Silent Night

...and a silent Christmas for me. I've lost my voice. My husband didn't have to look quite so pleased, did he?

At least he did until I whispered to him that he would have to do all the chatting tomorrow when the family (mine) arrive. But then, since they are related to me, it is highly possible he may not be able to get a word in edgewise. I'm the quiet one in the family.

Anyway, Merry Christmas and I'll be back posting again after the festivities.

Christmas Madness

Yes, the season of complete craziness is upon us. So busy. Kids are overexcited. Husband is doing late shifts, so I've hardly seen him.

The other night my evening meal consisted of Sauvingnon Blanc and large amounts of Bombay Mix. Says it all, really.

Settings: the final showdown

Last in my list of settings for Blind-Date Marriage is the theatre mentioned in the final chapters. I used a real theatre that I have performed in myself (that sounds very grand, but it year upon year of dancing competitions when I was a school girl). Back then it was called Lewisham Theatre, but now it's called The Broadway Theatre.

It's a lovely art deco building that looks a little lived in and I thought it was just the right location for the charity show - a not too-posh-local theatre that hosts shows by local dance schools, pantomimes and acts that were big names a couple of decade ago. I can't seem to post any pictures, but follow the link and you'll get an idea.

Uh-oh

Uh-oh. I’ve been tagged by Donna.

No, no - you don’t need the darkened room and the bare light bulb swinging menacingly from the ceiling. Call off the rottweilers and I’ll answer the questions, I promise!

Four jobs I’ve had:
Dance teacher
Barmaid
Video editor
Church administrator

Four places I’ve lived:
London
London
London
London
Even when I was at college, it was on the other side of London.

Favourite foods:
Salmon – any way, any how.
Lamb (especially curry)
Roast beef
Avocados

Four movies I could watch over and over:
Serendipity
The Mummy
The Breakfast Club
Strictly Ballroom

Four TV shows I enjoy:
Grey’s Anatomy
Gilmore Girls
Strictly Come Dancing/Strictly Dance Fever - although I am in a huge strop since Emma Bunton got kicked off last night. She was clearly the best dancer in the competition.
CSI

Four places I’ve travelled:
Russia
Italy
Germany
France

Four places I’d like to visit:
The Great Pyramid
New York
Australia
Capri

Four websites I visit daily:
eHarlequin
Various blogs
Yahoo groups (to read my email loops)
At the moment, Amazon, to see how BDM is doing – even though I know amazon sales rankings are not that accurate and can be manipulated. Can’t seem to stop myself.

Four people tagged:
Ally Blake
Liz Fenwick
Jessica Raymond
Kate Hardy

Settings: a wonderful date come crashing to the ground.

Jake and Serena spend an idyllic date wining and dining and end up with a trip on the London Eye, (If you follow that link, have a look at the virtual tour) a kind of huge ferris wheel on the banks of the Thames. At the top it's 135m tall and it feels as if you are floating high above the London skyline. None of the surrounding buildings even come close in terms of height.

I thought I was being sooooo original when I used it, but since then I’ve seen it popping up in romances all over the place.

I’ve been on the eye twice and I loved every second. A glass pod carries you up into the sky on the banks of the river. Just opposite are the houses of Parliament and you can clearly see Buckingham Palace and St.Paul’s Cathedral. It might not look very high when you are down on the ground, but considering the tower of Big Ben starts to look titchy and seagulls flying down by the river are only tiny specks of white, looks can be deceiving.

I decided a private pod, a trip at night with the lights of the city sparking like diamonds, would be the perfect setting for a romantic encounter. What could go wrong?

Settings: First Kiss

Next on my list of settings in Blind-Date Marriage is Greenwich Park. My grandmother—Nan, as she liked to be called—looked after me and my sister a lot when we were little and we used to jump on one of those lovely old red double-decker buses and find fun things to do all over south London.


Greenwich Park was a favourite, mostly because it has fantastic grassy hills which are great for rolling down. From where I live you have to cross Blackheath to get to the park which looks like this. I always find it odd to be driving through residential areas and shops one minute and suddenly it all melts away and all you can see is flat, green grass. But the Thames is not far away and the high ground of the heath dips sharply to meet the river not long after you enter Greenwich Park.

There is a fantastic view of the city from the top of the hills. I love the fact I can be sitting in a grassy meadow, the wind blowing the leaves on the branches above my head, and over the other side of the river there is a completely different landscape: glass and stone and steel.

This is where Jake and Serena have their picnic, a little spot called “One Tree Hill”, although it must have been named that a long time ago, because there are plenty of them there now! You can actually see a high-rise council estate from this point, but Ellwood Green (so named because my husband was watching the Blues Brothers when I was wondering what to call it) is a completely fictitious place, although based and bits and pieces of real locations.

Right in the centre of the park on the top of the hill is The Royal Observatory, and a little path below it is where Jake and Serena share their first kiss. Here is the ‘kissing gate’ that Jake gets deliberately stuck in so he can spend more time squashed up against Serena.

And here is the little brass strip in the path that marks the point where the Greenwich meridian – zero degrees longitude – passes through London. I can’t remember a trip to the park where I haven’t stood with one foot on either side of the line, half of me in one hemisphere, half of me in another.

Cataromance review

I was all set to blog about Greenwich Park, but I'm going to have to interrupt myself to post about the review for Blind-Date Marriage on Cataromance. I got five stars!

Here's a snippet:

Blind Date Marriage is simply divine! Warm, witty and engrossing, I devoured this book in one sitting! Fiona Harper has got this wonderful ability to make you fall in love with her gorgeous characters and you will be rooting for them and cheering them on till the very end.

Fiona Harper has written an absolutely fantastic debut novel! Vibrant, moving and emotional, Blind Date Marriage has established Fiona Harper as an amazingly talented writer who is set to be one of the biggest names in romantic fiction!

For the full review go here.

Scene and setting

I’ve blogged about Jake and Serena and how they met. Over the next few days I'm going to post about the places in my Blind-Date Marriage. I always love seeing authors’ inspiration for settings and finding out if they match the pictures in my imagination.

Here’s a pic of Jake’s flat. I love these tall, red-brick Victorian apartments. Of course, I'd need to sell a kidney and probably a couple of limbs to afford one in London...

And this is the sort of house I envisiged Serena and her father living in - although in my imagination, the stairs were on the other side and there was an ivy-covered path leading round to the back door.

Dreaming up locations for books is great, because there are no mortgages and the only limit is my imagination. I happily trawl through property web sites looking for inspiration - even if I have to remind myself I house-hunting for my characters, not for myself.

I'm everywhere today!

If you want to know a bit about my rollercoaster journey to publication, visit the fabulous Pink Heart Society today where I am featured on Writers' Wednesday.

Also, I've discovered that Blind-Date Marriage is being featured on the read with the hostie section of eHarlequin's message boards this week. If you've read it and want to natter, pop in and say what you think.

Now what?

So, I have a hero and a heroine. Now what? They had to have a reason to meet, a reason for their very different worlds to collide. And sometimes the oddest things provide inspiration.

When my editor asked if I wanted a dedication in Blind-Date Marriage I didn’t have to think too long. When I emailed it to her she responded by saying it was “strange, but nice”. It reads:

For the unknown man I soaked while driving through a puddle.

One rainy October morning I was driving along a road I know, but don’t use very often. Since the rain was heavy, puddles were collecting near the kerb and I drove through one not realising how deep it was. As my tyres hit the puddle a spray of water a good four-feet high flew into the air and soaked a poor man passing by.

I felt awful, but chickened out of stopping to apologise as I was on my own and didn’t want to aggravate an instance of ‘puddle-rage’. At the same time I was scolding myself for my cowardice, my brain was whirring.

What a great way for my hero and heroine to meet, I thought. What if she was brave enough to stop? Where would they both have been going? And before I knew it I had an idea for the opening of my story. The location changed and so did the car, unfortunately, but the basic nugget of the idea was in place.

Heroine inspiration

Serena in Blind-Date Marriage is a bit of a contradiction. This picture from a fashion spread was as close as I could come to pinning her down.

She’s got a slightly unusual, boho style and Jake thinks she looks like a “bean sprouts and tofu kind of girl”. But if he thought that meant she wasn’t looking for a traditional relationship, he was sorely mistaken. Her unusual background has led her to crave the soap-commercial family life more than other girls.

That was my starting idea for Serena – a girl who might look unconventional on the outside, but inside wanted the fairytale so badly she could taste it. Just the right kind of girl to attract a commitment-phobic accountant with a gift for jumping to conclusions.

I like creating heroines who don’t fit the mould, whether that’s because of the way they dress or the way they look or think. Maybe it’s because I used to like being a little different myself.

As a teenager, I didn’t rebel much, only in what I wore by becoming what was labelled a ‘goth’. Most of my gothic friends were intelligent and sensible and it was okay visit art galleries together to look at pre-Raphaelite paintings and show each other our depressing poems. I look back now and wonder how I didn’t realise how pretentious we were sometimes, but I suppose that is the joy of being young: knowing everything except yourself.

Here’s a picture of me trying to look moody at the tail end of my gothic phase. I do have one where I have a six-inch Mohican and blue lipstick (I was going to a Siouxsie and the Banshees concert, I think), but thankfully, I couldn’t find it.

While I am nothing like Serena – she’s much braver emotionally than I will ever be – her personal style owes a little to my teenage love of dangly jewellery and long, swishy skirts.

Dreaming up a hero...

I don’t know about you, but I love finding out the inspiration for other people’s stories – where the characters came from, why they chose a certain setting for a certain scene. I’m completely addicted to director’s commentaries on DVDs. I sometimes enjoy all the talk about which scenes they cut and how they used such-and-such and image more than the film itself.

Anyway, I thought I would blog about some of the inspiration behind Blind-Date Marriage. All of those who hate this kind of thing, prepare to hit the fast-forward button…now!

I’m going to start with my delicious hero, Jake. I’m not one of those people who can pick a picture of someone famous and use them as my hero. Even if I start off with a picture the character in my head starts to differ from them as I get more and more into the book.

The best I can do with is give you a picture of someone who is the closest match I can find. For Jake, it’s James Purefoy, and if you want to see a whole host of droolworthy pictures you’ll have to head on over to the Pink Heart Society and take a look at their most recent Male on Monday.

Jake likes to think he’s a tough businessman in control of his life. I felt so sorry for him when he met Serena and suddenly all his cool seemed to take a hike. But that’s what you get for denying who you really are and ignoring a whole side of your personality. Eventually it’s going to rear up and bite you on the bum.

Jake is much more creative than he gives himself credit for. He has a runaway imagination that quite often gets him into trouble and sometimes stops him seeing what is straight in front of his face.

I don’t exactly know where the idea for Jake came from. I just decided I wanted to write about a hero who had a very creative side that he wanted to hide. The idea drifted round in my head for quite a while until I decided he could team up very nicely with another character I’d been day-dreaming about. I’ll blog more about the heroine who brings him to his knees next time.

Proof!

I snuck back into W H Smith and took a photo of Blind-Date Marriage on the shelf. I asked a member of staff if it would be okay first. She clearly thought I was barking mad. But here's the proof:

Fifty-three

On a scale of one to ten, fifty-three is how excited I am today.

I was walking down my local high street and decided to duck into Smith's to see if my book was on the shelves. The fact I had checked at six o'clock yesterday evening to find last month's books (well, only one) still on the shelves made no difference. So, how shocked was I when I came face to face with a newly stocked display and my book happily sitting there, looking as if it hadn't a qualm in the world about being next to big name authors?

I'll tell you how shocked I was. After staring it for about five minutes and quite literally not being able to tear myself away, I walked straight out of the shop. And then I walked right back in again, because I'd completely forgotten I'd been on my way to buy drawing paper for the girls and inkjet cartridges. (Of course, I had to have another look on the way out of the shop as well.)

I then bumped into my mother-in-law, who I promptly dragged back in to have a look at my book on the shelf. And what do you think? There was a lovely lady filling up her basket with Mills & Boons and mine was in there! I saw someone buying my book! That was the point at which I did a little happy dance right there in front of the display.

Of course, then I had to explain myself and I got chatting to the lady in question.

So, hello to the lovely Dilys. Thanks for buying my book and I hope your dream of one day dancing with Anton Du Beke comes true. You made my day.

Kate's stockings

Now before you all think I've decided to write something a little steamier than a Romance, let me put you straight. Kate Walker is running a Christmas competition on her website and she has two Christmas stockings stuffed full of books to give away.


Blind-Date Marriage is going to be part of the prize bundle along with:

• Christmas Kids and Kisses - 3in1 including Kate's "The Christmas Baby Gift".
• Accepting the Boss's Proposal - by Natasha Oakley. (I've read this and it was fantastic. Jemima was a wonderfully real and sympathetic heroine and Miles was just plain yummy.)
• The Italian Doctor's Bride by Margaret McDonagh. (The Pink Heart Society gave this a fab review).
• White-Hot by Trish Wylie. (This one made me laugh and cry. Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "pants on fire" and no, I'm not going to explain, you'll just have to read it!)
• Chosen as the Frenchman's Bride by Abby Green. (Haven't managed to get my sticky paws on this one yet, but I wanna!)
• The Italian Billionaire's Virgin by Christina Hollis. (Brand new Modern Romance/Presents author).
• A Mistress for the Taking by Annie West. (Sitting on my to-be-read pile this very minute!)

And there may be more to be added.

Rain and rainbows

Yesterday I got wet. Really wet. I had been to the post office to post some books to Kate Walker (more on that later...) and got back to the playground to pick up my kids about twenty minutes early. Stupidly, I decided to wait.

It started to rain, freezing cold spiky drops. By the time my girls came out of school (late, of course, due to chatting with their friends - don't know where they get that from), I was absoluely soaked. The rain had gone through my raincoat and my legs were wet almost up to my knees. My trousers were the sort that stretch when they get damp, so they were trailing in the puddles by the time we left.

But life has a funny way of making up for raining on your parade (or school run, even). As we turned to leave the playground, we saw the most fantastic rainbow I have ever seen. A perfect arch, so bright you could see the colours repeating twice underneath the main bands. Not only that, there was a fainter one above it, making it a double rainbow.

I ran home with my soggy trousers, ditched them at the front door and ran upstairs to take a picture out of my daughter's bedroom window.



There. Isn't that beautiful?

You'll just have to come back tomorrow to see why I was posting things to Kate Walker...

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.