Dirty little secrets

Some people love buying shoes, some people love buying knickers (you know who you are), but my guilty secret is buying research books. I have nearly fifty. Fifty people. This addiction is out of control. You might be thinking that writing historical romance calls for research books and it does, but really, if I could buy a book about how people bought knickers in the 1st century AD, I would. So, to help alleviate my guilt I thought I would post a few of the them over the next few weeks and tell you a bit about them (the one thing I hate is perchasing a research book that doesn't cover what I want). You never know, you might find that you have the same dirty secret as me.

Happy days!

Hooray! The first draft of the W.I.P is done. To celebrate here's a picture of my hero Cullen.

I am very excited about this ms and can't wait to get stuck into revisions.

Oh, I've changed the working title to The Barbarian's Desire, What do you think?

I hate exercise.

I went. I actually went to aqua aerobics. Now I hurt. Lots.
Okay, it actually hurt more to drive away from the house knowing I was not writing-that I should be writing than the actual exercise. I know, I'm anal.
But it really helped my muse. I wrote more the following day than I had in weeks. Double yay! I've also allowed myself to write crap and it felt gooood. I'm sure I won't think that when I go through and revise, but hey, people say you can't fix a blank page.

Hmmmm, toys....

Cool, look what i've found. Things to take my mind of writing...

You Communicate With Your Ears

You love conversations, both as a listener and a talker. What people say is important to you, and you're often most affected by words, not actions. You love to hear complements from others. And when you're upset, you often talk to yourself. Music is very important to you. It's difficult to find you without your iPod.

How Do You Communicate?

What no blog?

I’ve been slacking but it’s been for a good reason, which went bad. I won’t bore you with the details but let’s just say that no matter what you do to some manuscripts, certain things are better left dead.

In other news, progress on the W.I.P is slow, but hopefully I’ve finally cracked my hero’s motivation and I have learnt one valuable thing. I need to work from an outline. Simply writing from the seat of my pants just doesn’t work for me, mainly because I seem to get my knickers in a twist over certain things and go off on major tangents. I knew something was not working for me in this ms, I knew it in my gut, but could I put my finger on it? Nope. But thanks to fabulous and incredibly patient crit partner I now have a hero who has the potential of being great. I just hope I can pull this off.

My but is also still expanding. Thanks to the extra work that came in I have failed miserably to do anything that remotely resembles exercise, but honestly, if the choice was between have a large glass of Rioja in front of a roaring fire and going outside where it’s cold and dark to sweat and look hideous in a pair of shorts what would you choose?

Anyway if you want to read something beautiful try here: http://anna-lucia.blogspot.com/
Oh, and give her a few hugs too.

My but is expanding. Well actually it’s my hips. I have one of those freaky bodies where the weight piles on around the middle, so I end up looking like I have no waist and love handles that you could loose a small country in. I feel ugh. The problem is completely my fault, I have not exercised in months and all I want to do is write, write and write. I’ve been stuck in between the ‘dear god, I need to do something before I end up at my post pregnancy weight’ and ‘but what if they request this story!’
I am also terrible at giving me ‘me’ time. Any ‘me’ time over the past five years has been ploughed into writing. But now, it’s my job.
Yes, I know I haven’t sold anything yet, a full manuscript sitting on an editors desk is no guarantee of a sale. But it took desire, determination, dedication and discipline to learn my craft well enough to get that kind of interest from an editor. Writing is my job and I’m planning a long career in creating stories that readers will love.
But I need my health, too. So I’m going to start attending yoga classes (something I have been promising myself for five years) and I’m also going in the gym. To exercise. So wish me luck!

In other news, my W.I.P is steaming along nicely and thanks to my fantastic critique partner I have focused my emotions (this is something I always fall into a great muddy hole over on every manuscript). I know what my H&h are going to do and I’ll soon be at the half-way mark. Yay!

I love the Alpha male

Alpha males, you either love them or hate them. Personally, I adore reading and writing them. I get a kick out of knowing that now matter how strong, how hard he seems he’ll be brought to his knees by the heroine.
Then watch out, because when he finally realizes he’s in love, he loves deeply, passionately and he’ll fight to the death for the woman he loves.
For me, when I’m writing the Alpha male the challenge is trying to create and man who seems impenetrable and even arrogant to the heroine but underneath he’s honorable, heroic and has a vulnerability that makes the reader fall in love with him.

Kate Walker, who is a fabulous mentor to many writers in the R.N.A and a brilliant writer of over 50 M&B Presents novels (this woman has far too much talent), has all this week being doing a Q&A at e-harlequin. If you’re a writer, it’s an invaluable source on how to nail your Alpha male.


http://community.eharlequin.com/webx?50@884.Bigea8xkVp2.107493@.4a83dddb

Changes.

September in England has been unseasonably warm. In fact, it seems our Summer skipped August (which of course it would because the kidlets were on holiday) and went straight into September.
But things are at last slipping into autumn, and that's what I love most about England. Season's change. Right now the leaves are starting to turn, the night air is getting cooler, my cat is getting more friendly (see previous comment). So, here's my top five of things I'm looking forward to this autumn:

1) Misty mornings.
2) Bonfire night (get ready to owww and arrrrr).
3) Mushroom picking.
4) Lighting the wood burner.
4) Remembering that I have a cat.

What about you?

It's the number nine bus....

You don't see a post for ages and then two come along at once. So, that's me (above).

House party!

Welcome!

So, the first time I tried blogging my complete computer ineptness prevented me from signing in and posting (yes, I am that challenged). But, I'm going to give it another try.
Today, I met up for coffee and cake with http://nelldixon.com, Nell is a great friend and I really enjoy meeting up with her (all to infrequently) and talk about, well, just writing. She understands, she sympathizes with the roller coaster that is writing for publication and at the moment we're both hugging the silver bucket, whilst we stalk the post man waiting to hear about our submissions to M&B.

If you're waiting to hear from a publisher, what do you do to ease the frustration of waiting?