Back to Work

Today is the day I start back to work. The holiday’s over. I’ve been on my treadmill this morning, done my brain training, and now I’m ready. At least I thought I was. I’ve read through my last chapter and I’m raring to go. So why am I finding it so difficult? Why am I procrastinating and writing this blog instead? It’s always the same after a break, it takes me a long time to get back into the flow. Let’s hope it won’t take too long with my deadline zooming ever swiftly towards me.

One other piece of news, I’m having a new website designed and it should be launched by the end of this month. So keep watching this space.

Meanwhile happy reading or writing, whatever you happen to be doing.

Post christmas

Guess what we had for Christmas? Well, I bought it my husband actually. A Wii. And what fun it proved to be over the holiday, keeping everyone entertained and happy so all I had to do was sit back and watch – and provide the food of course. A major feat in itself. I’m used to cooking for two, not eight. All seemed to go well though. No one complained and I had hardly anything left.

We also had (a joint present) a Nintendo DS – for brain training. So what with the physical activity of the Wii and the brain activity with the DS I’m going to be on top form in 2008. Let’s hope I write more books than I did in 07. One was my count. One miserable book. I don’t mean the book was miserable, it was the fact that I only had time to do one because of extensive revisions, and holidays, and life in general that annoys me.

I received proofs of my Australian book two days before Christmas (nice!) But I’ve already read and dispatched those back. And so my New Year’s resolution is to try and write more.

And to everyone I’d like to wish health and happiness for 2008.

Happy Christmas

So much to do, so little time. This will be my last post until after the holidays, so I’d like to wish everyone a peaceful and happy Christmas, and a healthy and prosperous 2008.

Pantomime

We went to a pantomime the other night – Jack and the Beanstalk. But it was a pantomime with a difference. It was a Rock ‘n’ Roll Panto. The band was part of the set and the musicians were also the actors. It was fascinating to watch them moving from playing instruments to playing their characters. I’d gone there with doubts as to whether I would enjoy it because it had veered away from the traditional, but in the end I was won over.

The other piece of good news – I’m half way through my book. So, even with Christmas interrupting my writing, it looks as though I’ll meet my deadline of end January after all. Fingers crossed everyone.

Keyboards

I recently bought a new keyboard because the letters were rubbing off on my last one. They actually started to do it within a few months of buying it but the shop wouldn’t exchange, saying, well, they’re cheap to buy, get another one! Or words to that effect. So I bought a cheap from one from our local supermarket – trying to be thrifty – or maybe mean! The trouble with that one was that I had to hit the keys hard and since I’m a light-fingered typist, I kept missing letters out. So I now have an expensive, stainless steel, super duper, all singing keyboard. But guess what? The keys are so close together that I keep catching the ones above with my nails (and they’re not that long!) Consequently I get all sorts of odd letters appearing in my typescript.

What is it with keyboards? Has anyone else had any experiences like this?

Christmas

Isn’t Christmas creeping up quickly? On reflection how can you creep quickly? But never mind, you know what I mean. Two more weeks and it will be here and I’m nowhere near ready. I’d much rather block it out of my mind and get on with writing Santo’s and Penny’s story – it’s much more interesting than shopping for presents or writing cards.
The fact that I’ve had to start my book again hasn’t put me off in the least. I know my characters so well that it’s almost writing itself. I’m three chapters in to it (14,100 words) – only 36,000 to go! Penny, if you recall, is Santo’s new nanny and already there is a strong physical attraction between them, which they’re both fighting against because of previous disastrous relationships.
When I first started writing in the 1970’s, when books were by no means as sexy as they are today, I used to send a copy of each of my books to an elderly aunt. She used to tell me that she’d enjoyed them very much, but… There was always a but and she’d look at me over the top of her glasses and I’d know exactly what she meant. The love scenes! Actually they were tame compared to today’s books. I think if she was still alive I’d never dare send her a copy now.
But I love the sizzling passion and the sensual tension. And clearly, judging by the number of women who buy them, they love it too.

Partial

About my partial. The explosive beginning has exploded. Vanished into the ether. Gone for ever. As you will no doubt realise I’m having to make some changes. Why is it that whenever I feel really happy with what I’ve written my ed thinks otherwise? The answer is because I’m too close to my work to see its faults. Even though you’d think I’d be able to do that after writing all these years! I don’t understand myself sometimes.

However, I’ve started again today. And guess what? I’m happy with what I’ve written. Don’t laugh. Don’t say, here she goes again. Because when I’ve finished the book I shall go over everything with a fine toothcomb. I might miss a few things but I’ll give it my best shot. It’s promised for the end of January so I need to pull out all the stops.

Will someone cancel Christmas this year?

Christmas Release

I’ve just heard that my 2004 book

HER HUSBAND’S CHRISTMAS BARGAIN
is going on sale in the US this Christmas.

Here’s a taste of the story.

When Italian businessman Luigi Constanzo discovers that Megan, his beautiful estranged wife, is also the mother of his child, he is incensed! She’s left him no alternative: he will do anything in his power to possess his wife and child.

Megan is less than impressed when Luigi turns up on her doorstep – the week before Christmas! Luigi is as arrogant as ever – and still as impossible to resist. But Luigi is adamant…Megan will be a wife to him – in every way – once more!


ALSO in Australia and New Zealand my 2002 Greek book
THE MEDITERRANEAN TYCOON is on sale in their ‘escape to…..’ series. It’s being twinned with the wonderful Sara Craven’s SMOKESCREEN MARRIAGE under the imprint ‘escape to… Greek Affairs’

I love it when I get copies of reprints or foreign editions – the trouble is my bookshelves are groaning under the load – and I refuse to put any of them out of sight!

Do Fish Have Feelings?

When the weather gets cold, when there are frost warnings - as we’ve had recently - we always pop a heater into our fish pool in case it freezes. (It doesn’t stop the whole surface from freezing but it keeps an area around the heater free from ice.) It consists of a round disc that floats and a covered element that hangs below it in the shape of a tube about six to eight inches long. It always amuses my DH and me when we see the fish huddling around it . They look like a group of children around a fire.

I read on Nicola Marsh’s blog recently about the waiting game. It’s a game I’m playing at the moment while waiting to hear from my editor about my partial. Penny found herself sharing Santo’s bed and is already regretting it and since they’re about to go on holiday to Santo’s home country of Italy, taking his five year old daughter with them, I wonder whether she’ll be able to resist him again? Or will the magic of Italy weave its spell?

While I’m waiting to hear from my ed I plan to do some Christmas shopping. I realised how quickly the festive season is coming when we visited Toys ‘R’ Us yesterday – with grandson in tow – and saw people with shopping trolleys piled high with toys. For their own kids? If so they’re very lucky. Or for friends and relatives offsprings? Who knows, but the shop was certainly doing a roaring trade.

Exercise

Sunday is not a writing day for me, but as I was on my treadmill this morning (Yes, I do try to exercise. Sitting on my bum all day isn’t good for the joints!) thinking about a part of my book that I’m not happy with, I came up with a solution and jumped off to write it down. Three times I did this. And the thought occurred to me that I could do with a tape recorder or something similar, to record my thoughts when I’m pounding the treadmill. Perhaps I ought to put in on my Christmas wish list?

Actually the treadmill’s a bit of a contentious issue between me and my husband. He bought it me because he said I never got any exercise. I had used to go for walks but somehow it dropped off. Perhaps because it’s no fun on my own. So when it was new I duly used it every day. You should have seen me the first time. I thought I was going to fall off. And I still can’t do it without hanging on like grim death. My sense of balance is atrocious. Always has been. Even as a child I could never roller skate.

But the thing is I don’t do it every day now. If I’m not writing I insist that I’m getting exercise by doing whatever else I’m doing, housework, gardening, shopping, ironing. Surely they’re all forms of exercise? Come on, girls, stick up for me!

Hero

This is Santo. My gorgeous hero. He's not always smiling. I have an amazing cutting from a newspaper where he's looking straight at the camera and looks most stern and forbidding. Exactly the look I want for my hero. I've discovered thousands of photos of this man (no prizes for guessing who he is) with a whole range of different expressions. (Actually, if you live the other side of the world you may not know him. So I'll tell you. It's Jose Mourinho. Ex England football manager. A controversial character by all accounts. Not that I follow football.)

So what can I tell you about Santo? He's a workaholic naturally. Runs a global advertising agency. Although he's Italian he lives in England. He likes fast cars and race horses. He's divorced with a five year old daughter. And if I tell you any more I'll give the story away.

Oh, yes, he's never short of a girlfriend. He enjoys playing the field, no strings attached. Until he meets Penny! And in Penny he's certainly met his match.

Heroine

My new book is well under way so I thought I’d post you a picture of my heroine. I love this photo because she has a cheeky look in her eyes.

When I mentioned in a previous post that my protagonists names were Santo and Penny – they were just that, names. Now they’ve become real people. Penny is feisty, not afraid to speak her mind when she sees injustice done – which we see her doing on the very first page! I told you it was going to be an explosive beginning. She runs an antiques shop but it’s up for sale as it’s not doing very well, so she’s somewhat reluctantly taken up a position of nanny to Santo’s young daughter.

Penny has no current boyfriend – she was let down badly some years ago by a man who she thought loved her as much as she loved him. It turned out that she was one of a long string of conquests. It’s made her very bitter towards men, very wary, determined never to let another one close.

Enter Santo De Luca.

I’ll tell you about him tomorrow.

Eden Project

Before .........and.......... After

While we were away last week we visited the Eden Project in Cornwall. For those of you who don't know what this is, a disused china clay quarry has been converted into the most amazing global gardens. I call them gardens, but it's so much more. Huge biomes have been erected - like giant conservatories. Inside one is a rainforest containing nothing but tropical plants, the other is Mediterranean, and outside are such a variety of plants that it takes your breath away. I could tell you so much about it but it would take far too long. All I can say is that if you ever get the opportunity to go, please do so.

This is how it was summed up in the catalogue:

• Take an exhausted, deep, steep-sided clay pit 60m deep, the area of 35 football pitches, with no soil, 15 metres below the water table.


• Carve the pit into a flat-bottomed bowl and landscape the sides.


• Mix and add 83,000 tonnes of soil made from recycled waste.


• Add superb architecture that draws inspiration from nature to remind us of human potential.


• Colonise with a huge diversity of plants, many that we use every day (but don't often get to see).


• Harvest the water draining into the pit and use it to irrigate our plants (and flush the loos!)


• Season with people from all walks of life.

And by the way, I have the title for my Australian book. THE BILLIONAIRE’S BLACKMAIL BARGAIN. I think I told you that it’s not being published until September next year so it’s a long wait. And yes, Cade did get a bargain. He blackmailed Simone (his ex girlfriend) into becoming his mistress but then fell in love with her all over again. Although it took me longer to write this book than any other I really do miss Simone and Cade, I loved writing their story and I hope that when the book’s out you’ll love reading about them. It’s set in the Whitsundays, so there are long hot days – and even steamier nights!

Anne Weale

I was truly sorry to hear that Anne Weale had died. I have known her for very many years, she was truly a lady, so elegant and gracious - and always controversial. It was why many of HM&B writers admired her so much. She was not afraid to speak her mind and upheld all the old traditions, not always happy with the way things were changing. She will be sorely missed in the writing fraternity.