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!

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!

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...

Win a Copy of Mac and Juno's Story

Whoo-Hoo, my author copies of Public Affair, Secretly Expecting est arrive!!

So to celebrate the fact that I now have a box full of brand new books sitting on my desk (with a seriously hunky guy on the cover), I'm going to give away a free copy to one of you guys.

Just to recap, if you've read Hot-Shot Tycoon Indecent Proposal with Connor and Daisy's story, this is a linked book in which Daisy's quite, thoughtful and ever-so-slightly mousy friend Juno Delamare discovers her wild side when she encounters Connor's bad-boy movie star brother Mac Brody. 

It's out in November in the UK and not till March in the US, so if you wanna win a copy all you have to do is email me on heidi@heidi-rice.com with the answer to this easy-peasy question:

Mac and Connor hale from which fair country?

I'll be picking the winner out of a hat (assuming I get more than one entry!!) and will announce the winner on this very blog on Saturday morning. And if you don't luck out, don't forget you can always buy a copy instead (it's worth the price, honest!!). 

Happy Birthday PHS

Pop on over to the Pink Heart Society today where they're celebrating their 3rd Birthday, and don't forget to post a comment.

There's a fantastic bag of books for the winner including ones by Nic Marsh, Kate Walker, Fiona Harper and even little ole me.

Although I still haven't got my author copies of Public Affair, Secretly Expecting yet, so you may be waiting awhile for my prize. Still that gives you lots of time to read all the others right!

It's all good.

Must-Watch Friday - Gone with the Wind

I am waxing lyrical about Gone with the Wind today over at the Pink Heart Society, so do pop over there and let me know what you think of David O Selznick's gargantuan romance. It's the film that introduced me to alpha males and feisty females and great, big, gushing romantic fantasies at an early age, so it has a place close to my heart... 

Despite the fact that in the years since I first fell in love with it I have become aware of its shortcomings. A movie of its time definitely, but one we're never likely to see the likes of again. And Clark Gable! Can I just say, Yum! (even with the tache)

The Waiting Game....

So I finally emailed Issy and Leo's story (some of which is set in the lovely city of Florence, hence the photo) off to my editor on Sunday night. Several weeks late (oops, I blame the school holidays and those pesky kids) and after a couple of afternoons spent frantically typing on my laptop in the park while my youngest played football.

And now all I have to do is wait... To see if my ed likes it as much as I do. Have to say after the trauma that was Mac and Juno's story, this one has gone surprisingly smoothly... Probably because for once I actually wrote an outline that I pretty much stuck to. But now I've sent it off, I'm not sure that's a good thing. Was the trauma the thing that added power and passion and complexity to Mac and Juno's tale? You see, this is the problem: the more time you have to wait the more time you have to panic. How comes this doesn't get any easier?

Luckily I'm freelancing this week in my other job as a film journalist, or my poor snowed-under ed would be getting endless little emails saying the author equivalent of 'are we there yet?'

Just to make me feel better I've stuck up one of the gorgeous photos from Emmy winners Mad Men which appeared in this month's Vanity Fair.

Hmmm, Jon Hamm, definitely a guy to inspire my next story.