.

For me this means spelling is an obstacle of sometimes insurmountable proportions. I can be faced with a word that I can't even look up in dictionary because I don't know where to begin. Then of course there is also the fact that there are tricky words like homophones...it is a mine field. I find I frequently 'dumb' down what I want to right (ooops write! and I just spotted that before I pressed the published post button) because I can't spell the words I normally use in speech and this can lessen the impact and meaning of my story or thoughts I'm trying to convey.

So I was dreading the copy edits. In my mind it was going to be like my high school senior year Advancement Placement English teacher was coming to haunt me. Sr Mary Eleanor took no prisoners and didn't understand that I didn't see spelling mistakes. After one essay test where I spelt Johnson five different ways she took me aside and told me that if I had one more spelling mistake in her class the A that I deserved would never be attained. I graduated with a B+.

If you are a writer, you know that reading your work aloud is vital. With me this doesn't work as words move. I don't see them move, but I pull words from the page and make new sentences - perfectly good ones, but not the ones written on the page. (reading aloud in a class was a nightmare). For my writing, I have fixed this problem with text to voice software...my ears are not dyslexic. However homophones still can slip through...

So back to the copy edits..THE CORNISH HOUSE has been edited so many times and yet there are still tons of errors, but thus far I have escaped the spelling ones - except the English vs American ones. I am in awe of the copy editor's skill to find them all.

It appears I also lack the ability to use a comma...where I have used one it's wrong and well I never use them when needed. See Sr Mary Eleanor was correct all those years ago to deny me my A.

I am also in hysterics...as I mentioned I have been so hard on this script especially on my tendency to repetition and yet the copy editor has pointed out all my characters are sighing, shaking their heads (maybe 70 times) and sitting up straight that they must be exhausted from the strain....just goes to show what we don't 'see' in own work no matter how closely we look at it.... at least I haven't changed anyone's eye colour half way through or their name in this script - I wouldn't want to put some others up to scrutiny.

Have you been copy edited? If so what is your biggest slip-up? If not what do you think yours would be?

Come back on Thursday to hear from Biddy...

Embarrassing Moments

2011-10-27T04:58:00.005-04:00

Last weekend I attended the fabulous Festival of Romance, the first romance convention in the UK aimed at readers. It was a mixture of serious talks and fun, and I really enjoyed it! Well, most of the time. Because there was one part I absolutely hated and that was having to stand up in front of about fifty people to read out an excerpt from my novel.

I don’t find it difficult to read out loud as such and always loved taking my turn doing that at school when I was little, so this wasn’t the problem. It was just the fact that I was reading something I’d written myself as opposed to someone else’s work. And it had to be a scene describing my hero.

I don’t know about other authors, but when I read the words on the screen at home they always seem ok. Reading them out loud, however, makes them sound trite, silly, clichéd and downright rubbish. I’ve no idea why (unless they are all of the above, which I desperately hope they’re not!). And why, when you’re standing there in front of an audience, does it feel like you have an inner copy editor inside your brain? He/she is picking holes in the plot and tweaking the sentences the whole time, even though you know full well a real copy editor has already done this, not to mention the umpteen times you’ve gone through it yourself.

So why did the whole experience make me cringe?

Maybe it’s because when you read a piece out of context like that, you don’t get the whole picture? It’s a bit like the nominations for worst sex scenes every year – I’m sure they can’t all be as bad as they’re made out to be, because there has been a build-up to that particular scene beforehand which we’re not being shown.

Or maybe it’s just me. As we’ve discussed before on this blog, the whole standing up in front of a crowd thing is very daunting and I’m still learning. But I know one thing for sure - if I have to do it again, I’m going to think very carefully about which scene I choose. And I think I’ll pick a scene where I don’t have to read about naked men’s chests and wet breeches because that definitely didn't help ... (And no, I wasn’t describing Colin Firth).

Thankfully, it was over quite quickly and after that, I could relax and enjoy the rest of the festival. One of the highlights was taking part in a “heroine’s fashion parade” (ie. we had to dress as the heroines of our books), which was great fun. It’s not every day you get to stand next to Marilyn Monroe or a chicken!

Please stop by again on Sunday to hear from Liz

Reasons to Write: #1 Balance

2011-10-23T06:07:00.003-04:00

The reasons we write - or the reasons we don't - are very personal, don't you think?

It's no particular secret that I haven't written for some time, and that I haven't written regularly for longer than I care to remember. I've made some measure of peace with that - it's never felt like a permanent situation, more like a pause. I'm hibernating. Out of season.

It'll come back. Or, rather, I'll come back to writing.

I'm not going to blog about the reasons I'm 'pausing'. At least, not today! It's enough for me to know what they are, to have learned to respect them, and to say, "it's okay. It's not permanent." (And not serious, either, so don't worry, if you're so inclined! :-) )

I'd rather talk about all the reasons TO write. I've been thinking about them a lot, lately.

Personally, I think writing helps to balance my life, to balance ME. The dayjob's a pretty heavy load on one end of a seesaw - it would be very easy to let it be all-consuming, to live for that, to think of that all the time. It would be very easy to be goal-orientated, project-focussed, NHS-management-speak-obssessed, musing all the time on codings and admissions avoidance, scrutiny and impact-assessment.

I'd rather spend at least some time wondering how to get my hero and heroine in bed, and what they'd do there that would be unique between them, how to blow up a cathedral (long story) and what would happen if THIS historical character had chances to meet THIS historical character.... Immersing myself on that imaginary world stops me immersing myself - unhealthily - in this real one.

And probably only a writer could consider full immersion in the real world as 'unhealthy'.

So. My number one reason to write: Balance.

What are yours?

(Warning: I'll probably shameless pinch your ideas and blog about them....)

Come back Thursday for Christina's next post!

new house

2011-10-22T09:13:00.012-04:00

I know I was meant to post on Thursday, and here it is Saturday, but this time I really do have a good excuse. My beloved iMac died, and with it all my bookmarks, calendars, documents, and basically my entire life.

It wasn't too disastrous—I had done a back-up only a few days before, so I've still got just about everything—but it's taking quite a bit of time to get everything transferred over to my brand-new, lovely shiny BIG iMac with gazillions of MB of memory. I feel a little bit guilty putting my old stuff on my new Mac. It's sort of like having a huge new mansion and bringing all of your beat-up furniture with you.

Because everything I write on this brand-new lovely iMac is bound to be much more scintillating, brilliant, interesting and clever than anything I wrote on the old one. It'll be gleaming and new, high-tech and clean. Right?

The latter part of my writing life can be traced through Macintosh computers. Before I went to university, I had an electric typewriter and stacks of notebooks. (Yes, I know this is revealing my ancient age.) But when I got to uni, I borrowed my roommate's Mac to write my papers and the occasional experimental bit of fiction. I stored all my writing on a plastic floppy disk and printed it out on the university's dot-matrix printer. I thought that thing was adorable; I loved how it was parodied in my favourite cartoon, Bloom County, as the Banana Jr.

In the 90s, I was a research student and I owned an Apple Powerbook. It was squat, awkward, and grey. But I wrote my first romance novel on it—in between writing chapters in my never-ending thesis.

At the turn of the century, though, I bought what is still the most beautiful computer, and one of the most scrumptious objects, I have ever seen: a first-generation iMac in yummy sweet-shop orange. I loved that computer. It was so CUTE. And it was the first time I was ever able to connect to the internet at home. You just plugged it in! Imagine!

On that computer, I wrote my first nine novels (some of them never published and which still languish on CD). I connected with people who were destined to become my closest friends. And because it was in colour, I was able to use photos of Hugh Jackman and John Cusack as screen savers. I still recall the smell it made when it heated up: a warm, plasticky, comforting smell.

When that died, I got a new white iMac, which was aesthetically gorgeous but less edible-looking. And now, this week, I've moved into a silent, sleek new silver-and-black iMac with an enormous screen. It's like looking into a whole new universe with crystal-clear vision.

These computers aren't just tools to me. They're part of my world, part of my social life, a big part of transferring my imagination into words. They really do feel like houses that I live in.

And anything can happen there.

Do you have a similarly emotional connection to your writing tools?

Come back Sunday...er, tomorrow, to visit with Anna.

PS: HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my brother Matt!

In the Bath

2011-10-16T11:59:00.008-04:00

CONFESSION: I actually wrote this post back in 2009 for my Not-A-Blog, but just last night while sitting in my bathtub I again had one of those amazing moments when all the pieces of a tricky plot point came together, and while I was hastily jotting down notes on the soggy bits of paper that I keep beside the tub for just that purpose, I remembered this old post and thought I'd put it up again for those who missed it...

A little while ago I happened to be reading a review of former US Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan’s memoir, The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World, in which the reviewer quoted Greenspan as saying, ‘To this day the bathtub is where I get many of my best ideas.’ It turns out that Greenspan wrote most of his memoirs, in fact, while immersed in the bath, and that he’s in the habit of doing this. As Greenspan’s wife, Andrea Mitchell, explained to a reporter: ‘He first started soaking in the tub because of his bad back. He found it was good quiet time to have uninterrupted focus to marshal his ideas.’ And why does this interest me, I hear you asking?

Because for some years now, whenever I come to a difficult place in my writing, the first thing I do is to run a hot bath. An hour or so of soaking and my characters inevitably stir and start to talk, and I emerge with scribbled water-spotted pages filled with random bits of dialogue and thoughts for scenes, enough to get my story moving. I never really mentioned this to anyone, because I assumed it was simply a personal quirk of mine, the predictable result of listening to too much Flanders and Swann in my childhood. But since reading the Greenspan review I’ve been Googling round, and I’ve learned that I’m far from alone in my habit. In fact, I appear to belong to a whole club of bath-loving writers with members as varied as Benjamin Franklin and Agatha Christie. And while I don’t know whether Vladimir Nabokov wrote in his bath, he did write a piece in the Saturday Review on the subject of Inspiration, stating openly, ‘Some prefer the bathtub to the study...’

So there you are. Why I’m inspired in the bathtub I really don’t know, though I privately suspect that the effects of lying neck-deep in warm water with the white noise of the bathroom fan obscuring outside sound comes fairly close to the experience of lying in an isolation tank – sometimes called a ‘sensory deprivation tank’ – in which most people’s brainwaves slow to a speed known as ‘theta’, the daydreaming state that falls somewhere between relaxed ‘alpha’ and sound-asleep ‘delta’. My creative subconscious, in other words, gets time to play. It’s a theory, at any rate.

Where do YOU find inspiration?

Be sure to come back Thursday to read Julie's post.

Second Reads

2011-10-13T01:00:00.000-04:00

Mayburgh Henge

If you remember, gentle reader, that last time we spoke myNWS manuscript, The Stone Voice, had been put forward for a second readSince then things have moved on.

This week my manuscript came home to me. And it came homewith two reader reports. Now I thought I would be upset that the manuscriptwasn’t being sent on to agents or publishers but I knew the manuscript wasn’tready. It was part way through an edit.

So it was with regret but no surprise that I read thereports. Well I couldn’t be happier. My first reader loved it! Which you wouldexpect as she passed it on for the second read. My second reader report wasamazing. Eight pages of gold dust. They have gone chapter by chapter workingasking questions and teasing out theme and motivation so I can make itstronger. And the comment which made me happy…

“When a story is so close tobeing spot-on it can often be difficult to work out why some bits of the storyaren’t hanging together…”

WOW!

So I have taken suggestion from my fellow Heroine Addictsand will be copying said reports. I will keep a copy untouched. I will take acopy and highlight all the positive points (for bad days). And with the other Iwill highlight in one colour those I agree with and in another colour thosecomments I don’t necessarily agree with. Then I have been told to do nothingfor a month.

I can do nothing for a month. I think. I do have my newstory to work on. In November I’ll beback in the editing chair.

I can’t wait!

Come back on Sunday to hear from Susanna

Plot Problems Are Good for My Bottom

2011-10-09T04:35:00.000-04:00

We all know of the dreaded writer's bottom....we sit on a chair, sofa or bed tapping away at the keyboard living in our imaginary worlds. Bliss - well sort of. This leads to an unattractive spread of the backside especially when combined with others things that help writing - wine, chocolate, cakes....

One has to take an active approach to counteracting that dreaded thing...the writer's bottom. You either have to be disciplined (hard when you are using all of that to apply bum to chair and write) or you must encounter plot problems. This is not my preferred solution, but one my mind clearly chooses.

When stuck...I walk and if possible walk a lot. The more I do, the clearer things are on my return to the keyboard. I've recently had a great deal of plot problems as I am re-thinking, re-writing and editing an old story...at the rate I'm going I may turning out very fit as this story is presenting me with a plot wall daily...

Come back on Thursday to see what Biddy has to say....

Winging It

2011-10-06T05:15:00.007-04:00

What were your worst subjects when you were at school? Mine were definitely PE and sewing. PE because I’m a klutz and I wore glasses and couldn’t catch a ball to save my life (I was also cross-eyed and usually saw two of them, which didn’t help!) and sewing because ... well, I was just rubbish at it!

You’d think I’d be put off for life, wouldn’t you? But over the years I have improved slightly. I finally learned how to sew on a button (yes, without getting the thread all knotted and the button hanging sideways), I taught myself cross-stitch and actually finished a tapestry kit. Ok, so it took years, but I got there eventually. But recently I’ve had to be more adventurous – I needed to make a Regency dress.

I’ve always loved dressing up and jumped at the chance to do so for the upcoming RNA Regency Day. The only problem was that I didn’t have anything suitable to wear. Buying a dress or having one made was too expensive, so the only alternative was to do it myself. Why not, I thought?

It did seem very foolhardy for someone who can’t sew a straight line with a sewing machine and is very likely to draw blood every time a needle is used. But I figured that if I could learn to be an author, why not a seamstress? And it would be perfect “filling the well” time too – something to take me away from the writing completely.

So I went to buy material, thread and some buttons – then set to work. As with my writing, I decided to “wing it” (yes, I’m a “pantser” not a “plotter”) and improvise, although I did buy a pattern for the bodice part. Not that it actually fit – I mean who draws these things? Do they actually know how big the sizes are? Or was it just the fact that I didn’t follow the instructions properly? (Anyone else hate reading instruction manuals?) I made it fit eventually (I just hope no one ever looks on the inside!), and then I managed to attach the skirt bit and close up the sides. Amazing!

The only problem was that it looked a bit like I was wearing my grandmother’s curtains. Or possibly someone else’s bridesmaid’s outfit. Maybe lilac with white lace wasn’t such a good idea after all? But it’s done now and when I put it on, it sort of looks like a Regency dress. A very home-made one, but isn’t that what the poorer ladies did back then? Like Scarlett O’Hara, maybe they ripped down the drawing room curtains to make ball gowns out of? Well, that’s what I’m going to pretend anyway. I’m an author, I’m allowed to use my imagination.

Because I am going to wear it, despite the fact that it doesn’t look all that great. After all, I “wing it” with my writing, and I’ve had the courage to show that to the world, so why not home made clothing. Ok, so I had years of practice before the writing went on show, and I can see I need to practice my sewing skills a bit longer too. Still, it’s a bit of fun and I’m entering into the spirit of things – that’s what counts, right? If nothing else, I’ll give everyone a good laugh. And entertaining people is what authors do, isn’t it? But I think I’ll stick to the written page from now on ...

Please come back on Sunday to hear from Liz (if she’s stopped laughing by then !)

Sponge

2011-10-02T05:42:00.003-04:00

It's easy to tell when I've been on a Regency binge. Quite aside from the drifts of Georgette Heyer's and other historical romances beside the bed, sofa, cooker, and loo, you'll find that my kitchen audio book du jour is probably Sense and Sensibility, or Persuasion.

There are other clues. I look much the same - I'm not to be found wilting about the house in fine cambrics and muslins, protecting my delicate frame (ha!) from draughts with a Norwich silk shawl, (although, yes, I was in my home-made Georgian ball dress again on Friday night, which is another story*)... but I sound quite different.

You see, when I immerse myself in another fictional world, I tend to absorb it's verbal rhythms and language. After six or so Heyer's, read in quick succession, I have to remember to speak normally.

I've always been that way. As a teen, if I read too many of one particular Sci Fi, or a mite too many gritty thrillers, I'd live in that world just a little too much. For the most part it's harmless, just treading the edge of a minor eccentricity. For writing, it's a nightmare.

I absorb language and writing style like a sponge, whether I want to or not. And if I am reading in the same genre as I'm writing, when I'm writing a lot, I have sleepless nights worrying about losing my writing voice, or becoming derivative, or - worse case scenario - inadvertent plagiarism.

So when I'm writing breathless, emotional romantic suspense, you won't find my anywhere near a contemporary romance of similar type. I'll read 1970s medical romances, or old-favourite fantasies.

Or I'll drive my long-suffering husband distracted by immersing myself in Heyer, and failing to remember which century I'm living in.

(*There was a launch even for next Spring's Cockermouth Georgian Fair: a screening of Vanity Fair at which I got to ogle James Purefoy on the screen AND sit very, very upright because slouching meant my corset tended to prevent my breathing AND hope it didn't rain later as my hair was only maintaining its lofty heights by the addition of a Great Deal of hairspray. Later, when I'd divested myself of dress and taken the pins out of my hair, while still wearing powder, patch and rouge, I looked like a dissolute denizen of a Georgian brothel. Or, as Husband maintained, a refugee from an 80's pop video....)

I have a great idea...

2011-09-29T15:12:00.003-04:00

My non-writing friends tell me fairly often that they're amazed that I can keep on coming up for ideas for novels. I'm not sure why people pick up on this particular aspect of writing, because just about any writer can tell you that the ideas are actually the easy part.

Ideas are everywhere. Ideas are a dime a dozen. Ideas are in every news programme, in every magazine, every journey and every chat with friends. It's getting the right idea that's hard.

It has to be something that your agent will be happy to sell, that your publisher will like, and also your publisher's marketing department. It needs to attract booksellers and the press. In this market, it needs to be catchy enough to be able to be described in a sentence or two, and yet complex enough so that it's not a barefaced cliche. Preferably it will lend itself to the perfect title and type of cover, too. If it has a nice marketing hook that the press can latch on to, that's even better.

It also needs to be something that you, the author, will be happy to live with for about a year at least while you're writing it, and then not be sick of it when it comes time to promote it. Probably it will appeal to your core themes, the sort of thing that you tend to write books about and which you come back to again and again and again. I know that there are lots and lots of ideas out there that are good, but for me, an idea that zings has to touch, in some way, my core themes of identity and perception. Otherwise, I won't be interested in writing it.

That's why it hardly ever works when someone comes up to you and says, "I've got this great idea, you can use it if you like." It might be great, but it's not your idea. Therefore, it won't work. I usually suggest to the person that maybe they'd like to write it themselves; if it appeals to them, they'll do a much better job with it than I ever could.

Some ideas seem good at the time, but then when you get down to working with them, when you start getting your hands dirty, you discover that actually they're not very good at all. Likewise—though it's much rarer—sometimes you have an idea that seems so blatantly obvious that everyone and his dog will have done it already...but they haven't. It's up to you.

Some ideas are really good, but you've put them in the wrong place. I've given my characters the wrong jobs before, for example. The jobs were awesome, they were really great to write about, except they just didn't fit.

And some ideas, you come up with when you've had a few too many glasses of wine. You scrawl them down and your handwriting is nearly illegible. The less said about those ideas, probably the better. I found a Post-It with "STAIRCASE" written on it the other day. I have absolutely no clue what it means, but I do remember that it seemed like utter brilliance at the time.

Best and worst of all, ideas don't come on demand. You have to wheedle and coax them. You have to catch them while they're not paying attention, by watching them out of the corners of your eyes. You can wait and wait and think damn, I'm never going to write another book again, and then BOO! They'll jump out at you and get you in a headlock until you can't think about anything but writing them.

Those are the best kinds of ideas.

Check back on Sunday for Anna's post.

Stuck

2011-09-25T20:39:00.018-04:00

see more dog and puppy pictures

Last week I got stuck in a scene.

It's not a thing that happens very often, which is good because it's frustrating. I'm not the world's fastest writer, but I do like to end the day with some sense of accomplishment, and that's hard to do when I'm constantly writing the same page—and sometimes the same sentence—over and over and over, deleting the whole thing and starting again...

What happened last week wasn't writer's block. I was still writing. It just wasn't getting me anywhere. It felt like I'd driven out onto the ice with the wrong sort of tires and was sitting there spinning my wheels.

Stubbornness kept me from jumping ahead to a new scene that might have been easier, partly because I don't like admitting defeat and partly because I knew it was only a matter of finding the right words, the right phrase, the right bit of dialogue...finding that one patch of grit that would give my wheels traction.

Experience has taught me the important thing for me to do is keep the car in drive. It's only by sitting there day after day at the keyboard and typing that I come unstuck, even if in the meantime I have to create and delete several pages of story.

Most of the time my subconscious is simply not happy with how I'm approaching the scene, or it's busily working on some other problem (I rather suspect that, most times, it's the latter, since when I get stuck I invariably end up getting lots of new ideas for a scene that happens later...) (sigh).

It's good to know the effort isn't wasted.

But I still confess I felt relieved when yesterday I finally wrote a sentence that felt right, and then another, and the whole entire story seemed to shift and creak and start to roll ahead again.

I'm curious to know if any other writers here get stuck, and if so, how they deal with it? And readers, have you ever come across a point in any book where you believe the writer got bogged down? I always wonder, as a writer, if those spinning wheels leave marks behind...

Come back Thursday, to read Julie's next post.

The RNA ROCKS!!

2011-09-22T13:31:00.000-04:00

I reached another milestone recently. After eight years I beinga member of the Romantic Novelists Association’s (RNA) New Writers Scheme (NWS)I have managed to get my manuscript put forward for a ‘second read’.

I supposed I should explain for non-RNA types what exactlythis all means. Every year 250 unpublished writers can join the NWS and itmeans that they can submitted a manuscript anytime between January and Augustwhich will be read by an anonymous reader. The reader is a published author whohas a background in whatever genre you are writing in. They read yourmanuscript and then write a report on it, telling you what works and whatdoesn’t. Which completely rocks whichever way you look at it. Even if thereport leaves you weeping in your beer. I still remember my first one… I criedall night but hugged the thought that although everything else sucked I couldwrite a good kiss.

But if you get more than the kisses right, if the readerlikes your manuscript. I mean LIKES it and thinks it is ready they send it backto the organiser recommending it for a ‘second read’. This means yet anotheranonymous reader gets your manuscript. They read it and if they LIKE it too,the RNA will approach agents or publishers on your behalf. It is like having anRNA kitemark added to your writing.

Mind you even just having it under consideration is amazing.I mean someone somewhere who I haven’t bribed with wine (well I could have atan RNA event but it wasn’t done deliberately) actually thinks my work is almostthere.

Eight years. And a life time of dreaming.

Come back on Sunday to hear from Susanna

Turning Points

2011-09-18T05:15:00.000-04:00

At the Emirates Airlines Literary Festival last March I was the moderator for a workshop by Louise Doughty and in it she spoke about turning points. These were key ones where there was no way the story could go/slip back - irreversible change. She said in effect it almost became a different story. She spoke of films and Sid Field's The Screen Writer's Workbook. Then she mentioned the film Truly Madly Deeply -1/4 bereavement then boyfriend comes back...no going back.

So what had me thinking about these things was not the current book or even the one I'm editing but yesterday. Yesterday I took my eldest to university. As my husband and I drove back in sun and rain and times watching the most amazing cloudscapes and rainbows I had ever seen...we had just experienced a major turning point - ours and his. Yes, he would still come home and want to be fed and so on, but it would be different. Holidays will no longer be planned around us, decisions made would be about his life and not our family. Life from this point forward will be from his point of view based solely on his needs until another big turning point happens in his life...

Yesterday really put turning points in a story into focus...life goes on but differently. From my point of view as a mother I have to let go....from his everything is possible....

Come back on Thursday to see what Biddy has to say.

Being Bossy

2011-09-12T20:12:00.012-04:00

Have I told you already that I’m a Leo? Probably. And although not everyone believes in horoscopes, an awful lot of the basic character traits associated with each star sign seem to fit most people. With me, it’s the Leo “leader” trait, combined with a slight Virgo tendency to want everything to be neat and tidy. I say slight, because it only surfaces occasionally, but I blame that on the fact that I’m born three days away from the Leo/Virgo border and who wants to be a Domestic Goddess anyway? My cupboards certainly don't look like the one in the photo below!

Anyway, I don’t mean I aspire to being prime minister or anything like that, but I do like to organise things, people and events. Being bossy, others might call it (and frequently do!) – my best friend, who I’ve known since I was five, always complains that I bossed her around when we were kids. I maintain she should have stood up for herself and not let me, but that’s another story ... The fact is, I enjoy any kind of organising!

Take the school PTA for instance. When my daughters were in junior school, I wanted to get involved because it seemed like a great way of being part of their school world. I quickly found out that not many other parents felt this way and that if the PTA members wanted anything done, it was a lot faster to do it yourself than to ask anyone to help. I did a two-year stint as chairman with very little thanks (except from the school staff, who appreciate all the help they can get) and a lot of hard slog. Even so, I enjoyed it immensely. (And yes, I know things are different in the States and Canada – the PTA seems to be a lot more important over there.)

Now my girls have grown up and left school, and I have moved on to a much nicer committee – that of the Romantic Novelists’ Association. I’ve been on it for more than four years now and I’ve loved every minute. As we all know, being an author can be lonely, so it’s great fun to be a part of the running of an organisation such as the RNA. You get to meet some lovely people, help make decisions that affect us all and best of all (for me) I get to organise things, like awards and events! (Right now, I'm helping to put together a Regency Day, which Julie and Biddy will take part in as well, which is great.)

I guess what I’m trying to say is that it can be very rewarding to get involved, even if sometimes it’s really hard work and you know you should probably be concentrating on other things (like actually writing something!) instead. This week the RNA committee welcomes Anna on board and I hope she will enjoy it as much as I have and still am. And anyone else who is hesitating – I would highly recommend joining whatever society or group you’ve been debating about, I'm sure you won’t regret it!

Anyone else like to be “bossy”? Or do you have any of the traits typical of your star sign?

Come back on Sunday to hear from Liz

Grey

2011-09-12T12:58:00.003-04:00

We've just got back from a camping holiday. I am looking forward with anticipation to cooking dinner whilst standing, rather than crouched or kneeling over a single-burner stove. I am salivating at the thought of the hot shower. The non-damp bed. Wearing clothes I have not lived in for five days.

We pitched in strong winds (we pegged the tent to the ground before we'd even laid it out properly, to prevent it disappearing over the Welsh hills) and torrential rain. When we'd got the outer up, and I'd crawled inside to put up the inner tent, I had to take off my sodden waterproof coat, and strip off my dripping trousers so as not to make dry(ish) things more wet.

We cooked and ate inside our little, no-standing-room tent because the weather never let up. It was constantly windy, more often raining than not, and universally grey.

Grey, grey, grey.

We had a GREAT time.

Husband said something about it on the way home (driving home through gale-force winds, no less). About how it could have been unremittingly awful, but somehow the golden moments shone through. Like picnics snatched between rain showers, strenuous hikes leading to spectacular places. Thrashing Husband at Monopoly (only at the fourth attempt, sadly).

I like writing stories where I take my characters to hell and back. But it's always a bit of a balancing act to make sure the golden moments are there, to move them forward, to strengthen the bonds between them, to provide contrast so that the grey, grey, grey is even more dreary and hard-work.

I've read some books, one or two, where the grey is unremitting. And I've read some where everything is somehow too good. Both were unsatisfying, to me.

Without the grey, golden is just... a kind of yellow. Without the golden, grey will never be a GREAT time.

Thirteen editors

2011-09-08T09:00:00.006-04:00

(Note: This is rather a serious-type business-type post, so forgive me. I just can't compete with Biddy's cow story.)

I was having a Twitter conversation recently with some fellow writers who started out at about the same time I did, and they mentioned that they had both been with the same beloved editor since their very first book.

I was incredulous. I sold my first book seven years ago, and since then, with the three different publishers I've been with, I have had thirteen different editors.

Thirteen. Thir-fricking-teen. I had no idea how many editors I'd had, until I just counted them up right now.

I don't think it's my fault. My editors have stopped editing me, temporarily or permanently, because they've moved publishers, or switched to a different editorial office, or left to have a baby, or left the country, or decided not to be editors any more. Or, I've stopped writing for their list because I wanted to move on to something else. None of this, as far as I'm aware, is because it's been so horrible editing me. I don't think. I've stayed in touch with the majority of my editors, and count them as friends, so I don't think I've ruined their lives by writing for them.

I'm definitely not responsible for the babies.

Whenever your editor does leave, though, for whatever reason, it's always the occasion for mild-to-desperate panic. If you've had a good editor (and I can tell you, all of my thirteen editors have been very good indeed), you will of course be terrified that your next editor won't get your work, won't like you, won't be understanding, will demand insane revisions, or maybe even drop you from their list. These things do happen; I've heard enough about it.

Even if you don't fear for your book and your career, you do know that this very important professional relationship will inevitably change. And that's worrying. Maybe just a little bit, but it's worrying nevertheless.

However, it's also always an exciting opportunity. Every one of my editors has or had their own editing style, and a slightly different way of working. Which means that I've learned lots of different procedures for pitching stories, giving in manuscripts, doing revisions, looking at queries, handling proofs. Most importantly, every one of them who's had hands-on work with my manuscripts has taught me something about my own writing. Both my strengths and my weaknesses. And that's one of the most precious things that can happen to you in this business.

I'm lucky to have worked with thirteen amazing women so far.

(And PS: Congratulations to my current editor on the birth of her baby! Hurray!)

Being There

2011-09-04T14:41:00.016-04:00

One of the wonderful things about writing is that there are really no rules, and we all do it differently. What works for one person might be of no help at all to another, and each of us has our own habits, our own individual process.

Part of my process is seeing the settings I'm going to write about; physically being there, even if all I can manage is one or two days on location. From the first, when I was working as waitress, I would plan and save to take those all-important trips, not because I couldn't imagine the setting without seeing it, but because I knew that seeing it would help me make it real in ways I couldn't have imagined.

I could, for example, have probably hunted down photos of Ieper's main square, even fudged my way through a generic outdoor cafe scene in that square based on other cafe's that I'd eaten in elsewhere, but if I hadn't gone in person I'd have missed the neon splendour of the carnival set up there, with its dragon-headed roller coaster. Nor would I have known the way the wind felt, or the way the floor bounced underneath the table when the serving staff walked by, and I would have never met the little black-and-white cat who will doubtless work her way into the current book somehow.

Invariably, when I'm on location like this, I'll stumble over some small place or thing that grabs my interest and becomes the basis for a scene that I would otherwise have never thought to write.

For instance, walking past these Georgian houses each day on my recent trip to Edinburgh created an entirely new subplot in my novel that will influence the ending in a way I hadn't planned.

And stopping overnight in Eyemouth, a setting I'd used years ago for The Shadowy Horses, gave me time for a walk on the middle pier, letting me test out a couple of sightlines, which ended up making me choose a new setting for one vital scene in the current book.

I used to think that my wanting to be on-site had more to do with my needing the sensory details: the smells and the sounds and the feel of things. But it goes deeper than that. It's a part of my process, the way that I work. I don't think I could write what I write without being there.

What about you? If you write, what's the key to your process? And if you're a reader, is setting important to you, or do you focus more on the story and characters?

Oh, and just because Brigid, in ending her Thursday post, brought up the subject of our little meeting in London last month, here's a photo that shows one more reason why I love my research trips.. :-) (And of course, Brigid, I'll never divulge just how much wine we actually drank!)

Come back Thursday for Julie's next post (if she's not being hit by a hurricane...)

Cows: How Our Heroine was Inspired by a Rabid Herd of Cows

2011-09-01T01:00:00.000-04:00

Photo is pose by model cows - no cows were hurt in the writing of this blog post

I believed Anna when she said there was only one field of cows to go through on our walk last Sunday near her house. Cows have never particularly scared me in the past but recent reports of people having been trampled has made me a tad wary.

So I stepped out happily from that first bovine field believing that was that. The cows in that field were lovely. They kept their heads down and grazed and most importantly kept well away. The wind was blowing through the hedgerows and Anna and I were chatting and I was mulling over some writing stuff in my head. A lovely Sunday stroll. We climbed a stile and came across yet more cows. These were even more laid back than the first, didn’t even flick an ear to notice our passing. We crossed their field avoiding the bog and clattered over a tiny wooden bridge across a brook into the next field.

The footpath signs were a little misleading at this point, I think they pointed diagonally across the field. Not a problem if a massive herd of, yes you are right, cows were not in the way. Anna and I decided to skirt the field, keeping a small copse of hazel and blackthorn on one side of a barbed wire fence to our right sides. The edge of the field was muddy, it sucked at our boots but the cows nearest us were happy. I kept my eyes ahead and stumbled on.

And then SHE caught sight of us. Even from a distance we could read her eyes. She lifted her head, stamped her back feet and then raced off to tell her friends. Suddenly every cow in the field was watching us. Anna and I sped up as much as you could in the mud. Then Devil Cow started to bring her gang round us. We were almost at the corner of the field. We would climb the fence into that field and get away.

It was a great plan. A stupendous plan, even until we saw the large, inquisitive herd of cows in the other field coming at a fast lick to find out what the fuss was about.

Anna and I stood at the point where the two fields and the copse met. Devil Cow’s eyes gleamed with malice as she slunk closer, her gang of bovine bullies behind her. Reinforcements from over the fence moved in tandem with them. We had one escape route. We took it. Anna swung her leg over the barbed wire fence and using whatever handholds there were dropped into the copse.

I could almost feel hot breath on my neck as I scrambled for the fence. Denim caught on the wire. They were coming to get me. They knew I was a city dweller pretending to be a country type. Anna was giving me sensible suggestions for where I should be putting my hands. Somehow I still ended up with scratches. And then I was over. We turned to see Devil Cow giving us the evils as she realised her plan had been thwarted. About twenty cows stood looking at us. A Mexican Standoff. Or so they thought

Anna and I smiled at each other, we were safe, for now. But how did we get home? We were off the footpath and in a small copse. I could see Anna’s eyes light up. I almost expected her to produce a machete and hack us a path. Instead we ducked and dived, unhooked hair from blackthorns and eventually found our way back to the little wooden bridge. We sat, legs dangling swigging whisky from a hip flask eating chocolate. We had survived the Attack of the Rabid Cows.

Fortified we were retracing our steps back to another path and were halfway across the field full of nice cows when I let out a yelp. Anna turned quickly, I think I saw a flash of the machete; she said she reacted quickly because she thought we were under attack again.

I turned to her and said.

“I think I know how I’m going to re-write the beginning of my book. There are these cows…”

Come back on Sunday to hear what Susanna has been up to (and hopefully she won't spill the beans about how much wine we drank on her one night in London)

Music

2011-08-29T05:13:00.000-04:00

Seen on the Helford River on 27/8/11

Two events over the weekend caused me to think about the importance of music. I was looking at a cartoon in one of the weekend papers. It showed the new twist - music to be a part of ebooks...which is interesting and complicated (thinking here of licensing etc...)

I don't listen to music when I write rough drafts because it distracts me and pulls me out of the story. On occasion I will have classical music playing but rarely. However when I'm editing or even thinking of editing music moves me and helps me to carve out the story from the raw draft. Sometimes, not always, I have my own little sound track for the books...which brings me back to ebooks with music...it could be wonderful or it could ruin a book for me. If I love the music chosen perfect but what if it clashes with my feelings or interpretation of the story????

I know of three writers who always have soundtracks for their books Elizabeth Chadwick, Julia Williams and our own Julia Cohen (who blogged about it here )- very different writers - one historical and the other two contemporary. Elizabeth has a separate blog listing her sound tracks so that if readers wishes to know what inspired her they can seek it and Julia references key songs in her blog. Julie uses her blog to talk about the music too. That works for me. It's my choice if I want to know... How do you feel about it? I know for me a brilliant soundtrack can make a film...but a book? Two films and their soundtracks jump to mind - Twilight's soundtrack (first film only) I thought was brilliant and the other one was the soundtrack for Easy Virtue....then of course their are films where the music is better than the film - The Boat That Rocked (I enjoyed it but...)

So this leads me the second event where music took over. This weekend it was the village regatta. It is the major event of the years pulling all the local villages together around the river. In the evening there are fireworks and this for us as a family has always marked the 'end of summer' moment. This year as we walked down to the river, we stopped at the river cafe. It was festooned with coloured lights, a makeshift bar was fully loaded and a hog roast was being devoured. Kids dashed up and down the grassy banks. Wonderful but what stopped me in my steps was the sound of music and music that was so right.

Three men were playing a sea shanty - Haul Away Joe. Here at at the side of the river beside the old chapel with the bell from a ship wreck off a nearby reef...it was right. Their voices were perfect and clear...heard over the shouts of the smalls and the chattered of conversation...It could have been a hundred years before except for the strings of lights above our heads. I know for certain that I wasn't the only one who thought the setting and music were a perfect match.... Has you had this happen? Have you used it in writing to evoke a setting or a mood?

Come back on Thursday to hear from Biddy

Crowning Glories?

2011-08-25T05:06:00.006-04:00

Hair is usually referred to as “a woman’s crowning glory” and I would agree with that. I have to admit I’ve been fascinated by long hair ever since I read the fairy tale of Rapunzel, when I was struck with serious hair envy. But what about for men?

When I tried looking up that saying on Google, I found the following quote from the Bible instead – “Does not even nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair, it is dishonour to him, but if a woman has long hair, it is glory to her?” (1 Corinthians 11: 14-15). Well, I would totally disagree with that!

Long hair on men seems to be one of those things that you either love or hate – like Marmite or anchovies. I hate both of those, but I LOVE long hair on men. I’m not sure why, but I always have and it has nothing to do with my age or fashion – to me it just adds to the overall impression. It seems right somehow.

The other week I was dragged along to a rock concert, the kind where hairy biker types predominate and you can’t move an inch without seeing leather and tattoos. I hardly noticed, however, because all around me were men with glorious long hair – I was in seventh heaven! For instance, walking past me, two guys with dark, wavy hair halfway down their backs. Seated in the row in front of me a Viking lookalike with strawberry blond, straight hair all the way to his waist. And everywhere else shoulder-length tresses or longer, some beautifully kept, some not so much.

So why don’t more men have long hair? If you look at the animal kingdoms, the males of the species are meant to be more flamboyant, with manes like lions. It would make sense for this to be the case with humans too, but although occasionally this becomes the fashion, the majority of men stick to having it shorn. A case of laziness perhaps? (Long hair is hard work if you want to keep it looking good). Or a general sense of feeling more groomed that way? I don’t know, but I often wish myself back to the mid 1600s when the Cavaliers (and others) flaunted their locks unashamedly. I mean, just look at the picture of Prince Rupert of the Rhine – gorgeous or what?

Or what about the Vikings, who seem to have plaited theirs to keep it out of their eyes, but otherwise let it grow long? Yes, those were the days ...

So do you love it or hate it? And do you like Marmite and anchovies? I wonder if these things go together ...

Please come back on Sunday to hear from Liz

Angel with the flaming sword.

2011-08-22T05:54:00.000-04:00

I'm going to have a bit of a fan-girl moment.

I love Mary Balogh's historicals with a passion. I love her complex conflicts, her unusual and yet so recognisable characters, her intense, real-world emotional stakes and her earthy, almost matter-of-fact sex scenes.

The other day, I borrowed 'Seducing an Angel' from the Library. I have to admit, it nearly got put back on the shelf. The title didn't appeal to me that much, and then, when I realised the Angel of the title was actually the hero, I very definitely dithered.

Later, although I was immediately intrigued by the heroine's bitter courage, her painful past and her pragmatic immorality, I was struggling to understand how the hero was going to keep me hooked. He was described as 'good humoured' and 'gregarious' and 'always smiling'. He was surrounded by - and honoured - healthy, loving relationships, had supportive family and good, loyal friends. He had no inner conflict to speak of, and was, even when pushed to extremes of endurance, invariably even tempered. He was good. He was kind. He was clever and discerning.

He was lovely.

He was... potentially very boring indeed.

And then, a few chapters further on, I was his slave.

I don't know when it was. I can't pinpoint the moment. Was it when he took responsibility for the welfare of a chance-met and chance-slept-with woman of dubious reputation and sordid past, simply because he could see through her mask of cynicism? Was it when he was unfazed by her unconventional household of social outcasts, when he refused to believe the worst of any of them? Was it when he recognised he had no right to chastise the heroine's brother when he refused to acknowledge her, but did it anyway and gave no quarter?

Perhaps it was when he steadfastly resisted succumbing to the romance-novel chliche of the Great Misunderstanding. Or when he was clearly furious with her for trying to manipulate him, and yet still even-toned and gentle-handed. I think, if I am honest, it was certainly when he refused to be manipulated at all.

Mary Balogh's happy, smiling, conflict-less hero revealed his core of steel and I was instantly devoted. The Angel drew his flaming sword, and I worshipped.

When was the last time a hero truly surprised you?

Taking Care of Business

2011-08-12T04:45:00.000-04:00

Elvis Presley had a personal motto, Taking Care of Business, it was all what he named his band. I'm not starting a band (although who knows...) but after a tumultuous few months I have a few weeks breathing space so I am going to start taking care of my business. What is my business, I hear you ask? Well, good question, in my mind my business is me. My health, my house, my future and of course my writing.

I have started small; I am getting back into the fitness groove. I’ve been running and resistance training and also walking places. I should be cutting back on the wine but that is part of my mental health so lets not go mad! My house and my future, I have plans. One of the first is to actually clear out all the paper I’ve accumulated in my flat… maybe. I’m shuddering at the thought.

To escape from those swaying towers of papers scattered round my flat I have decamped to Cornwall. I am currently sitting in Liz’s kitchen eating breakfast. I have run round the lanes this morning and once this post goes up I will be writing. I can feel the stress draining away. I can feel the writing itching in me to get out. Sometimes you need to spend some time taking care of business.

Come back on Sunday to see what Susanna's up to

Brain Dead...well almost

2011-08-07T15:50:00.000-04:00

I pressed the send button on Friday evening...off went the edits on the book (I know they'll be back too but that's another story). Now I'm finding it hard to think, string a sentence together and yet something is stirring. It's the call of another story. It's tugging away but I still can't think straight. I burnt my brain on the edits. I worked in a way I hadn't before - up at five and working straight through until noon...only breaking to eat breakfast and drink coffee. This wasn't normal but it was necessary. However it was hard and it hurt.

So now I need to hold off a little bit. My brain needs to mend and I need to fill the well. I will allow myself to sketch out a few ideas, do a bit of research and maybe by the end of this week I'll allow myself to begin...I can feel the excitement building already!

Muse Gone AWOL

2011-08-03T17:33:00.004-04:00

I have a problem – my Muse seems to have decided to go on vacation without asking my permission. This might seem reasonable, seeing as it’s summer and everything, but I’m afraid that’s not how it works. If I’m not on holiday, my Muse can’t be either. Guess I forgot to tell him that though and now he’s probably in the park, eating ice cream ...

I’ve been trying to work on a rewrite. A big job, kind of like the one Liz mentioned the other week. We’re talking major surgery, at least on the latter half of the novel, and it just isn’t happening. Perhaps the Muse thought that because he’d helped me write the story once, his job was finished? Well, he’s wrong. I need him now, more than ever, because he messed up first time round. The hero was boring, he did some really stupid things and quite frankly, I wouldn’t have wanted to marry him myself, so why would my heroine?

So, what to do? How do you tempt a Muse to come back from wherever it is they go when they’re not around? I didn’t know, because I’ve never had to do it before. He’s misbehaved occasionally, but he’s never left the house completely, just sort of skulked in a corner for a while. I tried the usual things – going to the cinema, people-watching, doing boring housework, DIY, going for long walks ... nothing happened. I decided this called for drastic measures, ie. the dreaded outline.

I might have mentioned before that I’m a “pantser” – I don’t plot much, I just sit down and write. Usually the Muse is happy with that and chips in with ideas from time to time. I only ever do an outline when I get stuck, and then it’s mostly very vague. This time I’ve had to get tough and try to do a really detailed one. Gosh, that’s hard!

I can see that it would work really well for an organised person, the type of author who thinks deeply about character motivation/conflict in the right place/major crises/highs and lows in their plot. I don’t. It sort of just happens by itself. Having to write a detailed outline for me is like when I was asked by an English teacher back at school to explain why I’d used certain grammatical structures – I had no idea, I just knew it sounded right. What’s more, I wasn’t interested in explaining it and reading a book on grammar was akin to torture.

But needs must, and right now I’m forcing myself to write down what’s going to happen, section by section. And as I write, I think I detect movement somewhere near my right shoulder when I get to some new and possibly interesting parts of the (hopefully) reinvigorated novel. Could it be the Muse has been tempted to come back by the thought of a really juicy scene? I sure hope so or it’s going to be a very long summer ...

Please come back on Sunday to hear from Liz!