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motivational speaker...

Had a bit of a downer today... a book proposal rejected. Wasn't something I was expecting anything of anyway, but the news was still a bit of a bummer.

However, I find that this motivational speaker helps me to stop feeling sorry for myself!

better?

Am feeling marginally less croney today, although still malevolently inclined towards certain issues and people... But that's perfectly normal for me! :)

The big news is that I've finally made a start on Gothic Heat! Just a modest 500 words, but at least the thing is under way. It's like any book, any project... I'm scared of it. I'm always scared that this time, I just won't be able to do it. That I've run out of mojo or whatever, and have written everything I'm capable of writing... But then, I have this with every single book, and I've had it since I wrote Return to the Pleasure Zoneback in 1992! I fear that every book is the last I'll be able to manage... but I've kept on managing.

Gothic Heat may be a tricky one though, as there are a few different things going on, and I've a feeling that for me, it's going to be unusually story orientated, rather than just the usual plotless wonder of a few sex scenes slung together and casually linked by a bit of characterisation and 'lurrrve'... There's got to be some magic stuff and paranormal stuff, and that's scary because it means so much more work... and me being the most rampantly bone idle writer on the face of the earth, it's a tough call when I have to work these plotty things out. Eek! And agh!

When I started thinking about the idea for this, the heroine, Paula, was foremost in my mind... but now, it seems to be all about Rafe, the hero/anti-hero... I seem to want to focus on him, and be in his mind. He interests me more than Paula... For this reason, I'm choosing to do this book in third person. I did a couple of novels [Entertaining Mr Stone and Suite Seventeen] in first, and I've often written shorts in first, but even though it's fun, I'm not permanently switching to that voice because I do enjoy the freedom of third, in terms of getting in the heads of more characters. So I think that for a book with a proper story, I need third... I'll miss the intimacy and momentum of first, but I'm hoping I'll still get those qualities if I do my third right!

--
Telly: CSI
Choc/Yummy: Fabulous Bakin' Boys Strawberry Cupcake
Mood: better
Writing: Gothic Heat 500 words
Reading: Passion/Lisa Valdez
RSI/FMS: so so


Don't forget Portia's Promos - new stuff being added all the time!

images...

Copyright 1939 Walt Disney Productions

Yesterday was a crap day, for various reasons, and above is an illustration of my self image at the moment... Today hasn't started well either, for a whole bunch of other reasons.

But in an effort to fight the forces of darkness, today, I will be mainly concentrating on...

This!

This!

And this!

--
Telly: thing about alchemy
Chocolate: as much as I can get my hands on
Mood: bloody
Writing: hope to be doing some...
Reading: Passion by Lisa Valdez
RSI/FMS: loads of it


Don't forget Portia's Promos - new stuff being added all the time!

****! Torturing myself with my bad reviews....

In the course of foofing about with setting up some Amazon aStores, I came across some scathingly abysmal reviews of one of my slightly older books... and needless to say, it wasn't a pleasant experience. Now, I freely admit that I'd defend a person's right to express their opinion with the last fibre of my being *and* I also freely admit that the book in question isn't one of my best... in fact, it's probably pretty much a pile of pooh. If it were me though, I'd just turn away and not bother to review... but as an author, putting my work out in the market place, I've just got to suck it up and smile if others do choose to review unfavourably. One has to accept that reader reviewers are providing a service to other readers - by preventing them wasting their money on substandard books.

Note to self...

Must.do.better.

Must.raise.my.game

Ah... chocoate beckons...

--
Telly: snooker
Chocolate: Frys Turkish Delight
Mood: fine until I went to Amazon
Writing: brainstorming Gothic Heat
Reading: Passion of Isis
RSI/FMS: sore


Don't forget Portia's Promos - new stuff being added all the time!

foofing with my camera again...

Been foofing around with my camera again, trying to get a decent headshot... and out of around a hundred snaps, this was probably the only where I look like a human being rather than a mutant alien with a retrograde IQ... You might notice that, as ever, my glasses seem to be on a bit skew whiff... This always seems to happen, and I think it's because my ears are attached to my head at different heights! They're wonky! The thing is, though, that I don't actually wear my specs all the time, just for working... but I can't see the swingout LCD screen on my camera without them, so all my self taken piccies tend to be bespectacled ones!

ack, now they've done it... the snooker is on!

The World Snooker Championship is being held now, at the Crucible in Sheffield, and I'm going to have a hard time not letting it take over my life for the next couple of weeks! I'll be particularly interested in the progress of the unexpected contender shown above. More information about his prowess at The Man Who Fell Asleep.

Although I haven't actually laid down any text of Gothic Heat, I have been having some good plot and character ideas for it over the last couple of days, including a couple of lightbulbs at around 1.30am this morning, just after we turned out the light for the night. Luckily himself was fast asleep, because at least twice, I had to put the light back on and scribble down some notes. There's no way I would have remembered my bright ideas without writing them down...

--
Telly: snooker
Chocolate: lemon drizzle cake
Mood: okay
Writing: brainstorming Gothic Heat/proof checking Watching The Detective
Reading: Passion of Isis
RSI/FMS: general soreness


Don't forget Portia's Promos - new stuff being added all the time!

last day of the 'holidays'...

Well, I've been moaning and whining about having no focus and not knowing what project to work on next, haven't I? Well, now I know... and am going to have to extract the old digit and get my enormous posterior into gear!

Received an unexpected phonecall from my editor this morning, for a chat about various book ideas my agent had sent to him. We batted various plot bits to and fro, and the upshot is that it looks like I'll be doing a sequel, or linked book, to GOTHIC BLUE! Now, please remember, nothing's set in stone yet, but the new title is provisionally called GOTHIC HEAT and will be out next year...

In GB, one of the supporting players, Paula, has a brush with the baddie, the sorceress Isidora Katori... and some time after the action of the first book, Paula discovers this incident had a more lasting effect on her than she's realised. In deep trouble, she seeks help from bad boy professional mystic and sometime new age con artist Rafe Hathaway and together they go in search of answers at the mysterious Sedgewick Priory... which seems to have disappeared into a kind of English Bermuda Triangle. I only have these bare bones of a plot, as yet, but one or two v. interesting titbits are already beginning to bubble...

Editor and I also talked about a fun and very naughty contemporary, to do after GH is in the bag... and this one will be the escapades of a librarian who drawn into a web of sexual gameplaying by an enigmatic admirer who sends her lots of outrageous notes and emails and text messages... My idea is that this book is loosely set in my Stoneworld universe, and familiar settings and characters may well pop up in the course of the story...

So, in honour of finding out what to do next... I've done absolutely nothing at all today!!! But, like I say, this is the last day of doing nothing, as I can no longer afford to fritter my time away...

Tomorrow's to do list includes:

• check proofs of my story Watching the Detective
• web design for a client
• couple of invoices
• send parcel to a prize draw winner
• develop proper outline of Gothic Heat
• read stuff on mysticism, tantra
• begin rereading Gothic Blue so I know what I wrote in it
  
• try not to panic and run around waving my arms about!
  

--
Telly: Sea of Souls
Chocolate: lemon drizzle cake instead
Mood: good
Writing: thinking about Gothic Heat
Reading: Passion of Isis
RSI/FMS: bit sore, not too bad


Don't forget Portia's Promos - new stuff being added all the time!

something else to worry about

Well, Mulder is continuing to do well... no probs with her. She's eating well, her stitches don't seem to be bothering her and she's quite her normal self! What a relief!

I, on the other hand, am doing terribly... as usual... My to do list is a mile long, I'm achieving v. little to nil, I have no idea what I'm supposed to be writing next... same old same old...

And this morning I hear news of yet another damning report about a medicine I've been taking for a long time. More cancer scares... sigh... Sometimes you really just don't know what to do, do you? To fix one problem, you create another... health is just one great series of knock-on effects... the entire human constitution is like a plate balancing act. You move to correct a wobbling platter, and somewhere else, another starts to teeter or drops off the pole entirely.... At least that's the way it feels to me, and I know that I'm far from the only person who's struggling to keep everything spinning! Not by a long chalk... There must be millions... billions of us out there trying to stay on an even health keel against the odds.




--
Telly: not yet
Chocolate: not yet
Mood: peed off
Writing: not yet
Reading: not yet
RSI/FMS: aching all over


Don't forget Portia's Promos - new stuff being added all the time!

She's home!

Everything went smoothly. No problems. Nothing sinister in the little cyst they removed. She's supposed to take it easy and have just a light meal tonight... and the photo above is of her having her fifth light meal since she got home!!! She has three little stitches that have to come out in ten days, but as she doesn't seem to be paying much attention to them, the vet says she doesn't need one of those giant collars... Which is super, because she's such a tiny thing that a whopping great collar would be quite an encumbrance for her.

It's so lovely to have Mulder back... she's only been away since 8am this morning, but I still missed her!

--
Telly: documentary about Herod the Great
Chocolate: Tesco Belgian Milk
Mood: okay
Writing: none
Reading: Passion of Isis
RSI/FMS: bit sore


Don't forget Portia's Promos - new stuff being added all the time!

Please have a good thought for....

MULDER

My little baby has just been taken to the vet for an operation... It's routine, to remove a small cyst on her chin that has been gradually growing for several years. But I still worry and I hate that she has to undergo an ordeal. She's such a character and a precious little mite, and it's been particularly hard to have to starve her overnight, because as you can see from the above she really, really loves her food! Hopefully, though, the op will be relatively minor and go smoothly and she'll quickly be back on top form, eating everything in sight, and possessed of an elegant super sleek chinline again!

I'm guesting again...

Read an interview with me today at:

Dark Ice Goddess' Musings

Many thanks to Nicole for inviting me to her blog. :)


--
Telly: CSI:NY
Chocolate: Tesco Belgian Milk
Mood: out of sorts
Writing: nothing
Reading: Passion of Isis
RSI/FMS: quite grim


Don't forget Portia's Promos - new stuff being added all the time!