Party Time! Barcelona-stylee!

So bought myself a new frock and some killer heels (rather appropriately)  and had a high old time in the exceedingly posh surroundings of One Whitehall Place on Monday for the RNA's Pure Passion Awards. Great to see the legendary Penny Jordan picking up a special award (she's written 180 books, how is that even possible when she looks so young!!) and while I will confess to rooting ever so slightly for my Presents pal Abby Green in the Love Story of the Year stakes (absolutely adored Bride in a Gilded Cage), I was chuffed to see Louise Allen pick up the award. I have it on very good authority that her book The Piratical Miss Ravenshurst is terrific so will be adding it to my TBR list. Also much enjoyed Jojo Moyes pointed speech when she picked up The Romantic Novel of the Year trophy for her book The Last Letter from Your Lover. She noted the way commercial fiction was patronised by the BBC's World Book Night panel (and yeah Jojo, I was screaming at the telly too) and pointed out that 'just because a book is commercial doesn't mean it isn't good'. Too right!

Anyway, after much yaking with fellow authors Fiona Harper (who very kindly let me pinch the photos from her blog), Ms Abby, Natalie Rivers, Julie Cohen and Philipa Ashley (I think we defo had the best table!), some fine canapes and rather too much champagne (not even going to mention the Flaming Meringues, folks, but needless to say they deserved their upper case status), Tuesday was a little bit of an anti-climax. Always tough to return to a manuscript you think you've finished, even if the revisions this time were surprisingly minor. Still, my editor, who I had a chat with at the Pure Passion do had spotted a few problems and as always once I got stuck in (and had a couple of paracetamol), I found it surprisingly satisfying to come up with solutions...


Have now sent the ms off again, with that fiendishly clever lose-end-typing-up epilogue attached (I  love writing epilogues -especially if my couple have finally co-operated and actually deserve their happy ever after). So am off to Barcelona for a couple of days to celebrate tomorrow with my very best mate where we plan to do lots of drinking, partying, swimming in our hotel's roof-top pool (assuming it's not snowing) and doing some late-night tapas while admiring the local talent (from checking out the Barcelona football team, I'm expecting the men to be very easy on the eye).

I will of course also be researching the city for a future book... because I'm a consummate professional, me.

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...

Good news... of the WIP AND Hugh Jackman variety.

So, had a fabulous chat with my editor on Thursday morning. And she lurved the new WIP! Hallelujah!

Frankly, this was the make or break manuscript for me. Because I sweated buckets over it before I sent it in. After the nightmare that was the last two books, I tried to look for all those tell-tale signs of trouble this time around - you know, little giveaways like a complete lack of conflict between my H and h, or long conversations in which they bicker but get nowhere, or avoidance techniques such as endless descriptive passages or overdeveloped secondary characters... and this time I thought I'd caught them all... So to find out I mostly had was a huge, huge relief. Also good to know that after all the pain of the last two books, I've finally got some gain out of it. That said I'm not going to get cocky and think I won't make the same mistakes again. I've begun to accept that blind alleys and wrong turns are all part and parcel of my writing technique (seems there's no such thing as a Tom-Tom in my writer's life, more's the pity). But I can improve my chances of not going up too many of those blind alleys by writing a plot outline to avoid any major plot black holes (before I spend pages falling into them) and then I just have to watch for those telltale signs again, so my editor doesn't have to do it for me.

Me and my editor also had a very productive chat about book six, which is going to be a linked book to my latest WIP. All I'm saying is another Irish Bad Boy is in the offing. I'll be letting you know the outcome of that when I've got the 'little tweaks' done on this one.

Okay, now on to my other good news... And the excuse for that gorgeous picture of Hugh and Nicole in period dress. Actually it's more like mega exciting news. Went to the cinema on Saturday to watch a chick flick called The Women with my oldest son (I know, bless him!) which isn't nearly as chronic as the critics will have you think (is it just me with my feminist hat on, or are male film critics hard wired to hate chick flicks?) but even so the highlight of the afternoon came before the main feature when they screened the trailer for Baz Lurhmann's new film Australia.

We're talking three minutes of pure bliss ladies. Hugh in his cowboy dudes, Hugh in a dinner suit, Hugh just looking generally gorgeous and rumpled and sweaty and sexy - and Nicole Kidman to complement him all pure and beautiful and feisty. This film is gonna be awesome... And not just for the Hugh factor. Anyone see Strictly Ballroom? Moulin Rouge? In my opinion Baz Luhrmann is bringing epic romance in it's purest form back to cinemas. And let's face it we can all do with a bit more romance in our lives... Not to mention Hugh Jackman on a horse with added stubble (Hugh that is, not the horse!)...

I'm working at IPC magazines again next week and hoping to do a blog on this film on Whats on TV's film blog, will keep you posted on that if I manage to pull it off...