it's that day again...

when in Rome...

I've spent most of the Bank Holiday in Rome! Well, watching programmes about Ancient Rome on UK History... All very fascinating stuff, historical, yet dramatic... makes me feel good about being 'educated' and less bad about goggling at the telly instead of actually getting on with writing. Have learnt lots of facts about various Emperors and especially enjoyed Michael Sheen's deliciously camp performance as the deranged Nero...


In other news, I'm actually reading one of my own books at the moment!!! Yes, I've given in and have started reading Gothic Blue, in order to not completely **** up the continuity and consistency in Gothic Heat. It's a strange experience, because it's over 12 years since I wrote this thing, and it's like reading something somebody else wrote...


I've only read a bit so far, but I sort of like it. My style was different back then... more flowery and naive... but also fresh and enthusiastic. I'm hoping I've gained more than I've lost over the years, but it's hard to tell. I'm always slightly unnerved when people praise my early work... I love it that they like it, but I worry that I might never write as well again. I suppose all authors have these feelings though...

Actual writing has been going reasonably okay, and have been managing to keep up my 1K per day over the last two or three days. I've now done over 21K, which is around 30% of the book. It still feels as if I've only just started, but I remember a similar state of affairs when I was writing Suite Seventeen... so I'm not *too* worried.

Lots of 'stuff' ahead in the week ahead... I'm posting at Lustbites on Friday with an excerpt from Suite Seventeen, and I might also post a bit at Portia's Prose too. Although don't worry, there's plenty of book left to read for those who are planning to buy! ;)

ps. I might also be holding a minor chat session soon too... at the Romance Galleria. Watch this space for more on that...

--
Telly: lots of Roman stuff
Choc/Yummy: Turkish Delight/cupcakes
Mood: good
Writing: 1.1K of Gothic Heat
Reading: Gothic Blue
RSI/FMS: bit sore


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

Found this at Loribelle's blog

1. WHERE IS YOUR CELL PHONE?: in my bag beside the bed
2. RELATIONSHIP?: 30+ yrs old!
3. YOUR HAIR?: short, bleached blonde
4. WORK?: is writing
5. YOUR SISTER?: is ace!
6. YOUR FAVORITE THING?: chocolate
7. YOUR DREAM LAST NIGHT?: about web design
8. YOUR FAVORITE DRINK?: nice cuppa tea
9. YOUR DREAM CAR?: James Bond's Aston Martin
10. THE ROOM YOU’RE IN?: bedroom
11. YOUR SHOES?: at the moment, socks
12. YOUR FEARS?: death
13. WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE IN 10 YEARS?: happy and writing
14. WHO DID YOU HANG OUT WITH THIS WEEKEND?: himself and the cats
15. WHAT ARE YOU NOT GOOD AT?: making decisions
16. MUFFIN?: double choc chip
17. ONE OF YOUR WISH LIST ITEMS?: iPod
18. WHERE YOU GREW UP? where I live now
19.LAST THING YOU DID?: type the line above
20. WHAT ARE YOU WEARING?: tee shirt jeans etc
21. WHAT AREN’T YOU WEARING?: shoes
22. YOUR PET?: cats
23. YOUR COMPUTER?: HP Compaq laptop
24. YOUR LIFE?: teetering on the edge of madness
25. YOUR MOOD?: sort of edgy
26. MISSING?: my late cat Boy
27. WHAT ARE YOU THINKING ABOUT RIGHT NOW?: this list
28. YOUR CAR?: VW Passat [don't drive it... himself drives]
29. YOUR KITCHEN?: a mess
30. YOUR SUMMER?: strange and busy hopefully
31. YOUR FAVORITE COLOR?: black
32. LAST TIME YOU LAUGHED?: yesterday, quite a bit
33. LAST TIME YOU CRIED?: yesterday
34. SCHOOL?: a long time ago
35. LOVE?: real world: family, cats/fantasy: heroes in my books

Visit Loribelle's blog for her answers...

Further to my post below...

Lovers of Apollo 13 are sure to enjoy this YouTube...

Thanksgiving With the Kranzes

I won't post it here because it's 18 mins long!

It's an absolute scream... and so creative. :)

Houston, I have a problem

Ack, just when I started waking up enough to consider doing some writing, I switched to ITV1 and discovered one of my all time favourite movies is on... Apollo 13. Gosh, I love this movie! I've seen it loads of times, but I never tire of it, and get nervy on each viewing... even though I know it's a true story and the astronauts get back home! And there's no way I can switch it off half way through... once I've started watching, I have to see the mission all the way through until the splashdown!


Apart from it being a fabulous story, and a truly uplifting example of the human spirit at its finest, the movie is acted by a A1 exceptional cast, headlined by a couple of my big faves, Tom Hanks and Kevin Bacon, along with the also splendid Ed Harris, Bill Pulman and Gary Sinise.


--
Telly: see above
Choc/Yummy: Turkish Delight
Mood: lazy
Writing: not
Reading: AGW
RSI/FMS: bit sore


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

I wish I could be this relaxed...

Here's Kuffer, being companionable and lying beside me as I work. He loves to stretch out on the bed, whether it's during the daytime, or at night when other people are trying to sleep too!

Still grappling and battling with Gothic Heat... In fact I was awake at four this morning, with a score of illogical and inconsistent plot scraps floating about in a horrible mish mash. Nothing made sense, and I was half convinced I was actually having a nightmare about the thing... but sadly I was more or less fully conscious.

Surprisingly though, I'm feeling just a tad better about it in the full light of day. Much stuff to do, but I had a slight revelation early on, and remembered something that's supposed to be at the core of the story... but which I'd completely forgotten. Now that I see that though, there's slightly more of an angle. Also had one or two bits of ideas for possible sensual scenes too. So, I'm sure I'll get there in the end, with lots of hard work.

Have had a productive morning on the 'admin' side. Clearing a lot of emails, doing some accounts, bringing a very tiny bit of order to the huge quagmire of chaos that is my working life. Feel v. satisfied about that, and quite positive as a result. Which is a change...

ps. looking at the piccie above, it's dawned on me that I've subconsciously given my blog a similar colour scheme to my bedding! LOL

--
Telly: UK TV History
Choc/Yummy: Mars Planets
Mood: not bad, considering
Writing: more thinking and brainstorming on GH
Reading: AGW
RSI/FMS: bit sore, bit tired


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

some brainstorming required

Yep, it's finally dawned on me what's bugging me... Large bits of my so called plot for Gothic Heat don't actually make a lot of sense and have not been 'thought through'! I really need to spend some more time thrashing out plot points, character motivation, timescale and logical 'what if' stuff... I think I need to rehash the outline thing I did, and maybe get someone else, with a fresh eye, to take a look at it when I've done it. Bits of the idea work, but some are still a bit jumbled. It's all too pantsed - and pants! I think a pantsing approach can work for a 'relationship' contemporary, but I think for paranormals, there has to be an internal logic... or I can just see the reviewers and all tearing me a brand new one for inconsistencies and stupid worldbuilding... or lack of it.

The good news is that I still think the stuff I've written so far is okay, with a little tweakage. The basic idea of the heroine, Paula, being a conduit/vessel for the evil spirit of Isidora the sorceress is fine, and has tons of potential. As does her seeking help from a conflicted and ambiguous guy like Rafe... it's just the actual mechanics and 'rules' of this set up that need more development and cohesion.

--
Telly: nothing much
Choc/Yummy: Mars Planets
Mood: brainthrashed
Writing: see above
Reading: AGW
RSI/FMS: very, very tired and achy


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

teetering towards ostrich mode

After the splendid progress of yesterday, I'm a bit stalled again... Basically, I don't quite know how to get from one bit to another without a lumpy transition. Again, because I haven't quite worked out how the next bit of the book will go. Maybe I should just cut from one scene to the next, and try and pick up the pace a bit. Madelynne's book, that I'm reading now, fairly zips along and carries you with it in a wonderful pageturning way that I'm really enjoying... I should learn from her and increase the momentum and velocity of my own writing!



I'm also feeling sort of swamped again at the moment, with a zillion things I'm *supposed* to do, things I ought to do, and things I want to do... I'm getting into a bit of an overload situation again, and teetering dangerously towards my tendency to turn into an ostrich in these situations ie. hide, bury my head, ignore *everything*, and just hope some of it will go away. Obviously this is such a childish way to conduct one's life... but hey, I've never claimed to be a paragon of maturity and wisdom, even if I'm getting physically quite ancient.

--
Telly: nothing much today
Choc/Yummy: Turkish Delight [yes, I'm obsessed]
Mood: a bit off
Writing: grappling with GH
Reading: AGW
RSI/FMS: slightly sore


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

docking manouvers

Yeah, we have capture!

I've successfully managed to hard dock my 'prologue' with the beginning of Gothic Heat... in fact it's no longer a prologue but simply chapter one now. I'm currently working my way through what were chapters one and two, but are now chapters two and three, and integrating them with 'stuff' that happened in the opening dream sequence... and clumsy and kacky as that sounds, it's actually working quite well, and I'm liking what I'm reading and writing... I hate to say it, but I think I've managed to dock with my characters now too, and they're becoming more alive to me. Which is a relief! Gothic Heat was starting to feel like a real SBFH... but now it's showing signs of becoming more manageable and enjoyable to write.

Rafe is definitely a non standard hero. He's pushing forty, he's a bit of a misfit, and he's got a dodgy past and a slightly sleazy present... and he has some huge issues to deal with, that he's sort of been avoiding by being a little bit of a shag monster, to be honest. But now he's met Paula and things are changing fast. He's still got to battle with various temptations, and that's going to cause some grief and nonsense along the way, but seeing as I'm a firm believer in the good in a guy winning out in the end, he'll come to the light and be a hero when the time is right.

nb. SBFH = sh*t book from hell

--
Telly: nothing much today
Choc/Yummy: Turkish delight
Mood: good
Writing: 1K in the integration
Reading: AGW
RSI/FMS: not bad


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

pwetty... sparkly...

too much, already... sometimes

You know sometimes I just think I should not turn on the computer... and write by hand or something for a while. This stupid laptop obsesses my life, honestly. Time after time I wake up dreaming about something to do with computing or the online world, or something. Mostly online stuff... I see to live most of my life via the WWW... and surely that's not healthy.

Woke up this morning from a dream about Ning, which to those who haven't encountered it, is a social networking site. A bit like MySpace, but not quite as tacky somehow... It's more complicated though, which is probably why I was dreaming about it!

I also dream and obsess about online dramas of various kinds... and I shouldn't because that's all they are, dramas... mostly over nothing. I know writing involves imaginary worlds, and interacting via the internet a lot nowadays. But really, the actual world around me, away from the computer, is *real life* not all this tarradiddle on the net!

Anyway, back in the bizarre and importance-inflated world of writing... Had a good day yesterday on Gothic Heat. The prologue idea was a v. good one, and I ended up writing a princely 2K words! Brilliant for me... What's more, I unconsciously wrote a scene that ties in nicely with something that happens later, and prefigures it in a spooky sort of way... Which is quite clever for a dolt like me! And means I have a way to enhance the later bit when I rewrite it... as I most definitely will have to!

I've also decided to start listening to more music, instead of always turning on the telly. I'd forgotten how inspirational music can be for writing... At the moment classic THE CURE from the Eighties is helping to enhance the strange mood I need for Gothic Heat. And in pursuit of this music angle, I've decided that for my birthday [3oth May...] I'm going to ask himself to buy me an iPod... I must be the last person on the planet without one, I guess, so it's about time I joined in the digital music fun.


Mind you, isn't downloading tunes just another thing I'm going to spend time doing online when I should actually be writing? Goddam... I'll never escape!!!!

--
Telly: CSI:NY... does anyone else fancy Sid the pathologist?









Choc/Yummy: Cadbury's Turkish Delight bar
Mood: good
Writing: will be working on GH
Reading: AGW
RSI/FMS: not too bad...


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

And now, the Prologue!

In the grand tradition of Up Pompei, I've decided that Gothic Heat needs a prologue!

I've been thinking about this for a few days, but wasn't quite sure how to go about it... but yesterday, I got a bit of a flash of inspiration and an idea of how to start it. And today, I've dove into the action and have already done 1.1K words... and it's only midday! Way to go me!

Being a devotee of literary cliches, I'm not only begun with a prologue, but also a dream sequence. LOL! But despite this, I think it'll work okay. The dream is from the villainess's POV and sort of serves of a set up for the story and a bridge between Gothic Blue and Gothic Heat. I've also tried to use a touch of the more flowery language I used for GB... which is another bridging device. The main body of GH will be told in the more 'realistic' type style I use now, but I'm hoping the tone of this prologue will 'connect' the two books in tone as well as content.

I don't think this is any kind of gigantic lightbulb type breakthrough... but I do think it's a useful development, and I'm feeling a tiny bit more confident about this mare of a book now. :)

--
Telly: French Moto GP
Choc/Yummy: Fry's Turkish Delight
Mood: good
Writing: 1.1K Gothic Heat
Reading: A Gentleman's Wager/Madelynne Ellis
RSI/FMS: not bad


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