Sitting around in rooms...

Could this be why I'm forever writing scenes where my characters just sit around in rooms looking at each other?


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

The Last Mince Pie

Well, I just ate the last mince pie of the Christmas season... and boy, it was nice. Still plenty of chocolate left though... :)

It's been quite a productive morning so far and it's not yet noon. Have done a bit of web design, and also a creditable 1.1K of IN TOO DEEP. Not bad stuff, a bit rambly, but at least it's words. I have to really buckle down at the moment, as not only am I trying to maintain the momentum with this book, I'm also catching up on around half a dozen sets of web updates that I couldn't do while I was chasing my THE RETREAT deadline, and a set of page proofs arrived this morning to check!!!!

These are for ILL MET BY MOONLIGHT, my novella in the MAGIC AND DESIRE anthology, which is published later this year. It's a long, long time since I looked at this novella, at least fourteen months! So reading it will be a bit of a novelty. Fortunately, it's not a huge checking job at 25K, but I still hate doing proofs... eek!

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Telly: Numb3rs
Choc/Yummy: see above
Mood: okay
Writing: In Too Deep
Reading: The Ipcress File
RSI/FMS: not too bad


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

It's Queen Bella Michelle's Birthday!

Swing by Romance B[u]y the Book today and wish Queen Bella Michelle a Happy Birthday!

If you're not familiar with Romance B[u]y the Book, give it a try... it's a wonderful friendly place to chat about romance novels, naughty thoughts and hawt, hawt men!

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Telly: Numb3rs
Choc/Yummy: Celebrations minis
Mood: good
Writing: 1.5K In Too Deep
Reading: The Ipcress File
RSI/FMS: so so


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

Gemini Heat - Black Lace 15th Anniversary cover

Isn't this stunning? There was an earlier version, which was okay, but didn't have quite the right vibe... but this is perfect!

Progress... of sorts

Well, I finally caught up with where I'd previously got to with IN TOO DEEP. What a marathon that was... and it's taken so long that I've probably forgotten a lot of what I was supposed to be recapping. But I'm bloody well not going back *again*, that's for sure! I've started to move forward and I'm going to continue to do so... although I think I'm going to have to try and think things out more, as I go. I'm not sure this hoping for the best and pantsing it approach is working all that well with this particular book. I'm sort of tying myself in knots with the characterisation and the motivation of one particular character. I should have nailed him better first, because the mind-games he's playing throughout the plot need to be more consistent...

But then again, people in real life *aren't* consistent, are they? So maybe this makes the book more realistic rather than less so... it's hard to tell. I only know that there's going to be more, much more editing and tweaking and rewriting and layering to be done after the first draft is finished. Ack!

I've also made a tentative start on the gigantic backlog of web work that's built up while I was rushing to complete THE RETREAT and enjoying Christmas. Now there's a task and a half, 'cos there's *loads* of it! I'm sure it'll move along pretty swiftly though, once I get stuck in.

Himself is back at work tomorrow, so hopefully, I'll start getting more done then. It's jolly having him around, and the hols have been fun, but somehow I can't seem to focus properly when there's someone else in the house, even if he's busy doing something in another room. I seem to need the whole house to myself to be able to work properly.

I'm determined to waste far less time in 2008! It's not so much a New Year's Resolution as a simple hope that I can do better and be a bit more disciplined and productive. Wish me good luck with that one, eh? I'll need it!


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Telly: nothing yet
Choc/Yummy: nothing yet, but the Celebrations are calling, as are the mince pies
Mood: quite good
Writing: notes and thinking about In Too Deep
Reading: nothing yet
RSI/FMS: so so


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

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Let's all have a great year!!!!

Gratuitous Professor Hottie pic and end of year ennui

Isn't he gorgeous? I'm trying to focus on him, looking so hawt, as a way to connect better with IN TOO DEEP. I have to say, the Christmas break has really messed up my concentration, and I'm feeling slightly panicked about the months and the year ahead. There's so much to do, and some of it, I just don't want to do but I have to. Grrr... And 'cos it's there, it sort of distracts me from my focus in writing...

Everyone seems to be making lists and plans. Lists of achievements in 07 and plans for 08. I have achieved some stuff in 07, that I'm very pleased about, but I'm not one for looking back, because I always have the spectre of 'you're only as good as your *next* book' hanging over me like a looming black shadow. And that's very scary when, at the moment, I've no idea what that next book might be... and I get awfully depressed when I go to boards and blogs and folk are talking about the multi book deals they have for 08, and the fabulous book ideas that they're just dying to write.

At the moment, I feel as if I've lost some of the joy I once had in writing. And I don't think I'm going to write at my very best until I reacquire it again.

Any tips, writers out there? How do you maintain the magic and the joie de vivre in your writing when it's a job you do, of necessity, to earn your living?


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Telly: Numb3rs
Choc/Yummy: Celebration minis
Mood: despondent
Writing: nothing yet
Reading: The Ipcress File
RSI/FMS: achy


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

This is just a small part...

of the Christmas chocolate I have to 'eat up'. Sigh... it's a tough job, but someone's got to do it. ;)

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Telly: Numb3rs
Choc/Yummy: see above
Mood: oppressed by sheer weight of jobs to do
Writing: not yet
Reading: The Ipcress File - Len Deighton
RSI/FMS: sore


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

Post Christmas Limboland

Well, it's the day after the day after Boxing Day, and I'm in a sort of post Christmas limboland. Part of me wants to try and get back into some kind of routine, while the rest of me is clinging to the 'what film is on next, shall I have another mince pie, work, wot that?' mentality of the seasonal festivities. This, coupled with the sheer mountain of 'stuff' that Christmas generates eg. wrapping paper, ludicrous amounts of extra 'strange' food, gift items to be assimilated into the household, is making it very hard for me to get into any kind of productive state of mind.

I haven't been entirely idle over the last few days. I have been doing a bit of editing on In Too Deep since Boxing Day, but it's very slow progress and my motivation level isn't high. Am very easily distracted by something on the telly or the desire for more unsuitable Xmas food. On Boxing Day itself, the book seemed like horse pooh, but yesterday, I seemed to get a sort of handle on it. But really, some of the stuff I've written is truly, truly dire. Boring, clunky, uninspired, story-less, strange characters with stupid motivations that people just won't like. This book will need many more rounds of revision after this one if it's to come anywhere near the standard of my beloved Suite Seventeen, which seems to have turned out to be one of my best works, given it's prizewinning status!

What does cheer me up though is that Suite Seventeen seemed like a pile of festering crud for much of the time while I was working on it. It too had to go through a lot of changes and enhancements. It too seemed flat and stupid and pointless. So, if I can get from that, to being judged a year's best novel, with one book, I can do it with another... And I went through the same journey with Gothic Heat too. I don't yet have much in the way of feedback other than the approval of my critique partner and my agent, but I like GH myself now, and it was really one of the hardest, hardest books I've ever had to write!!!

So there's hope for In Too Deep... I think I will probably have to go through this process with every book from now on, as part of the constant raising of the bar. Both in terms of my own writing, and because of fabulous books I read by other writers. I've got to keep pushing, working, improving, not accepting anything less than my best. It's tough out in romance writing world and you can't let yourself slide, even in the tiniest way... You can't sit back and think, 'oh, I'm the dog's wotsits, everybody loves me, I don't have to try now...' because there are hundreds of writers out there, with great ideas, who readers are going to discover and abandon you for if you don't produce the goods to the best of your ability!

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Telly: not yet
Choc/Yummy: mince pie in a minute
Mood: uneasy
Writing: not yet
Reading: not yet
RSI/FMS: very, very sore and achy, mainly due to waking up with small but heavy cat sitting on my rib cage!


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

Wahey, I won an Award!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Guess what?

SUITE SEVENTEEN has been judged the:

2007 "Romance: B(u)y the Book" Best Contemporary Erotic Romance

Isn't this awesome news? Especially as it's one of my faves of all my own books... :)

It's like Christmas just started all over again today here!


Check out the rest of the Year's Best list here

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Telly: not yet
Choc/Yummy: not yet
Mood: thrilled
Writing: not yet
Reading: not yet
RSI/FMS: who cares


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

Our Xmas DVD viewing...

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Telly: Tanks!
Choc/Yummy: everything
Mood: Christmassy
Writing: In Too Deep
Reading: Radio Times
RSI/FMS: so so


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

Season's Greetings from me!