So that was Saturday . . .

Well, I’m not sure where yesterday went. I blinked and here I am on Sunday morning. I know what I did – washing, shopping (we needed a little food!). There was the unexpected request for an article for the Romance Writers of Australia Newsletter. I’m counted as an ‘Honorary Aussie’ since I shared a wonderful Conference with RWA two years ago and the Editor of the Diamonds and Pearls column had spotted some comments I’d made on the ‘rules’ (or, rather, lack of them) of romance writing and wondered if I would enlarge on that for their regular newsletter. As I have a book out in Australia in May, and the topic is something I really feel strongly about, I agreed and as it was on very short deadline, got the article out of the way at once. When the article is actually published, I hope to be able to post it here too in the future.

I shoudl mention that the editor of the D&P column, Bronwyn Jameson, as well as being a friend is also a very fine writer herself and has not one but three books nominated for the Romance Writers of America RITA Award this year. Many many congratulations Bron!

Next there was a l-o-n-g talk with Michelle Reid bringing her up to date on my trip to London and discussions with my editor. And then I turned into a tee shirt making factory.


Hmm- perhaps that needs a little explanation. . . . . The BM is working on a drama event as one of his Writer in Residence projects and there will be a performance for this on Wednesday. The tee shirts were needed for that – for the cast to wear. There is a very limited budget for this and with 7 men to find tee shirts for, and put the appropriate slogan on the front, it meant it had to be a home-made job. So with the help of a pack of tee shirt transfer paper, my computer and seven ‘value’ tee shirts from a local supermarket, we ended up with the necessary tee shirts for just under £20. The fun bit was remembering that we needed to get the lettering back to front so that it would appear the right way round on the actual shirts – but we succeeded and with the BM doing the ‘90 seconds at highest heat and firm pressure’ ironing part of the job while I cut, arranged, and finally removed the backing paper from each slogan, we’ve got the thing done. I just hope that the performance goes well too. A young drama student has put her heart into this and she deserves to succeed.

Oh, and there was the packing up of the prizes for my blog contest winner – Diane and MSCreativity , your books will be on their way to you asap. Interestingly, Diane wanted the oldest book I had a copy of (The Hostage Bride) and MsCreativity wanted my newest (apart from the current book now in the shops) . So she’s getting The Antonakos Marriage.

So that stopped me catching up on a report of the RNA Awards lunch. So I should think about saying something about that. But right now I’m heading for a day out with the BM, the Offspring and his lovely girlfriend

So, hopefully, more later

PS - And talking about the current book - you may remember that I am collecting up a tally of the number of tears this book has caused - well, not the actual number of tears, but the number of readers I have reduced to tears. I learned on Friday that it had made my editor sniffle as she read it in the office - so that tears count for The Italian's Forced Bride is now Readers 13 Editors 1 - and I believe Kate Hardy has read it - so - Kate. . . ?