Coming soon . . .

When it comes to new years, I always think that I actually do better with the Chinese one.

The Western New Year comes too close to Christmas, too close to my son's birthday. It's over-hyped, over-emphasised and the whole things just seems altogether too much.

But the Chinese New Year comes a little later on; when you've had time to take a breather after Christmas. Time to clear up the chaos that December 25th leaves behind - take down and store the decorations, recycle the Christmas cards - er - pay the other sort of Christmas Cards - ie the bills that mount up on the credit cards.

This year the Chinese New Year starts on February 7th and apparently it's the Year of the Rat and the Year of the Rat is said to be " a time of hard work, activity, and renewal. This is a good year to begin a new job, get married, launch a product or make a fresh start. Ventures begun now may not yield fast returns, but opportunities will come for people who are well prepared and resourceful. The best way for you to succeed is to be patient, let things develop slowly, and make the most of every opening you can find. "

All of which fits more with my mood right now than it did on December 31st.

So, as I'm planning and looking at upcoming projects, I thought I'd just give you some advance notice of things that are coming up .

So - for February we have:

The return of the now annual and so 'traditional' joint contest the Anne McAllister, Liz Fielding and I run together. That means that you'll get to see this logo again as it's Here Come The Grooms again - or Here Come the Grooms the reprise. The contest is to celebrate Valentine's Day, and the publication of 3 more of our books - Anne's great One Night Love-Child which I wrote about yesterday, Liz's The Bride's Baby - which is a very important book for Liz (more on that later) and my own Spanish Billionaire, Innocent Wife.

This also means that those darn grooms will probably be back, taking over blogs when they can and generally causing bother. And as the groom in my book is Raul - remember Raul? - this means that you'll get to see a bit more of this guy who helped me with my research - that was a tough job, I remember how hard that research was.

And talking of Valentine's Day reminds me that I'll be helping Aussie author Nicola Marsh celebrate Feb 14th with her special Be My Valentine 14 day promotion - you'll have a chance to meet 14 great romance writers, win daily prizes - and there's a grand prize on 14 books to be won on th 14th itself.

More numbers - of course on the 12th of February I have my 12 Points on the 12th over on the Tote Bags 'n' Blogs site. And this month I have some exciting news about my 12 Point Guide because you see . . . No - I'll just keep that to myself for a little bit longer.

I have a Pink Heart Society post to write - and I get to do that on a really special date. Because 2008 is of course a Leap Year and my next PHS post is scheduled for Leap Year's Day itself - Feb 29th. No one else will be able to write on that date for the next four years.

And next week I'm heading for London for a big event to mark the official start of the celebrations for this very special year for my publisher. Because on February 7th there is a party to mark the start of this wonderful centenary year for Mills & Boon. 100 years of publishing, 100 years of success and 100 years of being a household name - can't be bad. I'll be meeting up with lots of friends, fellow authors and editors for this and I'll bring you a report - and hopefully pics - just as soon as I get back. We'll be celebrating on the actual day of the Chinese New year too which, considering how I started this post, seems appropriate.

Is that it? Oh no - I forgot - I also have a deadline to get my next book in - as well as all this, that new story is supposed to be on my editor's desk by the end of the month . . . no pressure there then!

But at least with this being a leap year, I have one extra day on the 29th to complete it!