Today I'm at...

LUST BITES - the spiffing new blog for Black Lace authors and other Virgin Publishing reprobates!

oh, it's not happening today!

Jeepers, I can't get off the blocks today with any kind of constructive, writing type activity. It's nearly 11.30am and I've done jack shit as my beloved American buddies would say. Well, not exactly nothing... really... I've actually:

• sent the partial of TechnoGothic to my lovely, lovely critique partner
• trawled Amazon for a few possible Christmas pressies
• thrown out a few mags and catalogues, although not, alas, anything from the Everest of assorted crud beside my bed
• sent a few emails
• replied to a few emails

Today, I ought to be getting on with an editing pass of IllMet... but me being me, I'm scared to look at it in case it's just pooh. I think reading all that sparkling debate on women's erotica yesterday has made me feel a bit thick again [still]... I'm not a great one for analysis of what I write, how I write, or why I write. Except, the latter, slightly... I write because I can, a bit, and because I like to please people and share my some of my fanciful ideas with them [and also the fact that I occasionally do manage to actually have an idea!] and because it's nice to earn a little bit of money for doing something that's not for The Man. I mostly write stuff that comes purely from my instincts and that sort of 'feels good'. It's as simple as that. No technique, no subtexts, no allusions, no commentary, no challenging or testing or dazzling the reader with stylistic pyrotechnics... just something to entertain. A bit of magic, if I can manage it, although not usually of the actual supernatural kind. Lurrve... Mischief... I don't know...

Ack, I'm starting to fuzz up my brain! This always happens when I try to get serious for a minute... Think I need to dash over to Cute Overload or Catster and look at pictures of appealing puddycats and/or baby wabbits. :)

ps. here's a fun thing if you're trying to avoid work!

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Telly: nothing yet
Chocolate: Tesco Dark with Espresso
Mood: disorganised
Writing: nowt, yet
Reading: Amazon book descriptions
RSI: not bad

100th post!

This is my 100th post on this blog! Soon racked 'em, didn't I?

Bit of a mixed day today. I've finished a pass of TechnoGothic, and I'm in a quandary as to whether I do another... it might benefit from another edit, but then again, I might have reached critical mass and any further tinkering may result in the text losing all it's life and become wooden and overworked...

So instead, I did some tidying up on the synopsis of IllMet... Ack, I hate synopses! But this one needed work. It was filled with such gems as 'Lois and Robin bonk' and 'Lois goes for a walk and sees a funny looking hare'... Need to buff the thing up a bit and fill it with a smattering of more editor-enticing phraseology!

Speaking of editors, I've spent a lot of the afternoon here. Some excellent discourse, although it all got a bit too intellectual towards the end for this entertainer... found myself glazing over and reaching for The Sun when folk started bandying the Marquis de Sade and Susan Sontag about. LOL!

--
Telly: The Ballerina and the Blues
Chocolate: Tesco Dark with Espresso
Mood: okay
Writing: synopsis - Ill Met By Moonlight
Reading: Radio Times
RSI: not bad

Entertaining Mr Stone

Another splendiferous review for EMS - this time at Romance Divas! [nb. it's a pdf]

I love it how people really seem to 'get' Clever Bobby... :)

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Telly: The Ballerina and the Blues
Chocolate: Tesco various
Mood: okay, but a bit unfocused
Writing: nothing yet
Reading: nothing yet
RSI: so so

quite busy today

Have been quite busy today, working hard on TechnoGothic, refining and improving and generally breathing the breath of Portia Da Costa into the rough and rather weak first rough draft. Sometimes stuff comes out right, straight out of the gate... other times, it's total pooh, and really needs strong-arming into some kind of shape. Refining usually means cutting out a load of superfluous wordage crud, and phraseology that distances the reader from the book and from the characters... and making the writing more direct, and immediate, so that the reader is 'in' the character more. This is usually easier in first person, and slightly harder in third. TechnoGothic is third person, so I can do big, big chunks in Alexander's POV... I know some people have ventured into dual first person, but after a lot of deliberation I find that's not for me, because most times when I read it, I find it confusing, so God alone knows what would happen if I tried to write it! It would turn into the biggest jumble of the century and be v. embarrassing. I'm not a literary or experimental writer... I just like to stay in the comfort zone of entertainment, and write a nice luvvyduv style romance story, with *lots* of heart and an equal amount of rumpy pumpy shagnasticality... :)

So, we're in third person, so yours truly has to work double hard to ensure that the writing seems almost as intimate as if it was in first! I think I'm getting it, and I like my hero and heroine much better after I've worked them over... In the first draft they were both far to sorry for themselves and full of self disgust over various issues, and now they accept their lots much better. In fact Robyn is quite a cheerful soul in the new version, and very philosophical... Alexander is still a bit of grouch, but he's an interesting grouch... and he's got to be a bit of one because he's Beast to her Beauty... only without the fur, the snout and the tail!

I think this could be a fun book to write if some lovely editor will give it a chance... it's got lots going for it and it's full of contrasts. Full of darks and lights, happiness and poignancy, weak and strong, chubby and thin... All of human life is there... well, some of it...

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Telly: afternoon movies
Chocolate: Maya Gold
Mood: quite positive
Writing: editing TechnoGothic
Reading: ComputerActive
RSI: reasonable

Happy Google Day, Vincent D'Onofrio

Had to be a part of this, didn't I? Love this pic because it says such naughty, naughty things to me!

I am bad....

No work done today... Instead I've been foofling about with all sort of things, including signing my cats up at Catster, which is a sort of MySpace for cats, thankfully without all the music and glitter!

--
Telly: Blue Planet, The Green Berets
Chocolate: Tesco Swiss Milk
Mood: Lazy
Writing: thought about TechnoGothic a bit
Reading: been online mostly
RSI: not too bad

testing testing...

Test post of Alice...
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Telly: Battle of Britain - fab!!!
Chocolate: Ritter Tesco Swiss Milk
Mood: Goodish
Writing: editing TechnoGothic
Reading: TechnoGothic...
RSI: not too bad

Blogger! Blankety blanking blank!!!

Blogger is behaving like a total *rse at the moment! Hope to post properly later.




--
Telly: Beauty and the Beast
Chocolate: Ritter Marzipan
Mood: Pissed off with Blogger!
Writing: editing TechnoGothic
Reading: nothing really
RSI: slightly better

New Poll!

A question for women who read erotic romance... Do you like to read the hero's point of view? And how much of it?

Yes, lots! Some, in order to get to know him... No, prefer to see things solely through the heroine's eyes.

Make Free Online Polls

Please vote! I'm working on TechnoGothic, and to me it feels as if the book should start in the hero's point of view, and be told equally through his eyes as it is through the heroine's... Alex is shaping up to be a very complicated, deep and rather dark character and I want readers to know him and understand him...

another something....

Screencap courtesy of Diane and Tess at The Valentine Cat

better

Well, most of you will have noticed that normal service hasn't actually been the order of the day here for a while... However, having just had a chat with my agent, I now feel a bit better. I think she's managed to talk me down [or maybe up] from a very, very severe and crippling case of author paranoia... and now I feel a tad more positive about things. Writing is a v. lonely business and it's dangerously easy to slip into feelings of powerlessness and negativity due to the downs and downs of the writerly life. I've been sliding downhill for a couple of weeks now, due to things I've heard, and things I've started to imagine, and the tin hat on it all was having a short story rejected. Now, the ed. said that even though he liked it, and thought the set up was interesting, he felt the ending was contrived, and my agent said it wasn't one of my best either... but I love the bloody thing! I think it's warm and romantic and funny and positive... and it gives me a fuzzy happy feeling to read it back. Trouble is, I think it's just too 'nice' really, too feelgood... not cutting edge or innovative or anything like that, and foolishly, I'd given it a very funny but impactful title and I wouldn't be surprised if that's what subconsciously put the mockers on it! Anyway, it can't be all that bad if I actually like it so much myself, and I'm cautiously optimistic that one day I'll find a different home for it.

Any road up, after my chat with my agent, I feel as if I've recovered my direction a bit better... and it helps too that she says she thinks I'm as good a writer as ever, and that if I hang in there, and don't allow myself to fall prey to doubts and fears, I'll achieve my goals. It just takes a while...
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Telly: nothing yet
Chocolate: Ritter Marzipan
Mood: better
Writing: nothing yet, but have goals
Reading: my humongous nPower bill... omigod!!!!!
RSI: quite sore in various places