Back to real life

I'm back from a holiday in the Cotswolds and ready to dive into the wip. I had intended to get a little writing done while I was away, but somehow I got obsessed with a rather large jigsaw featuring masses of frosty foliage and used a lot of my spare time that way instead. Still, the lovely villages and cottages were truly inspirational and I'm sure I'll use the Cotswolds as a setting one day.

And just to prove to myself my stuck-in-chapter-seven phase is almost over, I've written almost 3000 words today already. Yay for me!

Up on amazon

I'm going to have to get out the smelling salts, I really am. I just checked amazon.com and amazon.co.uk and my book is up! No cover. Nothing but the title and my name. So why did I get a jolt of adrenaline when I saw it? Because, it's very very very exciting, that's why.




Amazon.com has it up as a Silhouette Desire and not a Silhouette Romance, but I've put them right on that pretty sharpish, I can tell you.

Would it be really sad if I told you I've been checking every day for weeks to see if it was up? It would? Okay. I'm not telling you then.

Check it out here for the US and here for the UK!

It's real!

Things are getting very exciting at the moment. Last week I saw my cover for Blind-Date Marriage; this week my harback copies arrived. Real books! With my name on them! And words I wrote printed inside. I have to confess to having kissed a copy. How embarrassing is that?

I'm very excited, but nervous at the same time. I read a bit back and all I could see were clunky bits I wish I'd changed. Does this happen to anyone else? I'd be tempted to slip futher into writer's paranoia, but I've managed to remind myself that this book won an award. Even if all I see is clunkiness, others have read it and think it's good.

If I'm this bad now, what'll I be like when it finally hits the shelves?

Rampaging commas and the like

I went to the RNA South East’s chapter meeting yesterday and it was very informative. Jay Dixon spoke to us about “What A Copy Editor Wants”. Now, I’m still fairly new to the biz, so this helped flesh out my knowledge of how the system works.

Checking through every word and punctuation mark when the proofs arrive is a bit tedious but, in the most part, I’m learning a tremendous amount from seeing the changes – especially to my punctuation.

I went to school at a time when teaching grammar was about as fashionable as nylon polyester is now. The bits I did learn, I remember well, but there are huge gaping holes in my knowledge. Thankfully, things have changed and my children are not going to have the same problems. My nine year old quite happily talks about ellipses and stuff like that, yet it was only in the last couple of years I discovered the proper name for those three little dots.

I’ve been reading lots of grammar books since I started writing seriously. I’m improving, but there’s still a way to go. If you could be jailed for punctuation mark misuse, I would be banged up for wilfully abusing commas. Hardly a page goes by in my proofs where, like the Lord on high, the copy editor gives commas and takes them away. At least I’m getting a feel for when they are in the right place now.

Secretly, I suspect my mss are populated by a pack of rogue commas. I swear they all jump up during the night and settle themselves back down in completely inappropriate places just for fun. That’s my defence, guvnor, and I’m sticking to it.

I Have A Cover!!!!!

As you can see, I'm mildly excited about seeing my first ever cover. Here is the North American version of Blind-Date Marriage which will be published as a Silhouette Romance.

The UK cover will use the same artwork, but have different branding. if you want a peek at the new look M&B Romance covers, hop on over to the Mills & Boon site.