RNA Winter Party

I’ve been a busy bunny the last couple of days. Wednesday night was the RNA’s Winter Party and I also attended the RNA ‘Money Day’ on Thursday. Very useful, but more about that later.

Anyone who has read my blog recently and accused me of being organised would have had their opinion overturned if they had seen me trying to work out how to secure my coat on the hanger (plus lockable wire) in the cloakroom of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers. Thank goodness Liz was with me and came to my rescue. I could have been there all night trying to work out which way to thread the wire.

The library at Imeche, as it is known, is a great place for a literary party. It’s a lovely old room, stuffed full of bookcases and has lovely warm-coloured wood and wrought iron all over the place. While having my first glass of wine, a few of us perused the titles of the books nearest us. Not very romantic. Although there was one called ‘Internal Fire’, or something like that. Sounds a bit like an M&B from the eighties or Modern Extra to me. Not much evocative about ‘Theory of Gas Turbines’, though.

I had a great time (waves to anyone I met) talking to old friends, new friends, authors, editors and agents. I’m hopeless at networking, though. I forget all about it and just yak. I had a rather hairy moment in the middle of a heated discussion about CSI with some of the lovely M&B staff, though. Someone mentioned how cute they thought Nick was and, in my eagerness to agree, I choked on my wine.

Liz and I were very good and, because we had the RNA money day to attend the next day, resisted attempts to lure us out to drinks and dinner afterwards. Seriously, we should have haloes. I was going to post a photo of me and Liz, but I’m looking far too shiny and I have hamster cheeks.

Yummy Christmas food

My favourite thing about Christmas dinner is the bread sauce (picture me drooling right now just thinking about it) and my recipe is being featured on the Christmas recipe swap at eHarlequin.

Now, for all of you not in the UK (and probably thinking "Eeewwww!"), you can't knock it until you've tried it. Just imagine a nice succulent slice of turkey breast smothered with the most creamy, comforting sauce you could ever imagine. Just add a little dollop of cranberry sauce and you have perfection. The acidity of the cranberries set off the creaminess of the bread sauce beautifully. Scrummy.

My husband's family were all a bit sceptical when I brought it along to Christmas dinner many moons ago. But then again these people think pickled onions are a suitable accompniament to Christmas dinner. Nuff said. Now they beg me to bring some bread sauce every year.

Actually, even better than Christmas dinner is the leftovers sandwich I make on Boxing day: thick slices of fresh bread, turkey breast, pork and chestnut stuffing, bread sauce and cranberry sauce. Mmmmmm.

Great review!

I woke up this morning and found my book reviewed on the Pink Heart Society review blog.

If you haven’t found the Pink Heart Society blog yet, go and have a look here. It’s a great site dedicated to celebrating romantic fiction. They have great articles every day. Go and have a squizz!

Back to my review…

I was really thrilled with it. The reviewer said:

Blind date marriage is a humorous and touching story with a riveting plot, plenty of action and a loveable, quirky heroine. It’s written in a young, contemporary style and I absolutely loved it. A book you should not miss!

It got five out of five hearts in all the review categories: Hero Hotness Factor, Heroine lovability factor, Awww factor, Stickability factor, Humour factor and Weepy factor.

Wooo-hoooo!

Staying focused

Right. I said I’d post about what I did to tidy up Make Up to Break Up (Magic Hour) when the revisions came in. If I leave a note about it here I shall be able to come back to it when I’m panicking about the next book.

Okay, that’s not going to help. I’m already panicking about the next book and I haven’t even started it. I think it’s the literary equivalent of stage fright. My first book is out in the shops in a few weeks and I’m terrified people won’t like it – especially people that know me.

It seems to be having a knock on effect and I’m second guessing myself about book four and trying to be far too clever in the plot and structuring rather than just starting to write the darn thing.

Anyway, that’s beside the point. Paranoia aside, this is what I did to help myself focus on the central conflict of Make Up to Break Up:

1.I did a GMC (Goal, Motivation, Conflict) chart. I didn’t go back and tinker with the one I did before I started the book; I did a new one based on what I knew about the characters now. It ended up being much meatier and more focused – especially the internal conflict.

2. I made a table with a row for each chapter and two columns: one for Nick and one for Adele. Then I wrote in what their goals were at each stage and what they were feeling. Not in great detail, just the main points. If their goal/emotional state was the same for a couple of chapters, it didn’t matter. I was giving myself a road map of their emotional journeys.

3. I printed out another chart (can you tell I love diagrams and charts?) a row for each scene and, using my emotional road map from no.2, I filled in what the main emotional focus of each scene should be, bearing in mind my editor’s suggestions. Then, when I revised each scene, I would check the little bit of blurb I wrote for each one. Anything that didn’t help the scene run in that direction was history. Whole pages of meaningless bickering disappeared instantly.

Now, I know this approach will send some people running for the hills screaming, but it works for me. When I have too many conflicting ideas swirling round my head I need to anchor them down in some way and creating something visual like a chart helps me focus. And at the end of the day, this was what this story had lacked: focus.

The things to strengthen it were already there in the text, but they’d just got muddied by a lot of extra stuff. In other words, my attempt at adding complex, layered conflict. I can’t remember where I read it recently (it may have been a Q&A on eharlequin) but someone said about conflict: Keep it simple. Keep it deep. I’m going to repeat that to myself while writing the next book.

Five things

Oo-er. I’ve been tagged by Jess to list “Five Things You May Not Know About Me”.

Here goes:

1. I’m half Scottish. My grandmother was a Robertson, so if I have a clan to belong to – that’s it. King Duncan (the one who was murdered by Macbeth) is way back in my line of ancestors.

2.I was born prematurely – two months early – and weighed only 4lbs.

3. I have tinnitus, the condition where I hear noises in my head that aren’t really there. (I’m not bonkers, I promise!) I manage to ignore it most of the time, but when it’s very quiet I can always hear a high-pitched whine – a bit like the noise you used to get when BBC closed down for the night.

4. I’m addicted to playing Tomb Raider. A kick-ass heroine who gets to explore beautiful locations and exotic temples – what’s not to like?

5. I’m married to a forensic scientist. I can snort at CSI like a pro now. Why, oh why, do they do everything in the dark? Use the light switch, for goodness’ sake! Having said that, I love the show and watch it every week – even if I have it on good authority that half of the fingerprints on their computer are upside-down.

A note from Sharon, the creator of People Collection (which seems to have originated this "Five Things..." list), says: PLEASE LEAVE THE FOLLOWING IN ALL ‘PEOPLE COLLECTION’ POSTS:Remember that it isn’t always the sensational stuff that writers are looking for, it can just as easily be something that you take for granted like having raised twins or knowing how to grow beetroot. Mind you, if you know how to fly a helicopter or have worked as a film extra, do feel free to let the rest of us know about it! :)

I tag two Liz Fs: Liz Fielding and Liz Fenwick!

It just gets better

Oooh! And I've just realised it's up on eHarlequin too!


Go on. Treat yourself for Christmas!

On sale!

Very excited. Blind-Date Marriage is on sale at Mills&Boon.co.uk.

It's finally happened. People can buy a book I wrote. Hee hee. Don't all start a stampede now.

...Oh, go on then, if you really want to!

First page challenge

Julie Cohen is blogging about creating character and conflict in the very first page of a book and has thrown out a challenge to other authors to show how they do it. I accept that challenge, Ms Cohen!

BLIND-DATE MARRIAGE
Silhouette Romance/M&B Romance Dec 06

Jake knew only two things about the woman he was going to meet: her name was Serena and her father had money.
We know instantly that Jake is on his way to meet a stranger. Who is she? Why is he going to meet her?

Serena. Sounded kind of horsey. She probably wore jodhpurs. Mel had refused to comment on whether she was pretty or not, so she probably looked like a horse as well. He could see it so clearly: the gymkhana trophies, the chintzy bedroom. Serena wore her mousey hair in a bun and had too many teeth.
Uh-oh. Jake has a problem with a runaway imagination. Making assumptions like this is going to get him into trouble.

He stepped off the kerb of the busy London street and weaved through the gaps in the traffic. Headlights lit up his knees as he squeezed between the bumpers. A horn blared. That’s why he liked to walk. It gave him a sense of freedom in the midst of the cloying traffic. He wasn’t about to take orders from anyone, especially not a pole with coloured lights on top.
He’s also a very self-contained kind of guy and likes to be completely in charge of his universe. He likes playing life by his own rules.

Hopefully, I've set up the feeling that Jake's blind date is going to be completely different from what he's expecting and hinted that he seems ripe to have his tidy world turned upside down.

Finally got around to reading some more of my time managment book. Now, I know I will finish it deciding I am a total convert and will never leave a speck of dust unattacked in my house for more than ten seconds, but in reality I will probably find a few good ideas that fit in with my life and take those on board.

First bit of work to do was read through all the handy little tips scattered throughout the text and find seven I thought I could put into practice. For example:

• Exercise while you watch TV. - Yeah, always mean to do this, but my brand new squashy leather sofa is far too tempting while catching up on my regular fix of trashy TV (America's Next Top Model).
• Take yourself off junk mail lists. - feeling very virtuous. Done this already.
• Do small jobs as they come up; don't put them off. - Whoops. Not feeling so virtuous now.
• Record TV programmes to watch later, cutting out the adverts. - Sorry, not that desperate (or that sad) to gain an extra fifteen minutes in each day. Will not be able to hold out during Grey's Anatomy anyway.
• Buy a sound activated device for your keys. Think how much time you've wasted over the years looking for them.

Two weeks ago I would have thought this was wisdom itself, as I am always frantically searching for my keys at school pick-up time/leave for work time/most of the time, but when I read this tip while having a bath, I laughed so hard I almost created a tsunami.

Only that afternoon I had dismantled on of these cursed (pronounced curse-ed to get an accurate sense of my fury) things after ripping it from my keyring. I had only had it for a week and it was driving me slowly insane. Whistling set it off all right, but so did:

• High-pitched squeaks from number two daughter.
• High-pitched squeaks from number one daughter (slightly less frequent).
• My laugh (anyone who has heard me in full giggle will know how loud it is).
• Me shouting at the kids. (Of course, this is theorectical; I never shout at my little cherubs).
• Other random noises.
• My husband's constant whistling. (Never realised he did it so much until last week).

On the other hand, I discovered I had lost the ability to whistle and the hoarse little noise I managed to produce only set it off now and again - and then when I was close enough to see my keys anyway.

So, for a week, I put up with my pocket going beep, beep, beep-beep, beep-beep-beep on a pretty constant basis every time I set foot in the school gates to drop off/pick up my daughters. The up side was that everyone thought they were text message beeps and suddenly I seemed the most popular mum in the playground.

The final straw came when I popped into my next-door neighbour's house for a little birthday celebration for the elderly man on our road who had just turned ninety. He was very happy to be invited round for chocolate cake and a cup of tea with a bunch of thirty-something women, even if we had at least eleven children (ranging from three months to nine years) racing in and out of the kitchen and pushing each other off the trampoline/climbing frame/grass in the back garden.

At first, the beeping of my keyring was an amusing talking point but, since it was set off about once every minute for three-quarters of an hour, I started fantasising about drowning it in my tea and then stamping on it in the manner of an enraged Daffy-Duck.

I will just have to go back to the frantic key searching. It's a whole lot less stressful than saving the extra five minutes looking for them maybe once a fortnight.

Sold

Adele and Nick's story has sold - and as the first book in a three-book contract. Hooray! I now have deadlines. Not-so-hooray.

My working title for the book was Magic Hour, but the actual title will be Break Up To Make Up. I like it - it sounds young and fresh and a little bit different. It'll be hitting the shelves next August.

Losing it.

Still haven't blogged about how I got into focus with my revisions, have I? Life keeps getting in the way of my writing. Good news is, my editor says the revisions were great. Phew.

And, kangarooing onto a different subject all together, I found my time management book. I'd actually put it away in the bookcase. Now, that would seem to be the obvious place to look, wouldn't it? But, before you all say "Doh!", I hardly ever put a book back on the shelf unless I've finished it. If I'm still reading it, it will probably be either on my bedside table, on the window sill next to the bath, in my handbag or buried under the junk my family seems to create without even trying. Must have had been inspired by the book and had a moment of uncharacteristic tidiness.

Would it be even sadder to tell you I lost a brand new pair of shoes still in their box? Not surprsingly, I found them in the bottom of my wardrobe. That's the thing about being organised. It puts my whole chaotic system out of order.

Being too clever for my own good.

Revisions on “Magic Hour” are completed. Phew!

Sections of this book were pig-awful to write. Funnily enough, those were the sections I had to revise. D’ya think I should have cottoned on to that at the time? I shall certainly watch out for that on the next wip.

In my efforts to create a multi-layered conflict I had, in fact, just created clutter. Too much bickering, my editor said. She was right. They were stuck in car arguing about who did the laundry quite a lot. Zzzzzz.

I had wanted to introduce little niggles that were symptoms of the bigger problems, but all I’d ended up doing was muddying the waters. In the end, I hadn’t spent enough time on the central issues and there were some nice things that I could have developed more, but didn’t have the space.

At first I just started going through the ms cutting a sentence here, adding a phrase there, but the whole thing felt a bit disjointed and pasted together. And the sections I had problems with were still giving me a headache. I still wasn’t bringing the central conflict into the forefront.

I was too close. I needed to get away from the words and sentences level of doing things and concentrate on the big picture. More on this tomorrow…

Revisions, revisions, revisions

I'm in the depths of revisions for Magic Hour. Brain similar to noodle soup.

I'm struggling a bit to juggle two jobs, two kids and running a household so I bought a book called "Time Management for Manic Mums". Lost it in the mess before I'd finished chapter one. Says it all, really.

I'm not here

I'm avoiding my blog.

I'm in a post-book slump. My brain cells have all gone into hibernation and I have nothing interesting to say.

However, a new idea is staring to brew. I have a pink-haired heroine and a stuffy hero. This one could be fun...

good times

Yesterday was the annual AMBA (Association of Mills & Boon Authors) lunch in London. My first ever one. Writing can be a very solitary pursuit and it’s always lovely to meet other authors, but I was especially looking forward to this as I would get a chance to see some online friends that I hadn’t met in the flesh.

I was feeling very famous after a couple of people said they recognised me from my photo in the RNA’s ‘Romance Matters’ magazine. How bizarre is that? And Abby Green, new author for Modern Romance, is forever in my good books for saying I didn’t look old enough to have a nine-year-old daughter. God bless her!

And after the lunch it was off to the famous Brooks’s gentleman’s club for a party thrown by HM&B for their authors. The champagne was flowing, but I stuck to water as I’m on anti-sickness pills to combat an ear infection. Still, better to be able to go to the do than be home feeling queasy.

I left the party with the phrase “send it in” ringing in my ears. I had all three of the Romance Team: Kim, Meg and Lydia, chanting this in my ear while I was warbling on about having finished the second draft and being too close to it to see where it needed work. Looks like I’ll be sending Nick and Adele’s story in on Monday. (Once I’ve had a little chance to read through and tweak, of course. Perfectionist? Moi? Never.)

Haircuts and other horrors

I've been too busy to blog for the last few days. The current book is in the editing stages and I don't seem to be changing much - which is worrying me. I think I'm too close to writing it to be able to see the holes at the moment but, as my editor asked if I could possibly get it in a little earlier, I don't have time to slow down.

I've also fallen foul of life's little hiccups this week:

I got a parking ticket, even though I'd bought a pay and display ticket and stuck it on my windscreen with the little sticker they give you. It was a hot day and the sticker gave out and my ticket fell on the floor. The local authority don't consider I made a proper effort to display my ticket correctly, so the won't drop the penalty notice, even though I could produce a valid parking ticket. Grrrrr. It's either £40 now, or £80 if I risk a formal appeal. What more could I have done? Stood by my car for the three hours it was parked there to make sure the ticket didn't fall off?

Then, of course, I spent most of yesterday waiting for a piece of furniture to be delivered. should have arrived by 2pm. My husband phoned the helpline and, after being on hold for an hour, hung up. My phone bill is going to be huge. Furniture arrived at almost 5pm.

And on Friday I had a haircut. I decided to splurge and go to a salon I haven't been to in a while and get a really good hairdresser to do my hair. While this bloke has cut my hair before and it's looked fabulous, this time was the one that bucked the trend.

I have naturally curly hair and, at it's longest, it was reaching my bra strap on my back. Since it had got a bit too long and heavy, I asked if I could have a few more layers and have it shaped round my face a little more. However, he definitely took more than four inches he said he was going to take off the ends and when my hair gets cut it can spring up and go a bit mad. I walked in with ringlets flowing down my back and left wearing a curly football helmet that barely reaches my shoulders. I went home, lip quivering, and washed it myself and, thankfully, the result isn't as bad as I first thought. If it were a few inches longer it would be just what I wanted. It'll grow, so I'll just have to be patient.

One more under my belt

Phew! I've finished the first draft of mt latest book. Now I've got a couple of weeks to lick it into shape before I send it off.

I'm quite amazed at how much I managed to get done when I knuckled under: 28,000 words in the last sixteen days (since I got back from holiday).

I tend not to edit much as I go, so reading the opening chapters should be somewhat of a surprise. I've probably forgotten a lot of what I've written. I know I'll read some back and think, 'Hmmm, better than I thought it was going to be', and I will read some bits and think, 'Euch!' Funny thing is, the bits I considered the good bits when I was writing them invariably make me go 'Euch!'.

A thing of beauty

I have a new toy.

When I won the RNA's New Writers' Award, I decided to spend a little of my prize money on a PDA. I've resisted getting such a device for ages, always preferring using a pen and paper whenever possible (I just like writing). But my filofax was starting to feel like a brick in my handbag - that's if I could fit it in there in the first place.

In the spirit of 'going the whole hog', I later ordered a foldable keyboard to go with it. Both PDA and kyboard fit into my handbag more easily than the brick did and I think they weigh less too. The darn thing was out of stock almost everywhere and I've had to wait over three months for it to arrive, but it was worth the wait.

Now I am truly portable. I can write wherever and whenever without having to scribble in a notepad and type up later (although, sometimes that helps. I might blog about that another time.) And the design is so clever. I'm far too busy drooling over it to actually have used it much yet.

Rolling down the hill towards the end

I've had a rather productive week! In total, since Monday, I have written 12280 words - a quarter of my current book. If I could write like this all the time, I'd be able to get a first draft done in a month. But I'm not going to get my hopes up; I know I need fallow periods between the times when the words won't stop flowing.

Hopefully, the flow will continue long enough for me to have the book off to my editor by the end of this month. This is a good stage of the book for me. I've got over the end-of-chapter-three hurdle and waded through the chpaters-seven-and-eight-bog. Now I'm rolling down the hill towards the end.

Kind of like this picture of my eldest rolling down the hill in Greenwich Park. Once you get started you just can't stop, even if it's a bumpy ride along the way!

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.

Boasting

Today I am boasting on behalf of my fellow Romance authors, Liz Fielding and Marion Lennox.

For any one who doesn't know, the Oscars of the romantic fiction world are called the RITAs and the winners were announced at the end of the RWA conference on Saturday night.

Liz Fielding won the "Best Short Contemporary" category with The Marriage Miracle and Marion Lennox won the "Best Traditional Romance" category with Princess of Convenience.

I've read both books and they were wonderful. HM&B Romance authors rule!

Now, what is the next step in our plan for world domination? Mwaahaahaa!

More punching

Okay, here's a little bit from "Her Parenthood Assignment" to illustrate what I think of as echoing and shadowing. (Someone else may have a completely different take on it, but so what!) Here's some blurb so you know what you're reading:

Luke Armstrong has spent five years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. And things don’t get any easier when he’s pardoned. He has to get to know an eleven-year-old daughter he barely knows.

Divorced Gaby Michaels is breaking out of her former role as a corporate wife to return to being a nanny. She agrees to take care of Luke’s difficult daughter, even though she knows she has a problem keeping her professional distance.

But this time it’s not the child she falls for—it’s the boss! And Luke is secretly entranced by the ordinary-looking woman who has the extraordinary ability do the warm and fuzzy stuff he’s long forgotten.

* * *

Luke tugged frantically on the strings of the kite, but it was too late. It fell out of the air and crashed on to the deserted beach. He sighed and trudged towards it. Gaby might be a bit of a shrinking violet at times, but she could talk an Eskimo into buying snow, and what’s more, he’d love her for it!

This outing to the beach with Heather had been her idea. You’re not working this Sunday, she’d said. The weather report says it’s going to be sunny, but windy, she’d said. Great weather for flying kites. Heather would love it…

And before he knew it, he was buying a multi-coloured contraption in town and spending his Sunday afternoon watching it nose-dive into the shingle again and again.

Heather had lost interest after ten minutes. So now he was left to keep up the pretence while she and Gaby wandered along the shore, arm in arm, and collected shells and bits of quartz.

He stopped to watch them. They were deep in conversation, sharing girl-type secrets, no doubt. His heart squeezed a little. Gaby had made such a difference to their home in the last three weeks. He still had to duck when Heather was in a foul mood, but more and more she was laughing and smiling, and he’d even caught her singing to herself.

He could see glimpses of the happy little girl she’d once been. That same cheeky smile she’d had, aged three, when she knew she’d said something funny or cute. They way she stroked a strand of her own hair when she was tired.

And it was all down to Gaby. He couldn’t take credit for the tiniest bit of it. All he managed was to stretch his mouth into a smile when it was required, and to say the right things—as if he were reading from a script—and watch his daughter blossom.

Gaby was getting closer and closer to Heather and, miracle of miracles, Heather was letting her.

And, all the while, he stayed on the fringes and watched. He was just as much on the outside of his daughter’s life as he’d been all those years behind bars. Why he couldn’t work his way into the centre—where all the laughter and warmth was—was more than he could fathom.

He watched as Gaby and Heather broke into a run and chased each other along the edge of the surf. The wind was cold and it blew their scarves in front of their faces, which only made them laugh all the more.

How did she do it? The woman he’d thought at first seemed ordinary, nothing special, had the ability to reach out to a heart and see it respond. A very rare thing indeed. He caught himself studying her, trying to work out what her secret was, where all that warmth and courage came from.

He alternated between admiring her and hating her for it.

He tore his gaze away and returned it to the kite lying a short distance away on the small, round pebbles. It seemed injured, lying there fluttering half-heartedly. He walked over and surveyed it with dismay.

The two figures walking along the shore hadn’t even seen it crash.

It was all in a tangle and he didn’t know what to do with it.

* * *

The emotional hit is that even though Luke's daughter is healing from her ordeal, he seems incapable of it. He feels just as much on the outside as he always did. The fact he can't fly the kite either echoes this.

In the last three paragraphs I've used the image of the damaged kite to reflect Luke's emotional state:

"He tore his gaze away and returned it to the kite lying a short distance away on the small, round pebbles. It seemed injured, lying there fluttering half-heartedly." (Luke is also injured and floundering)

"The two figures walking along the shore hadn’t even seen it crash. " (Luke is alone and no one knows how much he is struggling).

"It was all in a tangle and he didn’t know what to do with it." (it's Luke who is in a tangle and doesn't know how to remedy the situation)

I find I use this technique quite a bit. sometimes it's more obvious, like the kite example, and sometimes it's more subtle and nobody else might spot it. But I hope that, almost subconsicously, it helps the atmosphere of the scene.

Screwing the Punch

Janet asked me this after I reported back from the RNA conference:

Hi Fiona,I just read this on yesterday's blog:'The thing that stuck most was the phrase “screw the punch” (a boxing term), meaning deliver the emotional hit, then echo and repeat it, making the situation worse.'Can you remember from the talk what an emotional hit is and how you echo and repeat it. Sounds very interesting, Janet

I replied:

Janet, I'm thinking on this. I don't want to use any examples from my first book because they give away the plot too much. Trying to find a good example. It's one of those "I'll know it when I see it" things that are hard to put into words.

Now, I confess to still having my “L”plates on (learner driver plates for those of you not in the UK) when it comes to talking about "screwing the punch", but I came across an example today. This may not be the best example ever, but it'll do for now.

I was watching You’ve Got Mail and there was a scene where the big emotional hit came and then there were a couple of little emotional ‘ouches’ just to ram the point home:

Kathleen owns a small bookstore which is threatened by the opening of a big discount book store in the same neighbourhood. She doesn’t realise that the man she is starting to fall in love with through an email relationship (Sam) is one of the owners of the store. Neither knows the other’s true identity.

They agree to meet in person. Sam is so excited he tells his friend he would be a fool not to marry this woman, but he turns up at the rendezvous – a little café – and discovers the woman he is about to meet is none other than Kathleen and he knows she hates him both professionally and personally (Big punch).

Sam is too nice to leave Kathleen sitting there thinking she has been stood up so he goes inside. She is not pleased to see him but, now he knows that underneath the spiky exterior is the most adorable woman he’s ever met, he tries to build bridges. He tells her she might discover a lot of surprising things about him.

Kathleen tells him she would only discover a cash register instead of a brain and a bottom line where his heart ought to be. (Ouch!) Then goes on to say how she never manages to come out with the perfect retort when faced with a horrible, insensitive person (ouch!) and has just managed it with him.

Sam suspects that Kathleen’s sees the kind, funny man she has met on the internet as the polar opposite to the real Sam Fox and that, in her mind, the two could never be the same person. If he confesses, he will lose her.

He tells her the other guy isn’t here (implying he is) and she tells him that, unlike him, the other guy doesn’t have a cruel bone in his body and has a good reason for not turning up. She ends with the line: “You are nothing but a suit!”. (Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!)

There is an awful silence in which Sam realises there is no hope and he leaves.

Each time Kathleen says something it’s another nail in the coffin for their budding relationship. It had the impact after he first outburst, but after it has been repeated a couple of times in the ensuing conversation, you know that all hope is well and truly dead.

I also think I found an example in one of my books that doesn’t give the whole story away, but this post is long enough already! I might post it tomorrow.

Stuck in the middle with you

Okay. I’m stuck in the middle of chapter three, which I seem to do every time, but this is an odd one for me. I know what the next scene should be, but I can’t seem to get started on it because the previous scene seems a bit flat. I feel I need a better foundation before I keep on writing.

Normally this would not be such a problem, but since I still have a black hole in my plot at the beginning of act 2, I need to make sure things are tight and focused now, otherwise I won’t be able work out what happens next. I’m reading Debra Dixon’s “Goal Motivation Conflict” at the moment, which is helping things a little, but I’ve decided to resort to another little tool that helps when I need to focus on what I’m writing. (The plot board isn’t helping – it’s just sitting in the corner, with a big blank space, laughing at me.)

I'm going to use a scene sheet. It’s an amalgamation of ideas I’ve got from various books I’ve read. James N. Frey uses a “step sheet” described in “How To Write A Damn Good Novel” and Raymond Obstfeld recommends little index cards with scene info on in "A Novelist's Essential Guide to Crafting Scenes". I’ve taken the basic idea, used bits that work for me and added anything else I wanted to add.

I don’t use them all the time – in fact, I only have an example for the first scene in my book. Sometimes the ideas flow and I don’t want to stop to mess around with scene sheets. But, when I’m stuck, it can help to go back and do one for each scene to make sure I’m building on the last scene in a consistent way. Here’s what I put in my scene sheet:

1. PRACTICAL STUFF

• Scene no. & title I like to title my scenes in the same way I give a working title to my books. It gives me a hint as to the purpose of the scene.
• Aprroximate word count
• POV – who’s point of view am I in for this scene?

2. OUTLINE

• Plot - I give a brief as possible outline of the plot.
• Purpose - three reasons why this scene should be there. Does it move the plot forward, develop a character, develop the theme, add suspense? Is it needed introduce a character, develop a character's motivation, provide the next obstacle to the protagonist's goal? (Debra Dixon suggests that if you can't find three good reasons for a scene, it should go!)

3. Goal, Motivation and Conflict

I then like to summarise what’s happening with my characters. I find distilling all the info into a few sentences helps me keep focused on what they are feeling and thinking.
I like to add a little sentence at the top to remind myself what’s going through the character’s head.

In my first scene in "Magic Hour", Adele is thinking: “I do not need a man to help me catch a spider!”. It shows her fierce independence, even when terrified, and sets up the idea that she doesn’t want to need a man at all – especially not the man who’s just about to ring her doorbell (estranged husband Nick).

Then I look at the GMC – internal and external

• Goal: what does this character want?
• Motivation: Why do they want it?
• Conflict: Why can’t they have it?

Adele’s external GMC for this scene could be expressed like this:

“Adele wants to have a bath at the end of the day, because she needs to de-stress, but a spider is lurking in her bath and she is terrified of them, sending her stress levels even higher.” By the time Nick rings the doorbell, Adele is already completely wound up, increasing the tension of the situation.

Adele’s internal GMC could be expressed like this:

“Adele wants to prove to herself that she doesn’t need anyone else, because she has loved people in the past and they have let her down, but the man who hurt her the most turns up out of the blue and threatens to weaken her resolve.”

See? Now I have homed in on what is making Adele tick at this point in time. Having that knowledge in the back of my head as I write or edit helps me see where I need to go or make changes. Maybe the dialogue doesn’t reflect this strongly enough. Maybe the emotion isn’t coming through clearly enough. If I want my readers (please, let there be readers!) to become engaged with my characters, then I need to make Adele and Nick's fears and desires clear and attention-grabbing.

4. Foreshadowing and payoff.

This is a little note to myself of things I may be able to use in the future, or emotional moments I can intensify by adding something in earlier in the book.

For example, my heroine in my second book "Her Parenthood Assignment" admits to the hero that her ex-husband never told her she was beautiful. I slipped this in a few scenes before a big party when the hero is completely gobsmacked by how gorgeous she looks, even though she thinks of herself as ordinary-looking. The heroine's revelation sets up a bigger emotional hit (the pay off) a few chapters later. Of course, the fact that the hero thinks she's beautiful on the outside, echoes that he thinks she's beautiful on the inside too - a fact her ex-husband sadly missed.

So, all I need to do now is go back though the last couple of chapters and make sure I focus on the right emotions and thoughts. As I do this, I often go one layer deeper in understanding my characters and will get a brainwave for where the next scene should go and I'm up and running again.

RNA conference - part 3

I started Sunday morning of with “Jessica Hart’s A-Z survival guide for Romantic Novelists”. She is soooo funny. But, if you have read any of her books you will know that.

My personal highlight was D for deadlines. She gave us a run down of how she copes during her two month writing slot for each book:
Chapters 1-3 – not bad
Chapter 4 – slowing down
Chapter 5 – struggling
Chapter 6 – plodding
Chapter 7 – stop. Panic. Go down wine bar.
(In fact there were an awful lot of pics of Jessica at her local wine bar in her powerpoint presentation).
Chapters 8-10 – with 12 days to go, write in a complete frenzy and finish minutes before deadline.

Then I listened to Diana Burchall give a talk on ‘Life in the Hollywood Story Department’. She reads books for Warner Brothers to see if they can be made into films. Interesting. She also told us about her grandmother who was a story analyst in the early days of movies and who was rather eccentric.

We then had a PR forum and Jenny Haddon and Catherine Jones talked about raising the profile of both Romantic fiction and the RNA.

Katie Fforde talked for ten minutes about ‘The First Page’ then let us grill her with questions about her writing career.

Jenny Haddon (who writes as Sophie Weston for M&B) then gave a brilliant seminar on upping the emotion in our writing. I took home lots of nuggets from this one. The thing that stuck most was the phrase “screw the punch” (a boxing term), meaning deliver the emotional hit, then echo and repeat it, making the situation worse. I think I do this anyway sometimes, but it's always better to consciously use these techniques than just stumble along in the dark, I think.

Last of all Liz Bailey gave us a drama workshop to help us to tap into our emotions better. I must admit I got rather competitive about a game of “What’s the time Mr Wolf?” and managed to convey a rather rude gesture only by using a yellow feather.

I then spent a rather brain dead evening in the bar where Liz and I would lapse into silence because our brains were too tired out to think of anything to say. And the last few braincells gave up and went home during Stephen’s fiendish bar quiz. I now feel really thick and am sure I know nothing about the publishing industry – although I did do rather well on the low-brow music round. Curses!

Finally!

I have a website! It's pretty basic at the moment, but it does the job. Take a hike over to fionaharper.com and nose around! There's an excerpt from my award-winning first novel under 'books'.

RNA conference - part 2

Here’s a run down on some of the seminars I attended on day two:

Ann Lingard ran a session about using science in our books. She runs a website called Scitalk, which is an excellent resource for writers researching science-related matters. Plenty of scientists from a variety of fields have signed up to the site to make themselves available if a writer wants to contact them to ask a question. They have quantum physicists, forensic pathologists and people who investigate horse sweat (!), among others.

Kate Fenton talked about writing romantic comedy. She had me in stitches. She said that, although love is a serious business, falling in love is intrinsically funny – a socially acceptable form of madness, if you like. I was interested in what she had to say about off-setting humour with the emotional sections of her books to increase the tragedy.

Diane Pearson, RNA President, ran a very practical workshop on arresting the editor’s attention. She asked us to provide her with the first two sentences of our books and a short synopsis. She told us that the first couple of lines should give a feel of the whole book, saying something about character setting or theme. Unfortunately, I had used my current wip where Adele, the heroine, was faced with a spider in her bath. It read more like a horror story than a romance. Did not get a gold star…
Good tips for the synopsis (short synopsis) were to keep it to the main story and avoid mentioning too many secondary characters. She was constantly commenting on how there was “too much information”.

Dorothy Lumley gave a talk on what a literary agent is looking for. She said the submission letter is important as it is like a first meeting and it is wise to create a good first impression.

Penny Jordan also did a very interesting question and answer session. I’m afraid I didn’t write lots down, but a good tip for prop up a sagging middle was to add a subplot that lasts for only a few chapters, perhaps from chapters three to seven. I also found it hugely encouraging that she always thinks the current book is the worst one she’s ever written. Makes me feel a bit more normal.

After that it was a quick break to get ready for the gala dinner. The dining room might have been cramped, but the atmosphere was great and I had lovely time chatting to people I hadn’t caught up with yet.

RNA conference - part 1

The RNA conference was brilliant. My brain has officially switched off now I’ve come back, though. Which is a real pity, as some of the workshops gave me ideas for improving the blah bits of the wip, but I’m just too tired to look at it.

I’m going to blog in three parts about it otherwise it’s going to be a huge chunk of text. I took my camera, but didn’t manage to take a single photo. Doh!

I arrived on Friday afternoon after catching the train from London. I was in such a tizz in the morning, I managed to get on a train going to Blackfriers instead of Victoria. Thankfully, I was running early and didn’t get held up much. I travelled up with my pal Liz (Hi, Liz!) and we had a great giggle – especially when I accidentally head-butted a man in the bottom.

After the welcome, we had a little session of congratulating those who had had good news during the year – first sales, award wins and the like. I got my NWS award trophy, now with my name on it, so I was really chuffed.

First session was a panel of saga writers answering questions about their writing techniques and research. It was very interesting, even though they are a different kind of book to the ones I write (the thought of writing double, if not triple, the amount of words makes me quiver).

Everyone then sprinted to the bar to sit out in the evening sun and catch up with old pals. The highlight of my evening was when someone thought I was 28. They were a decade out, but I’m not admitting to which way.

Just a little excited...

I'm packing my bags ready to go to the RNA conference in Penrith this weekend. I'm really looking forward to see friends, meet new people and soak up all the knowledge.

If you're going, say "Hi" to me. If you're not, I'll post when I get back.

Black Hole Still Gaping

I've deicided to break out of the box and just write the first bit of my book. One of the problems with plotting the start of act two, is that I just don't know how much backstory will have come out and how much my characters will have talked about their issues.

So I just said, "What the heck!", and started writing, and before I knew it I was at the end of chapter one. (Woo Hoo!). Just goes to show that every book needs it's own approach and we shouldn't feel afraid to try something new. Normally I would find it difficult to write without a clear plan, but actually since I have been sitting at my keyboard, I've actually been less worried about my black hole.

Sagging middles

Apparently, mine is not the only middle that is sagging. This is what my plot board looked like yesterday morning...

See? A big gaping black hole at the beginning of Act 2. (Top left is plot point 1, and then they descend in two colomns to the bottom right, where "happy ever after" is wrtitten). I know some writers prefer not to know what's coming up, but I definitely need a basic idea of my plot. I can't seem to start writing knowing that the black hole is there. But I must remind myself that I always get stuck at this point.

A great book to read on three-act structure is Linda Seger's "How to Make A Good Script Great". I know the book is mainly about screenplays, but it is relevent to the novel writer too. I'm a structure-junkie and I liked the idea of having three acts to the story, like a play.

Act one: this is the part where you set up the story and introuduce the characters. At the end of Act one there is a turning point which leads the action on to...

Act two: the story moves off in a new direction. Plot develops, characters deepen. A turning point (more dramatic than the last) leads to...

Act three: the final section of the story with a climax and resolution.

Most stories can be split into three acts, basically meaning that good stories have a beginning, a middle and an end. I found using the three act structure useful when plotting as it stops me meandering all over the place with no clear direction. I don't need to know all the small details of the plot before I start, but it helps if I know the basics - what Linda Seger calls the story "spine".

I see it more as a skeleton myself. The basic structure is there, but it isn't until I write a particular scene that I start to flesh that part out, knowing its feeling and texture and how it joins to other parts of the story.

The best advice I heard regarding plotting was at a workshop at the RNA conference last year for members of the New Writers' Scheme: plot is not just a series of events, there should be a chain of cause and effect. So, I could think to myself, "What could go wrong on Adele and Nick's journey?"and come up with various ideas: running out of petrol, taking a wrong turning, having an accident. But if I throw all of these ideas in, it will just feel disjointed and episodic.

There should be a reason why certain things happen e.g. they take a wrong turn because they are arguing about Adele's driving and she's not paying attention. Then they run out of petrol because they've ended up miles down a country road with no petrol stations in sight. "Because" is an important word in plotting. Now, I may or may not use these ideas, but it makes a lot more sense than just flinging every idea into the pot.

So, I'm off back to my plot board to see where the actions and reactions of the characters are going to take me...

The first words are the hardest...

Right. I’m going to start my new book today. Honest.

It would be so much easier if I hadn’t taken a break to decorate my house, do copy edits and generally let life get in the way. I’ve lost the flow of the story.

I can’t seem to write unless I feel the story is ‘bubbling’. By that, I mean the point when my head is crammed full of ideas, I can see the scene in my head and I just feel itchy until I sit down and get it out of me. Of course, I can write when the bubbles aren’t there, it’s just that it tends to be awful.

I think the problem is that my plot is still a little sketchy. I went back to my plot board this morning and pinned some bits on it. It’s a bit empty. As I look at it, I know what is happening in the beginning and I’ve got a vague idea of how the story resolves itself, but it’s the middle section that is blank.

The problem is, this is a story about a couple reuniting and, although they are stuck in a car together, their journey is really an emotional one. So, before I can plot it, I am going to have to make sure my character arcs are solid.

More about character arcs when I have made myself take a look at them.

I love my bookcase

Okay, something daft made me ridiculously happy yesterday.

I had to demolish some lovely stone cladding in my living room (my house had been done up in the 70's in the "fake country cottage" style). So, fo quite a while I had to live in what looked like a building site. All moveable furniture left the room - including my big bookcase.

I love that bookcase. Mostly because my father-in-law made it for us not long after we were married, and since he died only a few years later, it feels good to have something that reminds us of him as a very central thing in our lives.

But yesterday, it was just the sheer joy of seeing the bookcase full of books and sitting in my living room that made me smile. I hadn't realised how much I had missed it until it was back. There is something strangely comforting about seeing row upon row of books all waiting eagerly to be read (or re-read, most likely). I keep looking at it and feeling all warm inside.

Barking mad

I must be stark, raving bonkers. I was varnishing my living room floor at midnight last night.

Would my real life stop interrupting my writing life, please?

My house is in turmoil. We have painted our open-plan living room and now we are sanding the floorboards. There is dust everywhere. Everything we can move out of the room is now in my bedroom (which looks like an overstuffed storeroom with a bed in the middle). We were eating all our meals in the garden until it started to rain and now we are forced to picnic in our bedrooms -if we can find the floor space.

And just to top it all, the proofs for “Her Parenthood Assignment” have arrived. I have two weeks to get them done and I can’t even find a flat, dust-free surface in my house to put them on. Last night I dreamt that when I looked at them I realised that it wasn’t even the right book staring back at me. In my dream, the word document had corrupted and had somehow morphed into my aborted first attempt at a novel, full of typos and gobbledegook.

I think my brain is trying to tell me I'm a little overstretched.

So many words, so little time...

At the moment I am far too busy to write. In the next week or so, I have both a house to decorate (I’m trying to get a huge chunk done before I really get going with the next book) and a “pirates and princesses” birthday party to plan, cook for and host.

I’m feeling a bit odd, because I’m a writer who isn’t actually doing any writing. Mind you, I’m having lunch with my editor next week, and since we will be discussing the synopsis I sent her, I'm sure I will have plenty to run with once the pirates and princesses have sailed away home to their mums.

Romance and paintbrushes

Just when I’m getting cheesed off with my husband for not doing the washing up, he goes and does something romantic that makes it impossible to be cross with him. Hmph!

He comes home from work with a big bunch of roses and a bottle of pink bubbly in honour of the fact it was nineteen years since our first date. I had completely forgotten. And since hubby normally gets the date wrong, I was also very surprised.

Unfortunately, I had an evening of decorating ahead of me. But I’ll tell you this: painting a door with a brush in one hand and a glass of sparkly stuff in the other is definitely the way to go.

Still floating

Apart from the fact my little toe looks like a plump purple grape, I am still on cloud nine. Jenny Haddon (RNA Chairman) kindly posted the judges comments for all the shortlisted books on ROMNA (the cyber chapter of the RNA). So here's the verdict on "Blind-Date Marriage", as it has been re-titled:

This very contemporary short novel is funny and charming and has real heart. The hero is an original, with his two distinct personae. You're on his side right from the cracking first page. Among our pleasures were a delightfully brisk heroine, whizzy plot, her ageing rocker dad and the way the hero handles a truculent kid. We believed totally in the world and the characters, including a scuzzbag would-be blackmailer. And there were some fabulous one liners that turned us green with envy.

...And the winner - for its freshness, vitality and sheer page turnability- isTHE BLIND DATE BRIDE by Fiona Harper

Now, I should be thinking about quoting bits of this in promotional material and such like, but all I do when I read it is go warm and squishy inside at the thought the judges actually liked my writing.

I've actually been quite terrified at the thought of my book coming out. The down-side of an overactive imagination is that it's very easy to imagine the worst as well as the best. (Think nightmares of angry people with pitchforks at my door shouting "fraud!" shortly after the publication date). But getting this award has boosted my confidence no end. More than the flowers, the trophy, and the cheque (wonderful though they are), it is the judges comments that have me on a high.

The unexpected actually happened!

Erm, remember I said I wouldn’t be needing a speech? Wrong!

Much to my surprise, I was presented with the Joan Hessayon New Writers’ Award at the RNA Summer Party last night. You could have knocked me down with a feather, as my mum likes to say. I had looked on the list of previous winners on the RNA website and discovered the last time a Mills & Boon had won was 1992, so I had assumed that the award would go to a mainstream book.

I must say, I can hardly believe it’s real. Certainly, most of last night felt like a dream (the champagne probably helped in that respect). I attended the RNA AGM beforehand, then carried on to the party where I met up with some of the lovely ladies from The Mouse & Pen on eHarlequin.com. It was so good to see some of the people I chat to online in the flesh.

I was busy chatting to my editor at Mills & Boon, Kim Young, when the champagne was passed round and the herd of butterflies in my stomach decided to stampede. Most of the authors on the shortlist had made it to the party (6 out of 8) and we were called to the front and given lovely bouquets. Then Jenny Haddon, the RNA Chairman, gave a quick run down on each of the books. I couldn’t tell at all from her comments which book was going to get the award. I was just rather pleased she’d liked mine.

As I said, I hadn’t built myself up to expect anything yesterday evening, I thought my chances were slim, but as I was standing there waiting for Jenny to announce the name of the book that had won, I decided I really wanted my name to be read out. And then she was saying that the book they had chosen was “fresh”, and just as I was thinking that what she was saying sounded a bit like the comments on my book earlier, she announced the title of my book (The Blind-Date Bride, re-titled as Blind-Date Marriage by M&B) and my name.

The rest of the evening was a bit of a blur. After listening to David Hessayon, who generously donated the award, I was suddenly confronted with an empty mic and managed to burble some thanks to the RNA, the New Writers’ Scheme and Mills & Boon. Friends were grinning, Mills & Boon editors were crying and I just had the eerie feeling that I had entered an alternate reality. At some point I managed to edge out onto the balcony and call my husband with the news.

Me and my editor, Kim.

On the down side, when I got home, I kicked a stairgate as I was on my way to bed and now I think I may have broken my toe. But even that hasn’t managed to dull the excitement.

And the Oscar goes to...

I’m up for an award!

On Thursday, at the RNA Summer party, the winner of the Joan Hessayon Award will be announced. If you want to know all about the award, you can visit here, but the short version is that the shortlist is made up of books that have been through the RNA’s New Writers’ Scheme and have subsequently been published.

I sent my manuscript of what is now called “Blind-Date Marriage” to the NWS last year. It was my second attempt at a novel and the first one I felt was truly finished to a standard I was happy with. I needed feedback. Before that the only person to have read my work was my husband (I made him check for plot holes and loose ends).

What’s an imagination for, if not to allow you to accept the Oscar for Best Actress or pirouette across the stage of the Royal Opera House? So, I day-dreamed that I would send it off and everyone would swoon over it and insist on sending it to a publisher right away. In reality (I do live there some of the time – think holiday home, rather than permanent residence), I was just hoping for a not-too-awful critique. You know the kind of thing: blah blah blah…bit of potential…blah blah blah…writing doesn’t stink too badly…

When I got an email from the scheme organiser, Nicola Cornick, to tell me the first reader had really liked it and it had gone for a second read, I was gobsmacked. Over the next few days I was known to yell: “I DON’T STINK!” whenever there was an unfilled silence.

Then things really snowballed out of control. The second reader liked it too. (People who knew what they were talking about said nice things about my writing and gave useful criticism!) So the daydream became reality – the NWS sent the manuscript off to Mills & Boon and not long afterwards I got a call from an editor to say they wanted to buy the book.

I was equally overjoyed and terrified. I am the ultimate planner. I don’t just not leap before I look, I measure the size of the obstacle, arrange medical insurance, spend 6 months training, and then I might, just might, consider letting my feet leave the ground. I had planned on getting published (just as every serious writer does), but I hadn’t expect it to happen so soon. Not that I’m complaining! I just had to do a bit of mental rearranging to get my head round it.

And now I’m trying to arrange my head to accommodate the fact that I’m up for an award. Thankfully, I spend so much of my time in la-la land, I have a useful defence mechanism against stressful situations – I never believe they are actually happening, thus the nerves don’t kick in too badly. (I remember the morning of my wedding day, standing in a large white dress thinking, “It’s not really me getting married today, is it?”).

Now, I’m just thrilled to be on the list. I have a sneaking suspicion it’s one of my daydreams that has somehow leaked into the real world. I haven’t read any of the other books on the shortlist yet, but a couple were on the long list for the Romantic Novel of the Year this year, so I will not be adapting my imaginary Oscar acceptance speech for use on Thursday. I don't think I will be needing it.

But then again, if there’s one thing I’ve learned in the last year, it’s that sometimes the unexpected happens…

Carving characters

Okay, my idea is chosen: an estranged couple forced to share a rather eventful car journey which makes them face up to the problems that tore their marriage apart.

Exactly what is going to happen to them is anyone’s guess. First, I need to get to know my characters, and the best way I know how to do that is a character interview or worksheet. Now, I have a love-hate relationship with character worksheets. I love sparking off new ideas for the story, but answering the questions often makes my brain hurt.

I use the character questionnaire from Kate Walker’s “12 Point Guide to Writing Romance”, with a few changes of my own. It covers all the basic stuff: hair, eyes, age, place of birth, parents etc. Then come the hard questions: what is her most treasured possession? How would an ex-lover describe him? What would she never do for any amount of money? Tough questions! (You’ll have to see Kate’s book for the full list.)

While my brain cells are spinning trying to answer these questions, little flashes of inspiration come – tiny details that flesh the characters out and make them likeable and, hopefully, unique.

So, now I have Adele and Nick. Adele is fiercely independent, and is buttoned-up a little too tight sometimes. But she cares deeply for people and is totally loyal to those she loves. Nick is a charmer, full of imagination. He’s a bit of a daydreamer and finds it hard to take life seriously. And he has dimples. Sigh.

Now, some authors definitely like to have photos of their hero and heroine to look at as they write. (Check out Julie Cohen’s or Ally Blake’s blogs, or Trish Wylie’s hero database, if you haven’t already!) I just can’t seem to work that way. I can see a picture that will fit my characters basic physical type, but it never matches the picture in my head exactly.

For my ‘Luke and Gaby’ book (coming out March 2007, by the way) I had a photo of Rupert Penry-Jones pinned onto my picture board. Luke was a kind of rougher looking version of him when I started the book. But the further into the story I got, the more he stopped looking like Rupert and looked more like – well, Luke. And I haven’t found anyone who looks remotely like Gaby yet!

So now, I’ve got to know them, the ideas for how to start the book are starting to brew and bubble. The first thing Adele has to do is catch a spider…

And now for something completely different...

I’m a huge fan of Strictly Dance Fever. For those of you not in

the UK, this is a show similar to “Dancing with Stars” only there are no professional dancers and no celebrities. It’s just raw talent.

After rounds of auditions (think Pop Idol/American Idol) dancers are put into pairs and ten couples go to live in a mansion for the duration of the show (or until they are booted out). Each week the couples learn one of two dance styles for the Saturday show. The styles are broader than the ballroom dancing version, with many great dances to choose from: the jive, jitterbug, rock and roll, charleston, argentine tango, hustle, lindyhop, salsa, lambada – you name it, they try it.

The rest of the format is fairly familiar. The couples dance; the judges give their verdict (the judges get booed.); the public vote, and someone goes home in tears. £50,000 and a professional dance contract is the prize everyone is hoping for.

It’s totally addictive. This show isn’t a way of raising their profile and getting a couple more TV presenting jobs – it’s their dream, their passion! And as the weeks go on, you start to find out why the contestants want to win this competition so badly, and their stories grip you round the throat and won’t let you go. Love it.

Anyway, this year I am cheering for Darren and Lana! I’ve been rooting for Lana from the get go, because my best friend is Lana’s ballet teacher. I was prepared to cheer Lana and partner on, no matter what, but thankfully, they are a very talented pair and deserve all the jumping up and down on the sofa I do.

So what are you waiting for?

VOTE LANA AND DARREN!
0901 121 2408

Champagne and celebrations

I had a great time yesterday at the RNA’s Romantic Novel of the Year awards lunch at the Savoy. It was great to meet up with people I knew and chat to people I didn’t. And, of course, eat nice food and see the awards presented.

The main award went to Erica James for her book, “Gardens of Delight”. I was keen to see who won the “Romance” award for short romantic fiction. I was seated next to the winner, Jessica Hart (a fellow Tender romance author) for “Contracted: Corporate Wife”. I really enjoyed this book and loved the fact that the heroine, Lou, was 45.

Jessica Hart accepting her award

I also had some good news of my own. Just as well I had a glass of champagne in hand to celebrate with! I sold my monster - the Luke and Gaby book that I’ve blogged about recently. And much to my surprise, apart from dropping the prologue, it’s going through without any revisions. Seems all that ripping apart and putting back together paid off in the end. And my editor is right, I think it is a stronger book for all the changes.

My profile

My "new author" profile is up on eharlequin.com!

Click here to see it it.

The birth of an idea

Many writers have likened writing a book to giving birth. My fellow M&B author, Trish Wylie, said that writing one of her books was like giving birth to a pineapple. Ouch!

My second book (still no title), while I’m not sure has been a pineapple, has been hard work. The dreaded “second book syndrome” hitting, probably. Certainly, in the end stages, I was reminded of how I felt when giving birth, and it led me to musing over the analogy further.

I see the ideas stage as the gestation period. That stage when you’re all full of hope and excitement and isn’t-it-going-to-be-wonderful, forgetting that there is some hard graft (and pain and tears) ahead. Thankfully, the ideas stage doesn’t need to take nine months for me.

I may have a handful of story embryos floating around my head, but that doesn’t mean all of them will actually make it to the fully-fledged story stage. For example, I’m whittling down the shortlist for my next story at the moment. There are three contenders:

1. A story idea I got while watching a documentary more than a year ago about people getting trapped in their cars on the motorway during a snow storm.
2. A spin-off story from my first book featuring the pink-haired best friend, Cassie.
3. Something I thought of last week while at Kew Gardens.

What generally happens is that I have other ideas floating around my head (or scribbled in the margin of my notebook) and these will lock in to the main ideas. Maybe this is the moment of conception – when the idea starts to become something more solid with a real possibility of a future.

For example, I may have an idea I want to write a very independent, feisty heroine, or I may want to do a reunion story where the couple have a shared history. Idea number one is a story line that will work with a couple getting back together. Fancy being trapped in a snow-bound car with your soon-to-be ex-husband. Think of all the conflict! Yum.

So really, I think my ideas are more like snowballs than babies as they grow. They start off with a little “what if” and pick up other little snippets of ideas as they roll down the hill and gather momentum.

My first book, Blind-Date marriage, came together in exactly the same way. I had an idea that I wanted to write a very imaginative, creative hero, who was denying that side of his personality. I also had an idea for a slightly off-beat heroine, who had an unconventional life and yearned for the kind of family she sees on TV commercials. These two people were such opposites, it seemed fitting to make them fall in love with each other and watch them struggle with how to be together.

So all this was floating around in my head when, one day, I was driving in the rain, and I went through what looked like a shallow puddle, but as the car wheel hit it, it sprayed water up in the air and soaked someone walking along the pavement. I felt awful! But that anonymous person had suffered for the sake of my art (Fiona, get over yourself!). What a great way for a hero and heroine to meet. Where would they be going? How would this affect their evening? It was at this point I knew the story had legs and I should write it.

As for the next part of the process, I’ll blog about that another time…

Conquering the beast

Finally! I’ve finished the first draft of the work in progress. I think I’ve been suffering from the dreaded “second-book syndrome”. Writing it has felt a bit like scaling a mountain with only my fingernails in the way of climbing tackle. It has come in way over the word limit – 61500!

(I definitely have a “roll” when I’m close to the end of the book. I wrote almost 14000 words in the last three days. Wish I could do that the rest of the time!)

Now I’ve just got the hack the beast into shape. I find one way to get rid of any extraneous waffle is to think about the focus of each scene. What am I trying to develop? Plot? Character? Theme? Probably a combination of all of these, but one element may stand out.

So, as I edit, I think about the scene and what my characters are thinking, feeling and doing. Are there any lines in there that don’t really add anything? Can I condense two paragraphs of internal monologue into a couple of pithy sentences? (Usually!)

I often give my scenes little headings or titles. I started doing this when I was counting up words to find out where the chapter breaks should be. I would completely forget what scene 23 was, but could remember it was “the party”. So now I use my little headings to help me keep focused on the purpose of the scene.

For example, the current wip has various types of headings:

“Everything’s Fine”
This is a scene where the heroine is pretending everything is peachy while the hero knows she’s putting on a brave face, and shutting him out at the same time. So this title reminds me of the heroine’s state of mind. So the focus of this scene is character.

“First Kiss”
Does what it says on the tin. A plot development more than anything else.

“Pointy shoes and diamond rings”
Sometimes I use an image from the scene. The images are usually there in the first place to emphasise character development or theme and these type of heading just seem to give me a feel for what I want to bring out.

“Sad lemonade” or “Toast and Y chromosomes”
Sometimes I just come up with something silly that sums up the scene to me. I’ll leave it to you to come up with a scenario for these two!

Editing and plasters

I've decided that cutting things out of a work in progress (wip) is a bit like removing a plaster - terrifying before, painful during, but rather satisfying when it's all over.

I've been hum-ing and hah-ing over the last fortnight about how to change a major plot element in my latest story. My poor plot board looked bald. A third of my main plot points disappeared, my black moment fell down a black hole and all the little bitty cards got binned or shuffled.

I decided to replace the missing plot line with an idea that my heroine had known the hero breifly before the story starts, but he doesn't recognise her. It was a bit similar to the early story and I think I needed it as a security blanket. So I wrote a flashback for chapter 3 and started editing the rest of the seven and a half chapters I'd already done.

And then I got to chapter six, and I kept thinking, "I've got too much back story", but I didn't want to lose my flashback - it sets things up really nicely for a future scene which I knew would have a big emotional pay off. I knew in my heart of hearts I didn't really need the "shared history" element and, although I really liked my flashback to when the heroine was sixteen, I got up the courage to cut the lot. And then I had to go back through the wip and remove all the bits that referred to the flashback...

But, I feel so much better now! Cutting all the dead wood has left the story lean and faster paced. And I wrote a brand new scene today!

So that is my thought for the day: never be afraid if your delete key. We often know when we should use it, but hesitate. It's just a matter of summoning up the courage and ripping...

Go on, you know you want to.

Valentine's Day

I awoke to my traditional Valentine's Day breakfast this morning. My hubby insists on getting croissants and strawberries every year. Yum.

And I got 'Pride and Prejudice' on DVD. Also yum.

I live fairly close to Groombridge Place, the location used as the Bennet family home in the film. And, lo and behold, in July 2004 when we were taking the kids on a day out we visited Groombridge where they have The Enchanted Forest in the grounds (Cowboy forts, Indian camps, Goblin villages, birds of prey etc. See the Groombridge site for more). I noticed a film crew at the front of the house, and when I discovered they were filming a new film version of P&P there I got totally over-excited!

I could have stayed all day peering at the goings on. I could see the actors from across the moat (the picture shows roughly where I spied from), but not close enough to tell who was who. It wasn't until I got home I realised I'd watched Kiera Knightly and Donald Sutherland among others.

So now, every time I watch the scene where Jane drives away from Longbourne with all her family waving goodbye to her on the steps, I can think to myself, "I was there! I watched them do that!". I'm so chuffed.