RWA, San Diego and all that jazz!

So I'm just back from the Romance Writers of America's conference in San Diego and as usual it was a vibrant, inspiring and completely exhausting trip. As well as attending workshops (not as many as I would have liked) I managed to stuff several power lunches, a couple of very productive brainstorming sessions with fellow authors on future projects, a meeting with my editor, the Harlequin party and the RITA/Golden Heart awards ceremony into my time there. Not to mention a whistle stop sightseeing tour of San Diego with the fabulous Susan Wilson! Sadly I didn't win the RITA award for Best Contemporary Romance: Short but I still managed to feel like the belle of the ball on RITA night and I'm now all fired up to get back to my writing and do the final finishing touches on my Introduction to Writing Hot Romance online course which will be launching in October!

Here's the evidence of what fun I had...

Massive crowd at the Literacy Autographing

Avon celebrates 75 years!

Pool that I didn't get to use!

Feeling like a star! Thanks to Tule Publishing

Important research on a night off at the movies....

Susan Wilson & I rock the RITA reception

Abby Green & I rock the Harlequin Party

Romy Sommer & I super glammed up at the Awards

#TemptedToWrite, RWA2014, New Projects & Shirtless Cowboys!

As Mills and Boon's #TemptedtoWrite competition draws to a close on Twitter and FB (check out that hashtag to get involved in the conversation) this is a reminder to get your 10K word entry polished and entered by Monday 10th February... Just in time for Valentine's Day!

For more details have a look at Mills and Boon's Facebook Page, which is full of tips, hot tottie and tempting tasters of some of the entries, or to upload your entry go straight to the app here.

I'm one of the judges along with Charlotte Phillips and Joss Wood and I can't wait to read your stories! As a little tease I've written a special blog for all the Tempted to Write peeps at Books with Benefits on 10 Ways to Handle Being a Professional Writer (for when you get that all-important publishing contract)... Written in the spirit of my Cosmo Red Hot Read 10 Ways to Handle the Best Man (but without a gorgeous nekkid man in it, sorry!!)

In other news, I have signed up for the RWA Conference in San Antonio Texas in July, so if you're going to be there let me know. Love the conference, it's such a great gathering of career-orientated writers - and a great way to find out what's happening in the big ole world of romance publishing. Plus there's glamorous parties, book signings and, as we're in Texas, lots of shirtless cowboys... hopefully! maybe! pretty please!

And talking about writing, I am currently having a ball working on lots of proposals for possible new projects. Don't know yet which one I'm going to be writing next, but I'm really excited about all of them.

First off, I've got a possible new KISS continuity - with three other amazing authors - in the works, which, if it gets picked up, will be AWESOME.

Secondly I've submitted a new proposal for Cosmo Red Hot Reads, which is even hotter than my last one and is a tale of sex, lies, blind dates and Twitter etiquette!

And lastly, but I'm hoping not leastly, I'm developing an idea for a longer book set in London, Paris and the Smokey Mountains (at the moment)... But my lips are totally sealed on that one. So I don't jinx it! Having soooo much fun though writing outside the box.

Happy writing folks and have a great V-Day....

RWA Update + Tess and Nate's Story Gets a Cover!

So am just back from a fabulous week in Anaheim for the 2012 RWA Conference... Exhausted, excited and inspired!

Lots of thrilling news to report, but easily the highlight of the week was Sarah Morgan's triumphant win at the RITAs for Best Contemporary Series Romance for Doukakis's Apprentice. She gave a wonderfully witty speech and looked fabulous in her gold-fringed RITA-matching frock (and she let me fondle it for a minute - the RITA that is, not the frock - see below!). Can't think of a better ambassador for Presents than Sarah, she done us all proud. Incredibly this was the first RITA for a Presents book, may there be many more now.

Also on my agenda was a Riva lunch with lovely fellow authors Kimberly Lang, Aimee Carson, Sue Stephens and Fiona Harper. Needless to say there was much talk about the upcoming launch of Kiss which according to my ed the NA office are 'very excited' about. They're not the only ones!!

Had a fabulous brainstorming session with Aimee and Kimberly for our Kiss continuity which is starting to look completely AWESOME (if I do say so myself). My hero is going to be a nice Southern boy turned cynical and super-sexy CEO who had a steamy one-night stand in college with my sultry sassy British heroine. They meet again ten years later and the fireworks are going to be seriously hot! It's set in NYC and Savannah and that's really all I can say for now... But I'm so excited about this story and the others in the quartet.

The Harlequin Party was a dance-your-feet-off affair as usual and we had Nora Roberts sitting on the table next to us! Not to mention free cosmopolitans all night. Having already stalked Nora at the Literacy Autographing earlier in the week (and got a signed copy of her new In Death book! Yay!) I had to refrain from doing it again. So me and Ms Abby Green stalked the fabulous Victoria Dahl instead. Managed to get an early read of her new book Close Enough to Touch and fell in love with it. Check out my Goodreads review if you want to know more.

I finished off the week spending a day schmoozing with Abby Green and Fiona Harper on Santa Monica Boulevard and hanging out at  Abby's suite in a fabulously funky hotel in West Hollywood - before fi and I caught the flight home to London...

All in all, had such a brilliant time I didn't even shout at my sons when I saw the Mount Everest of Laundry waiting for me on my return!

In other news I've just got ahold of the cover for my next (and last) Presents Extra release One Night, So Pregnant. Absolutely love the cover and the back blurb which should whet your appetite. The book's out in December in the US and will hopefully be out in the UK when Riva relaunches next year, but I will be putting up a sneak peek shortly on my website.

 

What to expect when you’re unexpectedly expecting

• Shock: Telling a gorgeous (almost) total stranger that he’s going to be a dad is never easy!

• Cravings: The instant chemistry that catapulted Tess Tremaine into the wildest night she’s ever had isn’t going to just go away— and no one says no to Nate Graystone when he’s determined to be involved….

• Hormones Gone Wild: Surely that’s the only reason she’s failing to keep Nate out of her bed, out of her mind…and why she keeps wanting more from the most unattainable man she’s ever met?

Heidi's Adventures in Romancelandia... NYC 2011

So okay, I'm posting this two weeks after I got back from NYC... Which is pretty pathetic I know, but quite apart from the recovery time needed after spending six days with Ms Abby Green in the city that (as it turns out literally) never sleeps, I also had a little book project to finish...

So with Nick and Eva's story finally SOLD on Friday!!! After frantic typing of epilogue on Hampstead Heath while watching Son Two play football. (As soon as I have a title I shall bore you all rigid with details of how wonderful this story is so you shall all want to rush out and buy it in March next year! Hint -hint) I am now free to tell you all about the phenomenal par-tay in the Big Apple!

Here are a few of the high spots, with pictorial accompaniment (unfortunately crap pictorial accompaniment for the most part, as I still haven't quite figured out how my camera's auto-focus works...)

The gorgeous Ms Abby Green, my amazing roomie (she made me to say that, btw), did a fabo job getting us a room with a great view of Times Square, so when I got in jet-lagged and exhausted after a 10-hour flight (which should have been six - thank you so much Virgin Atlantic and the nice peeps at JFK airport! Grrr) the par-tay was on. That said, sharing the flight agony with Sharon Kendrick, Sue Stephens and Carole Mortimer made it a lot less of a trial.

Here's an arty shot of my spot at the mega-literacy signing the next day (Tuesday I think, but don't quote me on that, I'd already had too much prosecco and not enough sleep)...

A total romance-arama with about a billion eager readers buying books (unfortunately not all of them mine!). But, hey, I got to sit within two seats of Susan Elizabeth Phillips who is one of my auto-buy authors! So it was quite a thrill.... To watch everyone charge past me to get to her...!

Now, to the great regret of my thighs, there happened to be a wonderful retro Noo Yawk diner across the road from the Marriott Marquis hotel called Juniors... This is fellow Riva Divas Fiona Harper and Lucy King who I enjoyed the first of many slap-up breakfasts with on Tuesday morning.

Unfortunately, I ended up eating my way thru most of Juniors breakfast menu by the end of the week (well, apart from the fruit plate)... So the less said about that the better.

Here is a picture that I will be putting in 'Heidi's Hall of Fame' because... Yes!! That's me sitting next to LINDA HOWARD... I may have mentioned this a few times already, but thanks to our Alabama heroine Kimberly Lang, the Mod Hot posse got to have lunch (at Juniors of course) with this great lady. Not surprisingly she turned out to be gracious, gorgeous, classy and a whole lot of fun... And I'd just like to add that those other women in the photo didn't actually sit with us, they insisted on muscling in on the photo, it was actually just me and Linda.... Honest!

Have to admit that during the four days of the Conference proper, which as always was organised with military precision by the RWA, I was so busy sightseeing and socialising (and generally trying to pretend what a proper author I am!) that I didn't attend nearly as many workshops as I would have liked (although Jennie Cruisie's Wonder Woman talk was an inspirational exception)... So here's Abby and me (with the lovely Lucy King on camera duty - hence the focussing) going AWOL on the High Line.. Which if you ever go to NYC I would highly recommend (no pun intended!)

And here are some more AWOL moments....

Which include me and Fi Harper in Central Park and Riva Divas Sue Stephens, Fi Harper, Lucy King and Amy Carson supping margaritas at a down-town bar... 

Among other events I attended there was the Presents lunch in a bijoux restaurant off Fifth Avenue, Sandra Marton's legendary Pizza Party (where I had a good old chinwag with Maisey Yates, Jennie Lucas, Lynne Raye Harris, Jane Porter, Sue Stephens, Sharon Kendrick and ... well, all the usual suspects) and then there was the Harlequin Black and White Ball at the Waldorf Astoria, where we all got glammed up and danced till dawn and I met lovely New Voices winner Leah Ashton (and her hunky new hubby).

I did take the camera to those events but was concentrating way to hard on being gorgeous and erudite (and that takes a lot of concentration these days btw) to take any picures....

Anyone jealous, yet?? Good, my work is done.

On the last night of conference, I had the great honour of being Rita-nominee Ms Abby Green's date for the super-plush RITA and Golden Heart Awards ceremony. Now sadly, Abby didn't nab the prize for her spectacular book Breaking the Sheik's Rules, or the lovely Kelly Hunter or Sarah Morgan, but Karen Templeton who did win gave a wonderfully empowering speech and then Hall of Fame honouree Sharon Sala had us all blubbing like, well, a room full of romance writers, with her speech... And the emcee Meg Cabot was a dead ringer for Tina Fey. Plus we all looked absolutely fabulous, of course. So it was really all right on the night....

Have borrowed this photo of me and Abby from Fiona Harper (because I thought you might want more than one in focus) as proof to sign off with.

Roll on RWA 2012!