Grovelling apologies...

... for being a rubbish blogger.

It's the usual excuses. Busy trying to engage with the old WIP and not doing so great. Trying to come up with some ideas for new book proposals. And generally feeling a bit rough and under the weather. The latter is nothing serious, nothing to worry about... just basically the knackerage of old age and damp weather produce aches and twinges.

Still slogging away with KISS IT BETTER, which you'll see by my counter is nearly a third done. I really need to buckle down and crack on with this though. Time is flying by, and the deadline of 1st December is fast approaching... along with Christmas!!!! Agh!

Proposals-wise... well, it's always a struggle. I am so crud at coming with new ideas! Have a few bits and bobs slowly coalescing, but my agent would like to be sending stuff out sooner, rather than later, so must try and focus on that too!

Keep watching my Tweets on the right, by the way. Even if I'm not doing full blog posts, I mostly twit on a bit, several times a day! :)

Omigod!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Kiss it Better has popped up on Amazon.co.uk!!!!!!

I've only written about 21K of the mutha so far... better get my finger out and rack up some words!

KissDay is 4th June 2009!

Breaking news from CERN!

A big day for Big Science!

The Large Hadron Collider has just been switched on! And apparently, according to tweets by the wife of one of the scientists, the first beam has already been around the the accelerator three times! Don't think they've actually smashed any atoms yet, so no sign of the Higgs Boson for a while yet.

Here's a game to play that explains some of the science.

And there's even an LHC rap!

At Lust Bites today...

Basically, yabbering a little bit about Stoneworld... where IN TOO DEEP is set.

Return to Stoneworld... again

If you leave a comment while you're over there, and then again, when I post a saucy excerpt there on Friday, 26th September, you'll go into a prize draw in which the winner receives copies of ENTERTAINING MR STONE and SUITE SEVENTEEN.

IN TOO DEEP - out today in the UK!

It's all in the mind...

Librarian Gwendolynne Price starts finding indecent proposals and sexy stories in her suggestion box every morning. Shocked that they seem to be tailored specifically to her own deepest sexual fantasies, she begins a tantalising relationship with a man she's never met.

At the same time, she's fast getting involved with a man she has met. Superstar historian Professor Daniel Brewster is on sabbatical, researching in the library. The glamorous academic sets women's hearts thudding all over the country, but Gwendolynne is the one he quickly shows an interest in...

Pretty soon however, a relationship of erotic letters and toe-curlingly sensual emails collides with kinky games played in the all too real flesh.

Can Gwendolynne decipher the identity of her mysterious correspondent Nemesis, and will he still be as exciting when unmasked? Can she survive the pain of loving then losing Daniel when his research is over and leaves and moves on?

Or is she tangled in too deep with both men?

Read an excerpt here

Available from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk

And here's the faux cover...

The little splodges, by the way, are extremely remote galaxies from a Hubble Deep Field image. 'In Too Deep'... all clever stuff, eh? LOL

Please accept this eye candy...

Am feeling a bit lack lustre in the blogging department at the moment, so please accept this sultry pic of Professor Hottie McHotstuff in lieu of a post. His book comes out tomorrow...

Exciting news from my writing buddy!

Saskia's first Spice Brief is out on the 1st of September!

Caught in the Act is the first in a trio of linked stories... so there are three fabulous reads to look forward to!

For a tantalisingly hot excerpt, nip on over to her blog and savour some delicious writing! You won't regret it... :)

Caught in the Act - Saskia Walker

moody guy

Gosh, he looks a moody guy, doesn't he? My Jay... This is a hero with some heavy issues, but I think in my first draft of the first 17K or so of Kiss It Better, he was a bit too downbeat and angsty... In my reworking of this first portion of the book, I've lightened him up just a little bit, and made him a tad more philosophical and positive. Yeah, there's stuff he's got to deal with, but he's more of a survivor now and someone who looks for a bit of life affirming fun along the way. And meeting Sandy, even though there are major complications to their relationship, is a key to his new outlook...

I have so much work to do at the moment! This novel to progress with, a longish short story to do before the 8th Sept, an author spotlight thingoid to sort out, promo to begin for IN TOO DEEP, which is out in the UK on 4th Sept... boy, how that one snuck up on me! Have little features and excerpts to get ready and review copies to send out... eek, agh! I'd also like to work out some other ideas... and I have web design things to do too. Am feeling slightly in danger of drowning in it all, but I'm managing to stay positive and plod on. :)

What's on your to-do lists, guys?

Ah, happy days...

Another nice pic of the Big Adventure Gals ie. Saskia, Madelynne and Portia, taken by our buddy Victoria Janssen.

Here's a nice piccie...

... of Kuffer, posing as only he can! Note the magnificent 90 degree tail, cutely tucked front paw, and classic hind leg drape on the edge of the bed. Eek, I've obviously been watching far too much of the Olympics because I'm grading my cat on his sleeping positions now!

Anyway, now that the Olympiad is over, I'm hoping I'll get more work done. I've found myself getting drawn into watching sports that normally I'm barely aware of, but now that temptation is gone and I need to focus on my writing, on writing related activities and web design stuff when it comes in. I think I'm going to try and cut down some of my web surfing activities too. I love visiting blogs and sites and boards, and being part of communities and making friends, but sometimes, just sometimes, I come across things while I'm surfing that irk me out of all proportion to the degree they should... and that's not good for my temper or my general health. I'm one of these silly old sods who has a tendency to get in a state about nothing, so giving myself slightly less exposure to these 'nothings' has got to be a good thing, eh?

And I need to concentrate on Kiss It Better. This is proving to be quite a challenging book, because there's a lot of character history, character psychology and complexity to get into it... all without compromising the degree of sensuality in it that I know the publisher expects! I love writing super hot, and the characters in KIB are sexy, imaginative people... but there's a part of me that would have loved to write this story as a deeply emotional, character driven *romance* instead. There would have been sex in it, of course, as sex is a crucial key to the story, but I'd like to have had carte blanche to dwell much more on other aspects of the plot and characterisation, making up as much as half or even three quarters of the wordcount. I've always been interested in the bigger picture in my stories, and one of these days, I'd like to be in a position where I'm writing works that allow me this freedom.

watch out, I'm in a Patrick Bateman mood

A few things are bugging me today... none of which I can really talk about for fear of being branded a total Bitch Queen from Hell. I am having a real battle with myself, but winning so far.

But I may have to break one or two inexpensive and easily replaceable household items to siphon off my vexation. Managing anger and prudent silence is really bad for my constitution.