yesterday was Sort Out Sunday!

and that's why I didn't post.

Regular visitors here will have got some idea of the amount of chaos and clutter in my house from posts like this and this. Now things can only go on so long in this state before some sort of meltdown occurs... Last time it happened, our dining room was made into my office, but as my office is now the horrendous dumpster illustrated in one of those pix, and we have no more spare rooms, action has to be taken. So I've initiated Sort Out Sunday... which means that instead of writing on Sunday, as I often do, I will spend several hours sorting and throwing out, either in my office, or in other areas of the house where there's overspill... Hopefully, eventually, my productivity will increase when I can actually find things again... and I also would like to think I can take up the slack with the odd hundred or so extra words on the days when I'm not sorting out. One day, in the dim and distant future, I'll finish trying to sort out my clutter, and then I'll be back to normal.

Mind you, not that I'm doing all that much writing at the moment. I still haven't got back into Buddies Don't Bite, apart from one tiny bit of tweakage last night. Which was probably the first time I've looked at it in a fortnight! But I did have some thoughts about it whilst showering and dressing this morning [in the bathroom again, where I do some of my best creative thinking]... I've decided to slightly change Teresa's status at the beginning of the book, in respect of her so called boyfriend who's just dumped her. In the first version, she's supposed to have slept with this bozo, but now I think I'll have it that she hasn't yet done the deed... which will make her less likely to seem like a bit of a slag for fancying Zack at the same time!

Right, I suppose I should get on with that... although I'm sort of tempted to have a go with my new vacuum cleaner! Given my slatternly household skills, you'd think this would be the last thing I'd want to do... and it just proves the lengths of procrastination I'll go to in order to avoid writing... But we went to Makro yesterday and purchased an all singing all dancing Vax machine, to replace our old Hoover that went kerpuft, and I'm dying to get into a few corners here and there and massacre those dust bunnies!

--
Telly: not yet
Chocolate: not yet
Mood: not bad
Writing: not yet, but thought about it
Reading: ComputerActive
RSI/FMS: very achy from lugging stuff about on SOS

I made another purty thing!

But I really must get on with the naffing thing today! Haven't written for over a week, and I've still a big scene or two that need doing! I.am.bad.

--
Telly: UK History
Chocolate: not yet
Mood: okay
Writing: not a sausage
Reading: bits and bobs
RSI/FMS: not too bad

For Maria...

Hotel Chocolat - click to visit

Maria! Hotel Chocolat is a completely fabulous online chocolate shop that sells gorgeously sumptuous goodies! Selections, great big slabs of choc, novelties... just pure heaven! I'm a member of their Chocolate Tasting Club, which means they send you a collection of yummy new chox every month or so. You can have a box *every* month if you like... but I only have one every three or four months. For the sake of my thighs!

And no, I'm not on commission, I just *love* HC!!!

--
Telly: UK History
Chocolate: see above
Mood: distracted, unable to focus
Writing: nothing
Reading: magazines
RSI/FMS: achey, but not quite as bad as yesterday

quickie

Had a fantastic time with Rosemary yesterday! We had a lovely lunch out at a local cafe pub, with lots of chat about writing paranormals and other general writerly talk. Afterwards we adjourned to my gaff for more gossip, coffee and some Hotel Chocolat... yum yum.

Today, I've been trying to catch up on some stuff from my to do list... v. slowly. Am feeling a bit tired and achey, still in the midst of that FMS flareup.

Thassabout it for now... sorry this is so sparse. I promise to do better tomorrow!

--
Telly: UK History
Chocolate: Hotel Chocolat
Mood: not bad, but v. tired
Writing: nothing today, naughty naughty
Reading: Cosmopolitan
RSI/FMS: very very tired and aching all over

I nearly forgot....

And while we're on the subject, nip over to LustBites today and win hot Black Lace prizes!

busy day...

Have a busy day ahead! A lovely writing friend from America, Rosemary Laurey, is dropping in to see me today, and we're going out to lunch!

I've known Rosemary for many years and we've got together lots of times before, mostly in London but last year also in Leeds, when she's come over for writers' events and to visit her family. She's an expat Brit now living in Ohio, and a fantastic writer, best known for her fabulous vampires! So I will be picking her brains today about Buddies!

The proofs of Suite Seventeen went off back to the editorial assistant yesterday... thank God! I love the book, but checking its proofs has been horrendously gruelling. I got myself so worked up over them that I've been quite tearful with relief to see the back of them... Trouble is, I now have a huge backlog of jobs to do that I just didn't have time for while I was checking them... not least of all to begin sorting out the 'problem' and the 'bigger problem'... But these are humongous tasks that can only be tackled in baby steps, and while constantly telling myself not to panic and just work gradually... It's got to be gradual, because writing and web design has to continue too. And they take priority...

Anyway, must go now, as I have a whole bunch of last minute cleaning and tidying jobs to do before Rosemary arrives!



--
Telly: not yet
Chocolate: hopefully
Mood: weird
Writing: probably not today
Reading: probably not today
RSI/FMS: quite sore all over due to stress

It's official!

Buddies Don't Bite is go! It's to be in a Black Lace Erotic Paranormal Romance novella anthology called Lust Bites, and it'll be published on 9th November 2007!

If I can raise my game and belabour this recalcitrant sukka into shape, this should be a v. fine anthology, because the other novellas are by top spiffing authors Mathilde Madden and Kristina Lloyd, two very bright stars in the Black Lace firmament...

--
Telly: Gladiators of WW2
Chocolate: none yet
Mood: schizo
Writing: proof checking... agh
Reading: proof checking... agh
RSI/FMS: very achey in all parts

sorry for the gap

Yes, I really am... but I've been grappling with my proof checking and not feeling so great and generally frittering away time that could have been more productively spent... :(

Page proofs are great because you see the way the finished book is going to look, and it all makes it stunningly real... That mad idea that you thought was as thin as a wafer is suddenly an actual book, and when you read it, it almost seems as if somebody else wrote it.

Page proofs are nightmarish because you see things you wish you'd said a different way... and it's too late to change them. And, worse, you see inconsistencies that *HAVE* to be changed and you've got to work out how to do it with the least disruption to the text!!! Then there are things that niggle you, but could be left, and you have to have a fight with yourself as to whether you're going to ask for them changing... which involves big time decision making - which is one of the things I most hate and loathe in life. I HATE making decions!!!

I've also been feeling cruddy with my fibromyalgia, probably triggered by the stress of the proofs and by getting myself in a paddy over stupid things and stupid people which and whom I really shouldn't let bother me. I should just let it all flow over me, but it's not in my nature to do that. I niggle about every goddamn thing! And I get into cycles of negative thinking, which makes me depressed and anxious, which makes my FMS flare, and then I feel even worse than ever! Looking around on the web, I've been intrigued by something called Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, which is recommended highly for people like me... so I've ordered the For Dummies guide to it on Amazon. Even if it doesn't do anything for me, at least I can have a character who's into it in a book, can't I? Nothing's ever wasted...

On a brighter note, I may have some interesting publication news coming shortly. I'm more or less certain of it, given what I've read at a writing chum's blog... but I somehow daren't speak about it here until I hear some confirmation via my agent.

Lustbites post today

I've posted at Lustbites today... it's utter twoddle, really, but why not pop over and take a look? There are lots of pictures, even if the text I've written is crap... LOL

LUSTBITES - Casting Continuum and Gothic Blue

GOTHIC BLUE out today in the UK!!!

At an archduke's reception, a handsome young nobleman falls under the spell of a malevolent but irresistible sorceress. Two hundred years later, Belinda Seward also falls prey to sensual forces she can neither understand nor control.

Stranded by a thunderstorm at a remote Gothic priory, Belinda and her boyfriend are drawn into an enclosed world of luxurious decadence and sexual alchemy. Their host is the courteous but melancholic André Von Kastel, a beautiful aristocrat who mourns his lost love. André has plans for Belinda... plans which take her into the realms of obsessive love and the erotic paranormal.

Excerpt here

Buy from Amazon.co.uk

Available in the US from 3rd April

drive by.... proof checking....

The page proofs of Suite Seventeen arrived yesterday, and I'm hard at work checking them.

Checking proofs is a strange experience - half stressful, half enjoyable, all consuming. I'm really liking the book as I read it, even though there are bits I'd do differently of course, and bits that I'd love to change and improve, even though it's far too late to do so at this stage. In this particular case, the proofs have made me feel quite tearful... I know it sounds crazy, but as I read it, there's a part of me so wishes that the story, the characters and particularly Valentino were all flesh and blood real! There's a lot of emotion in this one... It started out initially as a woman's journey of self discovery tale, but I got so into Valentino that it very quickly became a deeply romantic, if slightly pervy love story. He's a very complicated guy, full of contradictions. An uber dominant Alpha male, yet he has vulnerabilities too. Exotic and unusual, yet he has a sort of sweet everyday side to his nature as well... He's arrogant, but he enjoys a laugh at the expense of his own foibles...

I've used the 'faux' cover above, because gorgeous as the publisher cover is, my own version of the cover really captures Valentino as I see him... complex, mysterious and beautiful.

Out today in the USA!

When financial executive Joanna Darrell loses her temper with a client it sets in motion a chain of erotic events beyond her wildest most fevered imaginings.

At work Joanna is feisty, capable and supremely confident in her abilities, but when she takes a forced sabbatical she quickly discovers a new and shocking side to her sensual nature. She's a sexual submissive, and who better to guide her, coax her and initiate her than the sybaritic members of the mysterious society of the Continuum. The more she samples, the more she likes, and she's soon hurtling headlong towards the very heart of this exotic association of hedonists and devotees of erotic power-play.

Fascinated by the idea that the Master of the Continuum has singled her out for his special attentions, Joanna still finds herself falling in love with her naughty 'boy next door' fellow worker, Kevin Steel - who might be a computer geek but who still finds time for sensual experiments of his own.

How far can Joanna go? How much will she learn? Who will she choose?

Continuum is available from Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com and all good bookshops.

Read spicy excerpts here and here.