I have a nephew!

May I introduce Alex Frederick Morris Littlehales, born 22.02.07 weighing 7Lb 4OZ.
He's cute, he's gorgeous and I'm so darn proud of Paul and Julie for bringing him into the world. Well done guys!

Ten things....

1) I was captain of school.
2) I know how to drive a traction engine and a steam roller.
3) I met my husband whilst covered in coal dust and oil (at least I know he loved me for more than looks.)
4) I never went full term in either of my pregnancies.
5) I am the secretary of the Upper Onny Wildlife group and during the spring and summer I can often be seen out surveying Curlew and Lapwing, both of which will be extinct in my area within 5-10 years.
6) I love birds of prey and dream of the day I have enough time and money to take up falconry again.
7) I love travelling, but at heart I’m a home girl and like nothing better than the view from my front window.
8) Similarly, I adore socialising, but I’d also be more than content marooned in my own cottage in the middle of nowhere. ON MY OWN.
9) I am currently writing a historical romance set in Rome, but I’d love to write a romance during the Reformation.
10) I have so far set all my stories around an actual historical event.

Both the kidlets are off school at the moment with a stinking cold, poor things. Olivia hasn't eaten a thing today and this is the girl who eats three Weetabix for breakfast. I hate seeing them so ill.
At the weekend I went to London with my husband for my Birthday treat and visited the British Museum. Man I love that place. There are not enough hours in the day to see everything but I saw some great Roman jewellery, mosaics, silverware and Samian pottery. I drooled at the Sutton Hoo display and the Viking and Anglo-Saxon weaponry. *Sigh* I will post pictures but I fear the flash reflected off the glass rendering them useless.

No news from M&B, but I'm up to chp 8 on The Charioteer. Yay!I seem to work better if I write a rough draft then leave it and work on something else. That enables me to go back with fresh eyes and see my work as a whole not random scenes. I also realised I need to print my first draft out before I step into the abyss of revision. What about you? Can you write a ms straight through or do you need time apart?

Snow!

We don't normally get snow, and certainly not nine inches! This picture is from our bedroom window shortly after I returned home from driving the school bus. The road is the white bit between the wall and the gate posts. Thankfully everyone got home safely. The mini-bus stayed at the bottom of the drive.

January's over...let February commence!

Life has been hectic of late, but here’s an update:

Olivia has astounded me and started school without a backward glance. After months of fretting and worrying about setting foot in the big bad world of full time learning (not to mention giving her mommy plenty of sleepless nights) it’s now mommy who has to reel her in and remind her to give me a kiss and say bye-bye. Already there are tales of gangs, hairstyles and parties, not to mention the thousand and one after school clubs she just has to attend because so-and-so goes. God help me when she starts secondary school.

This past month my Nan died which has been an immense loss to the whole family. Even though at 93 she had been frail, she still had all her marbles and amazing mobility. I just thank God she died peacefully in her sleep and not hooked up to all the bleeps and whistles in a hospital. God bless and keep her.

On a happier note, the weight loss is going well. Five pounds down and another five to go. With Livy at school my evenings are free and so I have managed two classes of aqua aerobics and one class of yoga a week. Go me!

Three of my friends have been nominated for the prestigious Romance Prize 2007 run by the RNA (they’re the same people who read Kiss and then sent it to M&B with a letter of recommendation and are the U.K equivalent of RWA) so big, huge, enormous congratulations to Nicola Cornick, Nell Dixon and Michelle Styles! I would really hate having to pick any one of the short listed titles, they’re all fantastic reads. It’s interesting to note that three out of the six short listed nominees are historical romances and it’s great to see the genre doing so well. I know a few people in the industry have been murmuring that editors are now actively looking for them, so fingers crossed for anyone out there writing one. This is the time to get submitting!

Work for me has been hard, but you know, you’ve just got to keep chugging along. No news from M&B, but I have e-mailed them just to make sure it’s still under consideration and the ‘R’ hasn’t gotten lost in the post. I’ve finished the second draft of The Barbarian’s Desire and I’m going to let that rest for a little while. There’s a few things that need fixing, the least being a total lack of romantic focus, but at the moment I’m too close to revise it objectively. So, it’s back to The Charioteer and the sand and leather of the Circus Maximus, wish me luck!

Still here..

..and still blowing bubbles in the current ms. At the moment it feels I'm writing a big pile of steaming poo which no editor in their right mind would want to buy. So to cheer myself up I'm posting a picture of what my hero might look like.

Bad blogger

I am alive, just face down in my current ms. No news on the work front, but I keep telling myself that having five agents and one editor looking at it must mean something. *please God*

But It's all about the next manuscript and making it better. Must. Concentrate. On. Next. Book.

Oh, but before I go I must say congratulations to Michelle Willingham for selling two more books to Harlequin Historicals and Nell Dixon for getting her medical romance requested by an agent. Ah, to know such greatness.

Anyway, here's a picture of the Birthday boy on Coniston water. If you think he looks happy here, you should have seen him last night when he discovered he'd got a loose tooth.

First day at school

She went. She saw. She conquered.

A happy New Year.

Christmas is finally winding down and most of us are looking forward to the New Year, more alcohol, food and eventually weight loss. This is a very special time of year for me,It’s my DS birthday on New Year’s Eve and as promised we are off to Keswick to celebrate his 6th birthday and bring in 2007.
Also, my youngest is starting school January 3rd. This is something I am not looking forward to *sniff*. But, there is nothing I can do to stop it as its all part of growing up and I know Olivia will love school (at least until the novelty wears off!). So I am enjoying this holiday and staying away from the W.I.P. Times like this put my priorities in order and makes me sit back and think of all the fantastic things I have achieved this year. Things like passing my PCV licence to drive a mini-bus, completing my first historical romance and then submitting it. In 2006 my aim was to have a full manuscript requested by an editor and luckily this has happened, if I sell ABK or not, I am darn proud of that fact.
What do I want for 2007? I’m not going to say published because ultimately that’s out of my control. What I want is to continue to grow as a writer and strengthen my craft, submitting manuscripts that are strong, with great writing and characters that make you laugh and cry and take you with them on their journey to their own happy ever after. I know the line I’m targeting, I know what that line should deliver to its readers and there is an editor that thinks I have potential.
The rest is desire and determination.
I also hope Edward has a great birthday and Olivia enjoys her first day at school.

Merry Christmas!

I have so much to be thankful for this year, both family and Friends who are very dear to me have achieved their dreams. Nell Dixon has sold more books to more publishers, Anna Lucia has sold her first book. Julie Cohen is about to start on possibly the most exciting and tiring time of her life, Michelle Styles has sold both Viking and Victorian romances to HM&B and finally, my crit partner, Michelle Willingham has sold her first book. Proud. That's what I am and honoured to know so many gracious and talented people.

So, here's hoping everyone has a merry Christmas and an even better 2007!

Four things...

Okay, no one tagged me but I thought I’d give it a go anyway!

Four jobs I’ve had:
1. Veterinary Nurse
2. Sales representative for Pedigree Masterfoods
3. Slimming World consultant
4. Falconer (well, that one wasn’t paid)

Four places I’ve lived:
1. Bridgnorth, Shropshire
2. Rodbaston, Staffordshire
3. Craven Arms, Shropshire
4. Ratlinghope, Shropshire (so, I’ve lived a sheltered life…)

Four favourite foods:
1. Lobster
2. Steak
3. Chocolate
4. Ice Cream, really, really good Ice Cream

Four movies I could watch over and over again:
1. LoTR
2. Last of the Mohicans (Daniel Day Lewis…sigh)
3. The Green Mile
4. Pretty Woman

Four TV shows I enjoy:
1. America’s Next Top Model
2. Rome
3. Any Period Drama
4. The Secret Millionaire

Four places I’ve travelled:
1. Florida
2. Barbados
3. Germany
4. Paris

Four places I’d like to visit:
1. New Zealand (If I could live anywhere in the world it would be here, even though I’ve never been there!)
2. Canada
3. South America
4. Africa (I have a lot of travelling to do!)

Four websites I go to daily:
1. eharlequin.com
2. Romance Writers Unlimited (my crit group)
3. Pink Heart Society
4. Blogs (far too many)

More research....

Sometimes just a picture is enough to transport you back in time. This is true of many of the books published by www.ospreypublishing.com But it’s not simply the evocative illustrations in this series of books that recommended them, it’s the sheer volume of items covered, everything from World War II to the ancient world, combat aircraft to Iron Age ring forts. Concise and detailed, these books definitely have the thumbs up from me.
Currently I have Rome’s Enemies (2) Gallic and British Celts.

Another fantastic resource, if you can find them, are diaries or letters written in that time period. They give you a taste of how people thought of the world around them. Very interesting. Have you found any interesting primary sources?

In other news, my fantastic coffee-mate and friend, Nell www.nelldixon.com has just had HM&B ask for the full of her medical romance, so go and congratulate her. She deserves it. She should have sold to them years ago…but that’s another story. I just need to remind her of a certain promise to query a certain agent…..

R...is for ready or not here's my first research book!

Research is always important, whether you write historical romance or not. The wrong description of a city or road name can pull you out of a story just as quickly as writing a 1st century Roman cavalryman used stirrups. So, you need to be accurate, but shouldn’t obsess over things so much that it overshadows the story you are trying to tell. One valuable piece of information I learnt is that you should never, ever information dump. It kills tension and pace. What you see in your finished draft should just be the tip of the iceberg, enough to give your readers a flavour of the period.

*Allison rubs her hands together* sooooo, research books. One of the first research books for the Roman period I brought was Roman clothing and fashion by A.T Croome.

It’s very easy to read and the illustrations give you a great sense of how the clothes worked and what they did. It also covers the issue of colours used for dying and clothes worn at weddings and funerals. It’s published by http://www.tempus-publishing.com/
The books on the site are expensive but a great investment, I think.

Still no news on the agent or publisher front. I’m gearing up to send out a few more agent queries in January. As I might have said before, on the agent side, I’m not stressing too much. A full manuscript can take ages to be read by those busy agents and I don’t need an agent to submit to Harlequin, indeed I’d already had the full manuscript of A Barbarian’s Kiss requested by HMB before I embarked on the agent hunt. But contracts and clauses send my head into a flat spin and long term, I know I’ll need one.
I want one that’s with me for the long haul, not one book.

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?