Monday, 30 November 2009

Book Seven gets a Title

Just heard from my ed that the title for Book Seven... Which is now officially Issy and Gio's story is going to be Unfinished Business with the Duke! I love it - classy and to the point... Although maybe it should have been Unfinished Business - and Pleasure - with the Duke!! Given all that sexual tension that's now packed in there and busy smouldering away...

And it'll be out in June 2010 in the UK!! Whoopee.

Right, now back to the drawing board for Book Eight... Haven't even got any character names yet, let alone a plot to speak of... But I think this may be my first blond hero since my first book.

Friday, 27 November 2009

Yippee!! Book Seven Sold...


Heidi's a happy camper today (despite one of the worst colds known to woman!!) because Leo and Issy's story has finally got the green light. After revisions and tweaking and more, I finally found my sexual tension (and then some.. this is a seriously sexy book folks).

This was a hard one, no doubt about it (and no pun intended!) but usually the tough ones are all the better for it. And as always the problems with this story stemmed from the conflict not working. See isn't this what I always say, it's getting the conflict right that's always the hard part... Shame I didn't pay more attention to myself at the outset.

Still,  once the conflict works  every else tends to magically work as well. And that's no small feat for Modern Heat, where you want a story that will deliver on the fun and flirty tone, but still pack a serious emotional punch.

Still, I'm pleased with the story I ended up with, although sadly I had to change my hero's name at the last minute.... so now he's Giovanni instead of Leonardo.... May have to think up another Italian hero so I can use that name another time.

And to celebrate my success, I've posted the piccie of model David Gandy that was the original hero inspiration for this story.... Oh dear, I guess that means I've got to go hunk-hunting on the internet now to find hero inspiration for my next book. It's a tough life, but someone's gotta do it, right?

Friday, 13 November 2009

Up, Up and Away


...In my beautiful balloon. Which is what I'd like to do right now after cycling to work today through a rainstorm only to discover all the computers were down. Could this be Friday 13th I ask myself?

Well, to brighten things up I'm blogging over on the Pink Heart Society today on the wonder that is Disney/Pixar's new movie Up. I absolutely fell in love with this film, you can find out why over there. All I'm saying is that animated movies aren't just for kids anymore, especially not Pixar's ones.

I'm also due to be blogging on The Writing Playground on Monday 16th, and I'm giving away a copy of my latest book Public Affair, Secretly Expecting to one lucky commentator so you won't want to miss it. What's the blog about? My sad obsession with jigsaw puzzles!! No really. To find out how I've managed to connect that with writing category romance by way of a particularly ingenius (and somewhat strenuous) analogy you'll have to go play over there.


And last but by no means least, I've been answering questions as diverse as 'When does winter start for you?' to 'What do you wish you'd known about publishing before you got published' over at the M&B community. Here's the link for that one if you want to read my carefully considered answers. 'Carefuly considered' as in extreme long and waffly answers!

Okay, nuff publicity for now, back to crafting the final scene in my latest book... Now, where did I leave that sexual tension again?

Saturday, 7 November 2009

Popping out of the Cave

Gosh, haven't posted for over a month!! As you may have guessed I've been going through revision hell with my latest WIP (second set already and counting!). Could this be the hardest one to write yet? Quite possibly, and here I was expecting them to get easier and easier. No such sodding luck. 


Still I thought I should pop out of the cave to change the blog post as that piece on Julie and Julia is long gone. Also, I've been getting some serious inspiration from the new series of Spooks - complete with Richard Armitage as very tasty bad boy Lucas North - and thought I'd give anyone in the UK a heads up.


Am also due to be doing a post for the Pink Heart Society on Friday 13th November (hoping that's a good omen!) and one for the Writing Playground on the 16th, neither of which have even been thought about yet. So I better shuffle off back to my cave and get this darn book finished... 


BTW, I'm currently using the delicious Robert Pattinson as inspiration for a flashback scene where my hero is 21 and my heroine 17... Now with all this help, I really should be able to pull this one out of the fire. Wish me luck!!

Friday, 9 October 2009

Must Watch Friday: Julie and Julia

Just popping in to say I've got a blog up today on The Pink Heart Society for Julie and Julia, Nora Ephron's foodie feast starring Meryl Streep and Amy Adams.

Definitely worth dropping by and adding your views on beouf bourginon or indomitable, unconventional women or how Meryl can still look fabulous when she's pushing 60. I want that woman's bone structure. Now....

In other news I trudged over to Hammersmith in West London, in the pouring rain on Wednesday night, to meet the 'ravishing and talented' Leonardo, a dreamy architect who works for The Richard Rogers Partnership (think the Millenium Dome and the Pompidou Centre in Paris.. Rogers is a big deal and builds great buildings, whatever Prince Charles might say!!).

Leonardo was lovely, not only giving me the low-down on what architects actually do (so my hero will hopefully sound like he knows what the heck he's talking about) but also letting me borrow his Christian name! I skipped back from Hammersmith feeling like Gene Kelly in Singin' in the Rain. Hmmm, it's times like this that being a romance writer is so worth the effort. In fact, I think all my heroes may be architects from now on!

Monday, 5 October 2009

Inspiration... And other guilty pleasures...

So, I've emailed a list of suggestions for revisions to my editor, as we were both puzzling about how to fix my chronic lack of sexual tension. And we've now come up with a plan. But just to add a little inspiration... And for any other authors or aspiring authors out there who have mislaid their sexual tension (like moi) couldn't resist posting this little YouTube clip that is currently doing the rounds among certain respected romance writers (all in the name of research, of course).

Right, while you're watching that, I'm going to go off and steam up my keyboard.

But be warned. Do not press the play button unless you're over 18 and you don't wear a pacemaker!




Saturday, 3 October 2009

And the Winner Is...

Hey all, well actually there's two winners, cos after writing all the names on bits of paper and sticking them in a hat, my two sons had a bit of a tussle about who should pick out the winner... Which ended with them both picking one!

So Amanda Gardner and Rachael Blair come on down!!

Just email me your snail mail addys if you haven't already and I'll post off a copy asap.

Many thanks to everyone who entered...

It was a lovely distraction from the lengthy call I got from my editor yesterday afternoon about Leo and Issy's story... She really liked a lot of my latest ms, but there were a few slight problems. Firstly, I seem to have mislaid the sexual tension somewhere, cos it ain't in the ms. And my heroine's a bit of a tart!

So it's back to the drawing board on this one for the next week or two. See, I always knew there was no gain without pain. This one was too darn easy. Right oh, off to go sweat some blood and beat this sucker into submission...