Friday 27 March 2009

Hallelujah!

Cracking open the champers here in North London as I have finally emailed off my latest ms to my lovely editor.

Of course, I'm not out of the woods yet as revisions will no doubt follow, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that she's going to like it and there won't be anything too major (famous last words??). 

After much agonising and rewriting and tweaking and the rest I think I finally nailed my characters and understood their journey. And that's the main thing.

Now onto RITA celebrations and the news that fellow Presents author Anne McAllister has got a nom in the Best Contemporary Series Romance category. No noms for me this year (boo-hoo), but I'm pleased as punch for Anne and if she has anything like the fun I had last year in San Francisco (if she goes to Washington) she's going to have a ball!

Sunday 22 March 2009

Sneak Peek of Hot-Shot Tycoon...


Am finally in the home stretch of the Book from Hell. After much angst and rewriting of sagging middle I decided not to take a break and went for a coffee with one of the other school mum's last week after dropping my youngest cherub at the school gates.

Good decision! Barbie gave me some invalueable advice (and she's not an author). When I told her my long tale of woe, how I'd got stuck in the black hole vortex from hell and could not stop writing and rewriting the same chapter over and over she said.... Um, well why don't you just finish it, then you can figure out what's wrong with that chapter when you know where you're going to end up.... Well, DUH!

Of course, she was absolutely right and so I went home and wrote two chapters in a day. Lesson learned folks, when in doubt, stop for that coffee!

In other news, I finally have a sneak peek of Hot-Shot Tycoon up on my website.

And I'm scheduled to be blogging at I Heart Presents tomorrow about playing Blind Date with your characters. So come along and have a natter.

Tuesday 17 March 2009

Happy St Patrick's Day

Wishing you a happy St Patrick's Day with this comely picture of my man Pierce Brosnan (apparently celebrating St Pat's Day in 2003).

I would have stuck up a photo of Colin Farrell too but I'm not talking to him at the moment because of the complete dog's breakfast he's made of my current ms. Yeah, you hear that Col, call yourself a muse? Ha, I've seen better muses in Chelsea pal!

I'm switching back to Pierce next time I need hero inspiration I'm telling you, no more bad boys for me, just smooth charmers. They're so much more predictable.

Although I have to say I saw In Bruges at the weekend and as long as you're not a person of restricted growth, a resident of Bruges (which is in Belgium apparently) or someone who gets squeamish when there's too much blood splatter or swearing on screen, then you'll love it. I certainly did.

Right, back into the cave that Colin's helped dig for me.

Friday 13 March 2009

Nights in Rodanthe

Hey all,

Just thought I'd pop my head out of the writing cave and point over to the PHS where I will be pontificating today on the Must-Watch-ish experience that is the romantic weepie Nights in 
Rodanthe.


Also had to show you the extremely hot cover for my first ever Italian book (a translation of The Tycoon's Very Personal Assistant, I think). Notice, my heroine seems to have turned into a Spanish Flamenco dancer and my hero has become a Brazilian footballer. Cool. 

Or those could be Trish Wylie's characters (but I thought they were Irish??)

Oh, and doing another little happy dance here, cos Pleasure, Pregnancy and a Proposition has just hit the top spot on Waldies for a second week running... And it got a great review from Marilyn Shoemaker at Marilyn's Romance Reviews (cheers Marilyn, the chocolate's in the post!)

Wednesday 4 March 2009

Writing Playground

Just back from the Writing Playground where I had a great time blogging yesterday with the playmates (ooh, that didn't come out quite right!)

Suggest anyone who wants to have a good old natter from time to time pops on over there.