Bittersweet

If you've been reading this blog since I moved here from eHarlequin, then in March you will have read about 'my' lions - the lions Raffi and his mate Anthea who were rescued from appalling condtions in a cage on the top of a hotel and released into comfort and dignity in the Born Free sanctuary in Shamwari South Africa.

You can read my blog about them here - where I said that both lions were becoming elderly and unwell and that, sadly, time was not on their side. Readers then asked me to let you kow how these wonderful creatures were doing if I had any news.

Even more sadly, today I had a letter from the Born Free Foundation saying that time had finally run out for both lions. They had become increasingly unwell and attempts at treatment were not succeeding so the decision was made not to let them suffer and so, when they were both asleep in the sun, and together as they had always been in life, they were given the help they needed to ease their way into a permanent sleep.

I can only be grateful for the fact that they lived their last years in the natural habitat of the wild life sanctuary and not in the miserable little cage in Tenerife from which they were rescued by Born Free in 1995. And that, for a pair that had formed such deep bond, that neither one had to live on without the other.

So that;s the bitter part. But here is the happier part of this message - my 'adoption' of Raffi and Anthea has been transferred to the latest rescue lion for Born Free - so here she is - my new lionness -

ACHEE (pronounced Ah-kee)

Achee wasrescued from a small compound in Romania where she had lived surrounded by concrete and having to cope with freezing winters. Her early diet was deficient in imprtant minerals as a result, she hadn't grown properly, her health was damaged and she will probably suffer from arthritis later in life. These problems made it even more important that she was rescued from the long, cold winters in Romania and kept in more natural surroundings.

Thankfully, in September 2004 Achee was transported to her new life in Shamwari where she will receive the care, freedom and warmth she needs for the rest of her life.

And yes, if you're wondering, I do still have my wonderful adopted tiger - Roque

If you want to know more about the wonderful work the Born Free Foundation does in rescuing animals then you can find out about it here. And maybe adopt your own big cat, or a wolf, or even an elephant.

And while you're there, please, please, vote in the poll against the use of wild animals in circuses in the UK - it's not just in Romania and Tenerife where the conditions are wrong for these wonderful creatures.

In memory of Raffi and Anthea

Celebrating Writing Friends 3 - Kate Hardy

Hmmm - I have the feeling that this post should really be entitled 'Celebrating Writing Fiends'

Okay, so it’s true confessions time. Kate Hardy scares me.
No, I’ll go further than that – she terrifies me.

Not in person. No, in person she is a wonderful warm, caring and generous friend. In person she is a generous and welcoming hostess, a great cook and full of fascinating conversation about her many interests. She’s also happily married, a great Mum to two great children – a boy and a girl – heavily involved with the parents’ side of her children’s schools, a dog-lover, local historian . . . oh, and she plays guitar as well and is taking regular lessons in that.

Now do you see where I’m going? It’s all that activity – all that multi-faceted activity – multi-multi-faceted . . . She’s so busy, so active, so efficient. She accomplishes so much. It’s amazing – and scary – and it exhausts me just to read about it.

Here’s Kate in a fairly typical blog entry –

My ed was delighted to get the MS yesterday (before deadline, note) and we had a
lovely email conversation about future books and the about-to-be-produced
contract. I was shocked to discover how few books I have out next year (five or
six, at this rate). Clearly I’ve been slacking *g*.

Slacking??! Five or six books? I have to go and lie down at just the thought. I feel I’m doing well when I manage my contracted three books, some teaching/critiquing, the conference(s) and maybe an extra like running the Writing Round Robin on eHarlequin – and getting a little bit of a life for myself. The other Kate is a phenomenon. A human dynamo and – notice something missing in that list above? I barely mentioned that she writes as well. Oh yes, she writes . . .and writes . . and writes . . .

When I first met Kate she was a newcomer to M&B and she wrote Medicals. She still does. (Kate has posted about our meeting here if you want to read about it). Now Medicals need research - they’re not just about writers playing doctors and nurses. The medical details have to be accurate, the diagnosis and treatments correct. Kate does that research. She also puts in the emotional intensity that makes her readers – and her editors – cry. Her 2005 Medical Where the Heart Is was short listed for the TNA Romance Award this year.

She also writes very sensually – and that perhaps is one of the reasons why she now has a second romance string to her bow – that of writing for the newest M&B line Modern Extra. Modern extras are not the same as Medicals – they need a very different approach, another ‘voice’, a different sort of hero - and Kate’s achieved that – and how - with her titles in this line. She started with The Cinderella Project which Kate describes like this –

What happens when two workaholics discover there's more to life, but try to
resist it and stay in their safe workaholic cocoons?

The Cinderella Project is the book that’s in the Bag of Books prize list – but since then Kate’s written 2 more – coming in July is my book (the one Kate has dedicated to me) Strictly Legal - and then in October there’s Seeing Stars. (This is along with new Medicals in August and November . . .) And I haven’t touched on Kate the Historian – or perhaps that should be Pamela the historian. Because titles like Norwich, Stories of a City and the best selling and fascinating Norwich Street By Street are written under the name of Pamela Brooks. When this Kate/Pamela and the BM get together it’s like watching a word-factory go into overdrive. They talk local history, true crime, history, history and more history until the air is thick with it. And then they discuss and swap publishers for books they’ve yet to write, books they’d like to propose . . .. In September I hope to introduce Kate H to Anne McAllister. Ardent and dedicated historian and researcher meets equally ardent and dedicated genealogist and researcher . . . I won’t even try to get a word in – just sit back and listen!

And did I mention some how to books on writing Advertising copy and newsletters . . .and the upcoming How To Research Local History – exploring archives , done for fun . . .

No, I think I’ve given you a flavour of the human dynamo that is Kate Hardy. Officially, I’m a founder member of the Slowing Down Police – those of us poor, merely human types who stand in awe watching the whirling dervish that is Kate and occasionally put in a plea for a little pacing of things - if only so that we can draw breath while reading her blog.(Waves to fellow S D P officer Diane if she’s reading this) But that’s Kate. And I wouldn’t have her any other way. I doubt if I could catch up with her for long enough to try to change her anyway.

Kate – once again thank you for the lovely dedication in Strictly Legal, and for your friendship. Love from T'Other Kate. Oh, and Mr Tickle and Freeze sends his love too.

Phew! Now I’m going to have to go away and have a stiff coffee to recover from just thinking about all Kate does before I get back to Sicilian wrestling for today.

Celebrating With Writing Friends

Note the change in the title - this one is Celebrating With Writing Friends.

Some of you have already guessed the extra special good news that made me cry last week - but I was sworn to secrecy. But now, seeing as Julie has made it public herself, I can smile openly and celebrate publicly too.

So why not go along to Julie Cohen's blog and read the wonderful news for yourself

And if you need a hint - the books due to be published are not the only creations Julie can look forward to later this year. . .

CONGRATULATIONS Julie, sweetheart! And congratulations to Dave too. Keep well and take care of yourself and the latest and most special WIP!

More on covers

I interrupt this celebration of my writing friends to bring you a small celebration of my own.

This afternoon, the postman appeared with a parcel. Inside were some books – hard back editions of The Italian’s Forced Bride and hardback (library) editions of my next title – At The Sheikh’s Command. The hardback design has changed slightly. It used to be dark, vivid pink with the artwork set squarely in the middle of a frame of pink. Now they are still pink, unfortunately (it’s not a colour I like at all) but on the front, the pink is confined to a flash at the bottom right hand side of the cover - in the same place that the blue flash and the words Modern Romance appears on the paperback edition. But on the hardback, the words say Mills & Boon and there is a pink rose.

I tried to scan the hardback cover in order to post it here, but it didn’t work very well. But luckily my kind editor has sent me a scan of the paperback copy so I can put that up instead. I thiink the colours of the artwork work better with the blue on the paperback edition anyway.


It’s a great cover. The colours are rich, warm and very sensual (like my hero, Malik) and it represents the book very well indeed. And yes, for those who mentioned that they dislike it when the covers don’t reflect the real colouring of the hero and heroine, this heroine – Abbie – is a blonde so that’s just right too.

I’m very happy with this. I think it’s the sort of cover that will make readers want to pick the book up from the shelves and - hopefully – take it home with them.

What do you think?

Celebrating Writing Friends 2 - Julie Cohen

I’m working through these Celebrations in alphabetical order – that must be the former librarian coming out in me. The other thing that I noted as I started to write this post this morning is that yesterday I wrote 1000 words about Anne – 1000 words! That could have been part of a book. It would at least, I think, have got my current hero, Vito, aka Sicilian 2 into bed with his heroine. So he’s not best pleased that I spent more time with Anne yesterday than I did with him. To soothe his outraged pride (he is Sicilian after all) I’ve spent some time with him before I started blogging today.

1000 words? Well no – not yet. But 500 words before breakfast is a start
And is he in bed with his lady yet? No – but I’m using that as an inducement to co-operation for the rest of the writing day.


So that I can talk about Julie Cohen.

Without the internet, I would never have met Julie Cohen. I would probably never even have known she existed. In our other lives – with me living in Lincolnshire and being a generation or so older – and her being an immigrant from America, living in the south of England and teaching there, our paths were unlikely to cross. The BM, in lecturer mode might have connected with her – though Julie teaches in a secondary school and his work is at university level. So we could have lived in the same country, as we did for years, and never have connected, if it hadn’t been for the eHarlequin message boards. Way back when, in 2001 – I remember because I had a book called Rafael’s Love-Child out in America – I ventured on to the message boards on eHarlequin.com, and my life hasn’t been the same since. When I first joined, the boards were small, intimate – sometimes very crazy – The Teahouse of the Writer’s Moon was a ‘meeting place’ for many would-be writers and the Gonnabeez writing group was formed, later giving me the honour of being their ‘Queen Bee’. As a writer in the UK, I soon discovered that several other posters on the boards also live in England – notably two people called AnnaofCumberland and one Julie Cohen who later became known as Feckless because of her determination to get the phrase Feckless Ne’er do well into her current book. As fellow Brits (well – Brits and an adopted Brit) we bonded and so by the time the 2002 RNA Conference was planned, both Julie and Anna booked to go.

If you’ve read the comments on my first Celebrating Friends post, you will see that Julie has recalled our first meeting. Perhaps I should explain the ‘Virgin’ reference. As I had been to a RNA Conference before, I knew that arriving at the first one, knowing very few people could be a nerve-wracking experience, I wrote to the Brits from the boards (there were two others Pat and Jane) and suggested that as they were ‘Conference Virgins’ we should get together – at least by email and I could answer any questions offer advice etc. This is why, when Julie first appeared at the conference she was ‘another virgin’ – which also led to me being labelled The Virgin Mother! Which was a Virgin too far for the RNA who, having later adopted my casual scheme (can one be a ‘casual virgin’?) after I’d run it for three years, have now decorously renamed it the First Timers’ Network. But that’s sad as no one can now be the ‘First Timers’ Network-Mother.


Anyway – here’s Julie describing the moment we first met
I remember the first time *we* met, Kate W--I recall walking into a very busy dining room full of about a hundred and fifty strangers, and these women suddenly yelling out, "It's another virgin!"


From that point on the Durham Virgins became real and not just cyber friends – and I gained another title that of Cyber Mum. Which is another title I regard as a great honour.

In her blog at the moment, Julie is writing about her third book, Delicious which is out this month and which is the title that will be in the Bag of Books prize. I could have chosen either her previous book Being a Bad Girl or the very first Featured Attraction, which is the one I know best of all. But Delicious is actually the first Julie Cohen book I learned about in those first emails before we ever met in person. I didn’t know it was Delicious then but I do know that Julie described it like this:



>> an intense and sensual relationship, with its ridiculous moments, and quite a bit of repartee.















And that really sums up a lot of what Julie brings to romance writing. Add in some emotional intensity and you have a winning combination. I always knew that Julie could write - I’ve read several versions of Featured Attraction – I had a bit of input on the way to rework that one – and I’ve watched that vital emotional intensity grow in Julie’s work over time so I wasn’t very surprised – but I was so thrilled when on July 20th 2004 I received an email that just said I SOLD. That was the book that became Featured Attraction - Since then there’s been Being A Bad Girl, now there’s Delicious and soon there will Married in A Rush.


I’m so happy to see the list of titles grow – not just because Julie is a friend and my Cyber-Kid - but because I firmly believe that this genre of romance writing that I love always needs new blood. It’s not a question of ‘training up the opposition’ but the fact that Romance writing, contrary to popular believe that it’s ‘always the same’ is a living growing, developing genre. And to keep living, it needs new writers who will take it forward into the future. Julie is, I’m convinced, one of those new writers who will do that. She’s a writer with her own individual and unique voice, a writer who loves romance for what it is and isn’t just writing in the hope of making a fast buck. She has a youthful, modern voice that will bring new readers to the genre and will wake up some of the critics who say that romance is old-fashioned stick in the mud and - heaven help us – not sexy ‘chocolate box’ type romance.

Which is great for romance readers – but also a loss for the teaching profession. Before Julie was a published author she was also the sort of teacher that I wished I could have had teach me Tess of the D’Urbervilles etc. I've been to one of her workshops - on writing sexual scenes in romance - and came away inspired and entertained (And not just because she started the whole thing of showing picturesof Hugh Jackman in a towel - see my post on Anne McAllister below)> So perhaps I ought to say that another honour Julie has given me is that she is the only teacher I know who actually put one of my books on the National Curriculum when she used The Sicilian's Wife in the topic of "Language and Gender" with some of her A-level English language students.

As I’ve been writing this post, I’ve been checking back over some of the emails I had from Julie and I find that the one in which she tells me about the book that became Delicious is actually dated 6th June 2002 – so there’s a wonderful coincidence and sense of serendipity to know that the book we talked about then is now actually on the bookshop shelves, exactly four years later. Congratulations on that Julie – and on the other wonderful news that was the other thing that made me cry – with happiness this week.

A PS to Anne McAllister

I can't believe I forgot to say -

If you want on know more about Anne McAllister and the current hero she's trying to whip into line then check out her blog and you'll be able to read about heroes. map cabinets and dogs - all vital parts of Anne's life.

Celebrating Writing Friends - Anne McAllister

Anne McAllister and I met because of Warwick Castle. She asked a question about English Castles on a loop we’re both on, I answered - and the rest is history. But not English History. We never actually visited Warwick Castle together or The Royal Armouries which was another place we discussed. These were supposed to be places for her to travel to with her son on a trip to England. But in the end, the son stayed at home, Anne came to England with her husband and they came to stay with us. And it was as if we had always been friends. The Prof McAllister and the BM hit it off too and most of the visit was spent with the Prof and the BM talking and talking in the front seats of the car and Anne and I talking and talking in the back seat. And in between we visited places like York and Lincoln and Spital in the Street.


But before that, I’d fallen in love with Anne’s writing and her heroes. And I’d got to know her through her books. I can still remember reading a long-ago book called Finn’s Twins and thinking that I was so glad there was room for a variety of romances and heroes in the M&B lines. (The lines weren’t split then).


An Anne McAllister book has a unique flavour - her heroes are strong, competent men, men with backbone and integrity, everything a Presents hero should be – but they’re not the narrowly –defined ‘Alpha hero’ that has perhaps become accepted by some readers as the Presents heroes. What I remember most about reading that book that impressed me so much is that it made me laugh as well as care – smile both in amusement and delight as well as in appreciation of the emotion in the story. As she says, she doesn’t do ‘angry heroes’ - but she does write wonderful ones! Ones I find it very easy to fall in love with.


But then, Anne and I share a ‘first love’ . Way back when, when we were both young and our ‘hero templates’ were being formed – we both fell in love – thousands of miles apart and years before we ever knew the other existed – with the same man. Jess Harper The ‘second’ hero – but to us always the first – of the Western Laramie - acted by the gorgeous Robert Fuller.

If you want to read more about Anne’s personal contact with Robert Fuller (and yes I am jealous – very jealous) then check out her blog here. So we share an eye for a hero – we did then and we do now. The story of how we both spoke (twice each at each conference) at the Romance Writers of Australia and the Romance Writers of New Zealand a couple of years ago and we both used the same ‘visual aid’ – a photograph of Hugh Jackman in a towel – to illustrate every possible point – has become well known. So we still share an eye for a hero – and we both have very good taste. (But Anne is a thief – she stole the picture of Mr Jackman and took it home to America with her)

Of course, it’s not just me who loves Anne’s books She has won two RITA awards from the Romance Writers of America -- for COWBOY PRIDE and THE STARDUST COWBOY -- and has had seven other books which were RITA finalists. Her books have also been finalists for the National Readers' Choice Award. In 2000 she was named Midwest Fiction Writers "Writer of the Year" and also received Romantic Times' Career Achievement Award as "Series Author of the Year." And every bit of it deserved. Now you’ll see why I’m including one of Anne’s books in the Bag of Books. And Lessons from a Latin Lover is one of my personal favourites of her titles. I ‘lived with’ Joaquin Santiago through emails from Anne as he was being created and the little snippets I heard made me hungry to read his story in its final form - I wasn’t disappointed. Again, it was a book that made me smile, made my breath catch, tugged on my heart, and warmed me with its slow-burn sensuality.

Of course I can’t write about Anne McAllister without mentioning Sid. (That cat can get into any post without even trying.) Sid and Anne are best friends. They ‘met’ by email - apparently when I’m not looking, Sid gets his paws on the keyboard and writes eloquent letters to a select few friends. She appreciates the fact that he is A Cat of Superior Breeding and he is prepared to tolerate a few of the rough edges that belong to the ‘Colonials’ as he is devoted to his ‘Dear Lady Across the Pond’. I am very much aware of the fact that when Anne comes to visit – as she will be doing in September this year that she comes to see Sir Sidney first and myself and the BM very definitely second. Sid knows this too and as The Lady Across the Pond knows of his partiality for salmon and also knows just the right spot to rub him behind the ears, then she’s very welcome to share his bed when she stays in his house.

But then Sid has excellent taste. He knows a good friend when he sees one – as do I. Anne McAllister’s books gave her a special place in my life as a reader and a writer long before I met the writer herself. Now, she has a special place in my life as a friend too (though I know I stand second in line to a large, handsome tabby cat with a good line in head butts). And that’s why one of her books is included in the Bag of Books. Unfortunately, I only have two copies to give away – so if you haven’t tried an Anne McAllister book before – why not check out The Antonides Marriage Deal which is still around and find out for yourself.

Celebrating Writing Friendships

Two of my friends have made me cry this week – in the nicest possible way. One of them I can’t yet share I’ll wait for that story to unfold - but the other is a very special writerly sort of pleasure.

My dear friend and fellow M&B author Kate Hardy sent me a copy of her latest book – well, her latest book in one line! Kate is a prolific and hardworking author who not only writes for M&B Medicals and HMB Modern Extra but creates factual, local history books and ‘how to’ guides – as ‘relaxation’!!! So this was her newest Modern Extra – Strictly Legal.

(Okay - there was supposed to be a picture of the cover here but each time I try to upload it, it failed - so if I can come back later and do it, I will. ) :-(


I was told to look at page six – which is where then tears started. This book is dedicated to me. What a thrill – and honour – and a delight to know that a friendship that has been brought to me by this crazy job that I do has become so special. Thank you Kate!

This is not the only book that I've had dedicated to me by a dear friend. Anyone who reads this blog regularly knows about my friendship with American author Anne McAllister. Her book McGillivray's Mistress is dedicated to me and the BM. Okay - yes - it's also dedicated to Sid the cat and his Fellow Felines Bob, Spiff and Dylan. But I would like to point out to Sir Sidney that he may had muscled in to try to take over this friendship but I was the one who met Anne first and introduced 'the finest of feline' to the Lady Across the Pond.

(There's also supposed to be a picture of the cover of McGillivray's Mistress here - but that won't upload either. Oh well! - you can see it here. )

All of which started me thinking back again over my rant on the subject of workshops. I was recently given a card that said what you give out you get back ten times over, and in my experience, giving in the world of writing has very much that effect. Forget the finances earned by my books – in terms of what writing, talking about writing, giving workshops etc has earned me in friendship and other much more valuable (to me) terms - I’m a very wealthy woman.

Which is why, if you’re interested in the possibility of winning good books to read, you might like to know about my latest contest, now running on my web site. This contest is a way that you have a chance to benefit from some of these friendships I've made in the romance writing world.

The prize is a bag of books for summer reading. And some of these special friends of mine have joined me in this to help make the prize extra special. Each of these friends is someone I admire as a writer as well as love as a person, and each one of them has donated copies of one of their books to the Bag of Books – books that I personally have read and enjoyed and would like to share with the winners of this contest.

Over the next few posts, I’ll be writing about the individual authors and their particular books so that you can get more acquainted with them – but for now, here, in alphabetical order, are the authors whose books will be joining mine in the Bag of Books prize, and the titles of the books they’ve donated

Anne McAllister Lessons from a Latin Lover
Julie Cohen Delicious
Kate Hardy The Cinderella Project

Liz Fielding The Marriage Miracle
Michelle Reid The Brazilian’s Blackmailed Bride
Michelle Styles The Gladiator’s Honour

You might like to check out some of their web sites and take a look at the other books they’ve written.

If you want to check out the Bag of Books Contest then the details are on my web site Contest Page. The only condition of entry is that you are either on my mailing list or allow your name to be put on the mailing list with this entry.

So why not try entering? There are 3 runners’ up prizes of signed copies of my books too. And Sid the Cat says the more the merrier - as he gets to choose the winners, the more cat treats on more names for him to snarf up, the better.

Ratings, Bestseller lists - and not believing everything you see.

I love Amazon. Well, I love any bookshop and given the choice I’d rather have a real bookshop rather that a virtual cyber- bookshop. If I’m actually buying a book I prefer to look at it, pick it up, open it, read a bit, check the blurb . . . And I love to browse, to wander along rows of shelves, picking up books that catch my eye and investigating them. Just lately, I’ve also been trying to put them back down again too. I have too many books to read. I don’t have TBR piles. I have TBR shelves – TBR bookcases. So I’m trying to read those and keep a list of what I want to buy when I have time to read any more. (Come back this time next year for a report!)

But as a writer, a real bookshop doesn’t give me what Amazon does – those fascinating little sales figures that say ‘the sales ranking of this book is xxxx’ now on Amazon.com they’ve added a previous ranking for comparison so you can find out where in the ranking the book was yesterday and see by how many thousands it has leapt up – or slid down – overnight.

Of course the problem is with these rankings – and any others on the internet – that on the right day, on a very quiet day, one sale of one book can make a huge amount of difference. It can make the ratings leap by 100,000 or more – which is a great morale boost to an author, but hardly a great boost to royalties! But at least it does tell an author that a copy of the book has been sold. So, for example, my current book, The Married Mistress was at about 147,500 last night – this morning it’s 42,755 (though that may have changed again by the time you read this) – so thank you to the person who bought a copy. It’s also at 18 on the Amazon best seller list for Harlequin Presents – not bad at all for a Promotional Presents (these books have already been released in the limited reader service only so I don’t expect it to sell as strongly as a brand-new, main run of Presents titles.

Shops don’t show you how many copies of the books are selling –though I’m sure it’s a rare author who doesn’t note when her books are on the shelves and how many were there last time. In this, M&B books have an advantage in that they are all shelved together and you can take a quick look to see how your title is selling compared to all the others. But the M&B books never appear on the ‘This week’s bestsellers’ shelves in WH Smith or any other bookshop (if that shop actually stocks them which is rare) And after reading a report in yesterday’s Sunday Times, I’m not surprised.

I’d always known that those ‘Saga of the Month’ or ‘Can we recommend . . .’book of the week slots didn’t come free but the report this week made me blink quite hard. Apparently Britain’s biggest booksellers are demanding payments of £50,000 a week from publishers to get books on its supposedly impartial list of “recommended” reads in the run-up to Christmas this year. This means that deals are being operated by retailers to promote lists that consumers believe are based on independent assessments of a book’s quality. No authors appear on recommended lists unless their publishers pay the fees, and those refusing to pay may not even find their titles stocked.

Hmm – well no publisher is going to put that amount of money into an unknown or to promoting a book just because they think it’s great. Publishing is a business and a publisher will need to know that a book has the chance of earning them that £50,000 back – and then some – before they’ll invest in buying it a ‘book of the week’ position at that cost.

There are disadvantages to being published by M&B – the short length of time each book stays on the shelf being one of them – but at least in WH Smith in the UK, the reader and buyer knows just where to find them – all in one section, all shelved together, not disappearing into the huge expanse of shelving along with every other book. They are also all displayed uniformly (too uniformly some would say). So there’s a ‘level playing field’ and if a book has sold out it’s because the readers have snatched it off the shelves because they want to read the latest novel by that particular author and not because the publisher has paid the bookshop some outrageous fee to tell the book-buying public that this is the greatest novel since The Da Vinci Code or the new Harry Potter.

When my editor tells me – as she did about The Antonakos Marriage – that a book I’ve written sold at #1 in that month, then the sales figures that tell her that have not been massaged by an extra payment to the shop to promote my book – it goes up against all the other titles on a level basis and that suits me fine.

There’s one other set of results that I check out and again these are sales figures – in America this time. Every week, Waldenbooks put out a list of the Top Ten Romance Bestsellers in paperback and another listing of the series title books (Harlequin/Silhouette). The Married Mistress has been on that list for the past two weeks – at #6 the first week, moving up to #5 last week. Again, these are sales that come from the real people – the people who matter – the readers. Readers who are influenced by their love of a good story and who want to put their money into something they will enjoy, not something that a bookshop has been paid to tell them they will enjoy.

That’s do for me. I’m delighted to be on the Waldenbooks list- and send a heartfelt Thank you to the readers who put me there.

Covers

Interesting post today – several foreign editions of books – Dutch versions of A Sicilian Husband and The Duke’s Secret Wife. And a Korean edition of The Twelve Month Mistress. The covers are interesting – A Sicilian Husband reproduces the USA cover, The Dukes Secret Wife is in a ‘duet’ with Carole Mortimer and has an idyllic countryside view on the front. And the Korean editions are deep pink, with a fuchsia edge to the spine – no picture, just stylised flowers all over it.




Which sent me back to look at the covers this book has had before –

Here’s the UK version -






And here’s the American one – this one tends to be the image that appears on most of the foreign editions. It’s on the Japanese edition, for example.






The photographic covers seem to divide opinion – some love them, some hate them. But I understand that a lot of the artwork for the USA covers is gong to be used over again on the UK covers Anne McAllister has had the same cover on two very different books. Lessons from a Latin Lover USA and The Antonides Marriage Deal UK . It’s a lovely cover – and it looks wonderful on the UK edition – but it’s the same cover and they’re not the same book.

I remember going to a HMB author day where one author was particularly concerned about the covers – why did we have to have ‘clinch’ covers? she asked. Why couldn’t we just have flowers or some such image? Something nice. Tasteful.

And I know there are some readers who prefer not to be seen sitting on a bus, or the tube, reading a book with a ‘hot’ cover in public.

So here I have a cover with just flowers and, believe me, compared to some of the Korean covers I’ve had, this an elegant, attractive one – but to me it’s just that bit too bland – it’s not saying anything about the book – in fact it’s not saying anything at all. Of course, I don’t read Korean – so the title means nothing to me. I can only hope that the author’s name is enough to make the readers want to pick this book of the shelf and see what inside it. I’m not sure if all the Korean books this month look like this – or if it’s a special cover that’s been assigned to the 3 books in The Alcolar Family trilogy – of which The Twelve-Month Mistress is the first part. I’ll wait and see if the others turn up and find out.

But it does make me wonder – once again – about covers and how much of a part they play in selling the book I’ve written. My editor tells me that the cover for my next UK book – At The Sheikh’s Command – is fabulous – gorgeous – and I can’t wait to see it. But I think it has been used before, in America, for some other book – and so I’m assuming that this is only the UK edition and not the artwork that will be on Harlequin Presents edition. So even if love it – it probably won’t appear anywhere else. Which means I'll still be wonderign what will be on the American cover.

It’s all about personal preferences I know but I was wondering – what’s your preference?

Another typical day in the glamorous life of a romantic novelist

So today was planned to be working on Sicilian 2. That was the idea. Yesterday was working on Sicilian 2 as well, but I got to a point where I felt he was starting to talk to me and the phone went. Not Sicilian2 but Anne McAllister who is coming to visit me in September. (Correction – who is coming to visit Sid the cat in September) So we needed to talk dates and times of arrival. Plus other things – like how Spence (her hero) is behaving compared with Vito (Sicilian 2) and other things

So today I vowed, was quality-time-with-Sicilian2-day

Got up bright and early (well – early ) in order to do so.
Remembered it was sister-in Tasmania’s birthday.Working out time zones, realised I needed to phone Sister-in-Tasmania now.
One phone call later – no longer quite so early.
But sun is actually shining – after torrential downpours of past days
Put one load of washing in
Dealt with emails, loops, message boards
Take out one load of washing – hang on line
Put in another load
Realised needed to go into town – bills/shopping
Deal with that
Home at noon. Cats are booked in for booster inoculations 12.10
Hang out second load of washing – put in another
Grab cats (not Sid – this time it’s Bob Redford and Spiffy) and put them in transporter boxes. Actually remember their documentation for proof of injections
Take cats to vet.
Vet is Michelle -the one who saved Spiffy’s life last year when he was poisoned. Michelle and Spiffy have a reunion of heartfelt delight – contrary to usual procedure, Spiffy has to be bribed back into his pet transporter instead of leaping straight back in once the vet has seen him. He even allows her to check his sore eye and put in drops without any fuss – just purrs.
Collect eye drops for Spiffy, Flea drops, anti-worm drops for Spiffy/Bob/Sid/Dylan – pay huge bill for these and booster injections
Take cats home. Release them from transporters
Hang out third load of washing
Yesterday’s discussion about Anne’s visit reminds me I need to discuss trip to London and M&B meeting with Michelle Reid
Phone her – plan dates, trains, hotel . . .
Book these
Put eye drops in Spiffy’s eye – surprisingly without losing a hand. Thank heaven it’s Spiffy who needs this – Redford or Dylan would tear me limb from limb if I tried
BM arrives home – he needs trains/hotel/etc for a conference in June
Book these
Thunderstorm
Run outside to bring washing in
Get soaked, but manage to rescue most of the washing
Make pot of tea
Settle down at desk to have words with Sicilian 2 – where are you Vito? What’s happening
Realise a. It’s almost time to prepare evening meal
b. I haven’t written a blog

So I thought I’d tell you what I did with my day
Oh yes – and if you haven’t already noticed, the lovely Wendy has recently updated my web site. There are details of new books, pictures of Sid and some handsome Dogs of the Month – and there is also news of a brand new contest – so if you want a chance to win a Bag of Books of summer reading, check out the contest page and try your luck

I shall be busy with Sicilian 2 - I hope!


PS If you do want to enter the contest - please note that I ask for books out in 2006 - and that the title Sicilan Husband, Blackmailed Bride on the Home page is the title of only one book - and anyway, it's coming out next year. (There - read my blog and get extra help with contests - I didn't think it would be necessary to explain all that but from the entries I've been getting . . .)

Workshops 2 - the other side of the coin

Okay, so I had a bit of a rant about Workshops – and I’m delighted to know that so many of you agreed with me. Apart from anything else, I’ve been very lucky in my writing career and this job has been very good to me. I’ve gone from being a ‘dreamer’ – a girl who wrote stories in secret in the middle of the night or at the back of the maths class, in an exercise book hidden behind the text book – the girl that everyone said would never get a single book published – to a successful author with 48 fiction and 2 non fiction books on my shelves, a regular income from my work and lots of friends that I’ve made through my writing and the world of romance novels and romantic fiction in general. I’ve traveled – New York, Denver, Auckland, Sydney- met hundreds of fans and other writers – because of my work and I’ve enjoyed 20+ years of it. So as well as everything else my workshops are a way of putting something back into the world that has been so good to me.

So that’s why I do workshops - but today I’m looking at the other side of the coin – I believe in doing workshops but I also believe that those who attend workshops could – should – consider a few points before they turn up at any workshop I’m giving. If only to get the very best out of what I’m trying to teach.

So, let’s consider some of them.

If you’re going to attend any workshop I – or any other Harlequin Mills & Boon author is giving – please read some books beforehand. And make them books that were published in the last 12 months or so. From a selection of different authors. Don’t rely on the fact that you once read one book by Violet Winspear or Betty Neels published in the 1960s that you bought secondhand from a shop for five pence – and consider that that is representative of the whole genre from 1908 when the company was founded until the present day. Romances are a growing, changing, developing genre and the books being published now are not the same as they’ve always been – nor are the Tender Romances the same as the Moderns or the Desire the same as the Medicals.

Don’t ask the speaker (ie me!) ‘So have the books changed much in the past ten/fifteen/twenty years. The answer is YES - but if you want to find out how much they’ve changed then read for yourself. You could be pretty surprised. And you’ll learn a lot lot more that way than you would from my – or any other author’s answer of ‘Yes they’ve changed – and they continue to change.’


Don’t rely on sloppy, lazy journalists who will tell you that

1. Everyone knows what a HMB romance is like –
2. 
   That HMB Romances are all the same and have been the same since time began and will be the same until the end of time
3. 
   That all HMB heroines are sweet innocent virgins who swoon upon the hero's manly chest, with her bosoms heaving, if a man so much as comes near them
4. 
   That all HMB heroes are arrogant, monstrous Heathcliff-type brutes who do nothing other than treat the heroine appallingly until on the very last page he declares that he loves her – at which point she will swoon upon his manly chest – see 3 above
5. 
   That all M&B romances are sickly sweet, with conflicts based only on silly misunderstandings that bear no relation to reality whatsoever.
6. 
   That there is no sex whatsoever in any M&B romance and that all books must slide over these passionate moments with the dot, dot, dot, syndrome – eg ‘He picked her up in his arms of steel and carried her towards the bedroom door . . . ‘
7. 
   If there is (shock, horror!) any sex in an M&B book it is only a recent development and may only take place after marriage, in the missionary position, in a bed . . . I repeat, read some books.
8. 
   Above all else do not believe the urban myths that the lazy journo’s spread around – like the existence of the famous ‘formula’ – or, even worse, the guidebook that lists the exact places, parts of the body that may be touched and at what stage in the book – and that no other places on the hero or heroine’s anatomy may be even mentioned at any point.
   
   

If you’re in any doubt about these – READ the books! That way at least you will know what the speaker is talking about and it will make a lot more sense to you.

Don't ask the workshop leader if she can 'just' read your book and say what she thinks because it's time-consuming to do it properly and said author has deadlines of her own. Above all, don’t do as it is rumoured one over-enthusiastic would-be author did at an American conference and follow the (in this case editor) into the ladies loo and shove your manuscript under the cubicle door, begging her to ‘just’ take a look at it while she’s in there!

Don't whine about how come author XYZ gets to write about a subject but your book on the same subject was rejected – it’s more than likely that it’s not the subject you wrote about but the way you wrote that was the problem. It’s a fact of life that experienced authors can tackle topics that the ‘rules’ say must never be tackled and make them work.
Which reminds me – don’t believe in the ‘Rules’ – as my editor but two ago said ‘The only rule in romance writing is that you write as well as you possibly can in the way that tells the story in the best possible way so as to make the best book you can create.

If you're targeting category romance, it must be because that's what you want to write - if you try to write it from the head, there won't be any heart in your book and the main point about these books is emotion, emotion, emotion. So don’t turn up at the workshop expecting to learn how to make a very fast and very large buck out of a couple of books that you have dashed off in order to finance your way to something better.

Don’t ask the speaker what she earns from her writing so that you will know what you can expect to earn yourself as soon as you have dashed off that book you know will be so very easy to write. It’s impossible to predict just what any book will earn because it depends on the line it’s published it, whether the readers take to it, how many international countries it’s published in, how long you’ve been writing . . . . Whatever the speaker earns it will probably bear no relation (good or bad) to anything you, or any other author, even in the same line, may earn.

Above all else, don’t expect the speaker to give you that much famed ‘magic formula’ for writing a M&B/Harlequin Romance – no – hang on - I’ll give you that now, for free – here you are

THE FORMULA –

HEROINE +
HERO +
CONFLICT +
“GETTING TO KNOW YOU” +
LOWEST POINT (BLACK MOMENT) +
RESOLUTION +
SOME REALLY GREAT WRITING
__________________

= A ROMANCE NOVEL

Easy isn’t it? Not!
If it was then M&B would be accepting 4000 or more of the over 5000 submissions they receive each year instead of the less than 10 new authors a year that they do publish.

So if you do go to a workshop on writing romance, go prepared. Read the books, accept that there is no easy, magical answer – but if you have talent, love the genre, work hard, keep on submitting in the face of rejection, learn from the comments editors or other qualified readers make on your work, and keep trying – you might just make a go of it. I’m not going to trample on anyone’s dreams – people tried to do that to mine and I wouldn’t let them. But neither am I going to tell you it’s easy. No workshop can give you all the answers but you can learn a lot if you go in the right frame of mind, and you give writing this particular genre – the one that the late, great Charlotte Lamb described as ‘those complicated little books’ - the respect and the hard work they deserve.

Good luck!

Workshops - a bit of a rant

Last weekend I traveled down to Kent to give a one day workshop on writing – writing romance, writing for Harlequin Mills & Boon, writing fiction, writing sexual scenes, writing heroes, writing characters . . we covered all that and some more besides. I promised that I would give Elaine and Kelly of Elaine and Kelly’s Writers’ Workshops a mention so I’m doing it now.


But not just because I promised I would but because I enjoyed myself – the workshop was a lot of work but it was a lot of fun as well. I had a great time. I met a lot of interesting and interested people. We had some real laughs. I had a delicious lunch and some fascinating conversations – and I talked about writing. I came home happy and I hope that the women who attended the workshop went home happy too. To judge by the number of email notes I received afterwards, I think they did.

Now there are certain authors who have taken me to task for giving workshops. One has even gone so far as to say that she disapproves of me doing so. I am, so some believe, ‘Training up the opposition’ – writers who will move in on the market, get their books published, take my place – and theirs. I’m also, apparently, giving the wrongful impression that getting published is easy. That all you have to do is to follow a few guidelines and Abracadabra – instant publication.

Hmmmm! And when, I have to ask, have any of these critics ever attended any one of my workshops, real or on-line? When have they heard me say ‘Okay, getting published is easy, all you have to do is A B and C and you’re in – published – just like that’? I’m far more likely to point out the huge odds against getting published, the long waits for royalties to come in, the need to write more than one book, to build up a reader base over several years – in several countries - in order to earn any sort of decent income from your writing. What I always say about writing is that if you only want to reach the goal of publication then you’re likely to be disappointed. But if you enjoy the journey on the way there, then you’re a writer – and I hope you do get published.

The other point these critics make is that I have a ‘How To Write’ book to plug.

Well, yes – I’m not going to deny that. I do have a How to Write book published - two in fact – one of which I’m actually very proud of. In fact, so proud that I’m happy to give it a little plug here too –









Kate Walker’s 12 Point Guide To Writing Romance has won two awards - the Cata Romance Reviewers' Choice Best Book for Writers and CataRomance Readers' Choice- Best Writing Reference 2004. I’ve also been told by a lot of people who want to write romance - or indeed any popular fiction – that it’s helped them a lot. Which, seeing as that’s why I wrote it, makes me pretty happy.





So there – I’ve now ‘plugged’ my book much more extensively and with a lot less effort than I made traveling to and from this workshop – or any other.

Of course if I do a workshop I’ll mention the 12 Point Guide. I’ll also mention the 48 titles I’ve had published by Harlequin Mills & Boon. Why not? These are my qualifications for giving the workshop in the first place. The reason people come to them – often paying good money to hear me speak. But I’ll not enjoy a workshop any the less if no one buys a copy of a single title. The books are part of why I give workshops but they’re not the only reason.


I like doing workshops. I enjoy the process. I get a lot out of it.

I love talking about writing - about books and the process of creating them. I can spend hours on the phone to particular writer friends who are at the same sort of point in my career as I am. I go to conferences – the RNA, RWA RWAus, RWNZ – to meet up with fellow writers and talk writing.

And I get the same enjoyment from workshops. I like having to look at what I do - often by instinct and, these days, as the result of experience and long practise, and analyze it, break it down into the steps I take without thinking. I like looking at the way the Romance genre has changed (and it has changed so much – so if you’re one of those people who think that reading a couple of books published in the 1980s will show you what’s needed in 2006 then think again). I like talking about what makes a hero for the 21st century - or a heroine – why I put in a lovemaking scene here and not there – and it’s not just because sex sells. I love it when someone asks a question about something that I’ve done so often that I perhaps don’t think about it – or don’t think about it in quite that ‘how do you .. .?' way any more.

Workshops stimulate my thought processes as well as those of my students. I get a buzz from them, get new ideas. When I set writing tasks, I work on them myself, thinking of the book I’m currently working on and how I could get to know the heroine better, or the way I could add an extra layer to the ‘onion’ I use to describe conflict. (You’ll have to come to a workshop or read the book if you want an explanation). I come home thinking of new ways to approach things, or having solved a knotty point in the plot. I’m buzzing with enthusiasm and I want to sit down and write, feeling that I love writing even when it’s not going the way I want it to.

It’s a two –way process. Questions, comments, the ‘Can I . . ‘ or the ‘What if . . .’ all renew my interest in what I’m doing, why I do it and how I do it.

Training up the opposition? Well, maybe – if a student from a course learns something that improves their work and they are then accepted (and t it has happened) then fine – but I suspect they would have been published anyway – I just helped the process along. And With those 48 titles behind me they’re not going to snatch away everything I’ve achieved even if they do have a stratospheric rise to success. In my line alone (M&B Modern/Harlequin Presents) the publisher puts out 8 books a month – that’s almost 100 a year. I doubt if any newcomer will fill all those 100 slots, no matter how good.

And what about – my ‘disapprovers’ will ask – what about those who will never get there? Those who will never be published; who just don’t have the talent and the ability? Well, what about them? If they want to come to a workshop and learn some of the realities of getting published. If they want to find out some of the processes and the techniques that go into writing creatively and polishing that creation to make it better – what’s wrong with that? I don’t put a note on my workshop handouts – only those with supreme talent may attend. I talk to ‘hobbyists’ and amateurs – to the wannabes and the gonnabes and the never- ever-in-their lifetime-having-a-chance-to-bes. Why not? If that’s what they want to learn, to know more about, then more power to them. I’ve done courses in Learning Russian - I never wanted to be an interpreter. I’ve studied, cooking, dressmaking and embroidery - it didn’t make me Jamie Oliver or Yves St Laurent or Kaffe Fasset or Stella McCartney – it couldn’t – I’m not good enough. But does that mean I should be turned away at the door? The BM studies guitar – should he stop now because he’ll never be Eric Clapton?

No. Besides, if I started to restrict my workshops to ‘the next Charlotte Lamb’ – or even ‘The Next Kate Walker’ only then I really would be training up the opposition – the ones who would be likely to grab my spot in the schedule and run with it. But I also wonder how would I know? You only have to look at the phenomenal success of J K Rowling to see that no one can ever truly predict what books will take off and when.


So I’ll continue to run workshops when I have time – which isn’t that likely with a four book contract on its way to me. (If you want any details check out the Appearences page of my web site for dates and places) And I’ll continue to enjoy them. And if you’d like to come to one, you’d be more than welcome – whether you’re there for fun or to study writing seriously. Because I know that I’ll get as much back from them as I give out. I’ll enjoy the experience, I’ll possibly make new friends, I’ll see new places.

And yes, I’ll probably sell a book or two as well – Can’t be bad!

A Typical Day?

Anne McAllister has an post on her blog right now that talks about what she does when she’s not writing – or perhaps I should rephrase that -
What she does when she should be writing but isn’t - this is how she puts it -

Sometimes I wonder why whole days go by and I never seem to be a writer. I start
out the day with the best of intentions -- and go to bed with the same
intentions for tomorrow (and with the same words unwritten). What goes on during
those days?

Well, I’ve had one of those not being a writer sort of weeks. I’ve been busy – I seem to have been busy non-stop. I’ve even worked at my computer for hours and hours each day – of most of each day – and I haven’t managed to add significantly to the word count of what I call not the WIP (work in progress) but the WHIP (Work hardly in progress) . . .

Which is why, when I go back to the workshop I did this weekend I remember one particular question – one I couldn’t answer . . .

See there it is again – I spent days preparing that workshop, traveling to it, finding the venue (I seem to have spent hours traveling to it, trying to find a roundabout that the map said existed, that the AA instructions said existed – a roundabout that I never found, not once, in all the times I went back over the route again and again.) That’s time I spent last week and at the weekend doing writerly stuff but not actually writing. Not on paper/screen/keyboard anyway.

And the question I was asked at this workshop was ‘Can you tell us what is your typical writer’s day?

Honest answer? No.

I don’t have a typical day. I don’t write in an orderly, routine sort of way. I don’t plan to write Xthousand words today and tomorrow and the day after . . . until the book is finished. Sometimes I wish I did, because that must be a steady, regular way to work towards the end of a book. It must be a relief to watch those words mount up, see the Chapters get completed, head towards the finishing line. But I’m not a steady, regular sort of writer. I’m an all or nothing sort of writer – I think and plan and mull – letting the story brew inside my head – and then suddenly, one day, it’s ‘ripe’ and I sit down and I write and write and write – and then I can write thousands of words in a day. I can write all day every day. I get up early and go to bed late. I wake up thinking of the story and I go on with thinking of it all day – until it’s done.

I’m always sort of fearful that if I write 1000 words a day and then stop that the reader might read those 1000 words and then stop – putting down the book and not picking it up again. So I write in great lumps of words, words that I write and write until I just have to pause for breath.

And in between I do non-writing things. So this week, I’ve done the workshop, I’ve packed and traveled to and from it. I’ve unpacked and washed and sorted (why does there always seem to be so much more washing than the clothes you could possibly have worn in that time?) . I’ve caught up on all the emails that were waiting for me when I came back, I’ve completely overhauled my website (The realisation that it still had the Valentine’s Day Contest on it sort of gave me a hefty kick into doing that). I’ve caught up with friends, family, dealt with more requests for more workshops, spent some time with the BM, fed the cats, paid some bills . . . And now I’m updating this blog – and not before time.

And before I blinked I find I’m back at the day when I left this blog a week ago, saying I’d be back soon – and meaning it! But it just didn’t happen.

So that’s what happens on those non writing days. But the great thing is that while I’m doing all this other stuff there’s a wonderful subconscious part of my brain that is busy planning and mulling and scheming and I’m already feeling that itch that has to be scratched – the itch of words that have to be written in those great chunks and those long, long days. I suspect that those actual ‘writing days’ are what the lady who asked the question about the typical day meant when she asked it - but they’re not exactly typical. They’re only part of it. And just the same, the website updating, workshop planning and giving etc etc days aren’t typical either – they’re all just part of what I do.

So I’ve come to the conclusion that there isn’t a ‘typical’ day in a writer’s life and that’s what makes us writers. We don’t fit well with routines and planning and discipline – we create. We invent worlds and the people who inhabit those worlds. Our minds are partly in this real world and partly in the fictional one we’ve invented for ourselves. We live our own lives and the lives of these characters who come and whisper to us when we’re trying to concentrate on other things.

Traveling and doing the workshop were times for my mind to let the seeds of the story start to develop. Updating the web site was a very different experience from creating a book - it needed organisation and logical thought and an eye for detail. That, and all the rest of it ‘cleared the decks’ so that I can plunge into my other world – the world where the hot Sicilian sun is beating down and a certain Vito Corsentino is heading for the airport and the plane that will take him to England and the house where the woman he’s been trying to forget is living – where she’s been trying to put her life back together after all that has happened since the last time they met . . .

Oh oh, I think I feel some typical writing days coming up . . .

And the updates on the web site will be up just as soon as wonderful Wendy gets them done.

A second thank you

Do you remember this from a post a few days back? The one about my ancestor Chevalier Charles Wogan?

He was awarded a Baronetcy by James 111 and the Pope conferred on him the
title of a Roman Senator .A number of Novels have been written about the
escapade including The King across the water [1911] a novel written by
Justin
Huntly McCarthy a study in a book by J.M.Flood The Life of Chevalier
Charles
Wogan ,A Soldier of Fortune [1922]

And if anyone ever comes across those books listed here, please
let me know! I've tried Bookfinder etc

Well, I had a reponse to that request - lovely Sahndre found a copy of the J M Flood title listed in a shop in - of course - Dublin. A quick email order and the one and only copy that seems to be available is in the mail and heading my way. I can't wait to get my hands on it

So a special Thank You goes to Sahndre - thanks so much for your help with this - and I'll see you on Sunday

Thank you

I've said it on the comments section of the last post - but it merits saying again in pulblic here -
a great big THANK YOU to everyone who possted to send me birthday greeting and wish me happiness for the day.

I had a lovely lovely day. Starting with a phone call from my sister in Australia before I'd really opened my eyes - then cards and presents from lots of lovely people - a trip to York, just wandering round and occasionally looking in shops. The BM bought me a wonderful, beautiful embroidered jacket for my present (he has superb taste in clothes when place in front of a shop rail and told 'That is what I'd like for my birthday ' and given a little push)

Afternoon tea in Bettys was delicious - Anna Lucia suggested that I try the brown bread ice cream sundae and I was tempted - but I was also tempted by the berries and ice cream sundae and that one won. Next time, Anna! And maybe you'll share it with me.

My birthday being a Sunday, there were more cards on the Monday - and, from my editor, the best possible gift an ed can give her author - the news that Sicilian 1 is tweaked into submission and is now bought and heading for the UK schedules - is in fact scheduled and Sicilian Husband, Blackmailed Bride will appear in March 2007. So now Sicilian 2 (Vito) and I will have to have some serious words about his story.

But first I'm travelling - heading out today towards a workshop I'm doing in Kent on Sunday. (Details are here if you're interested - there are still some places). But as the BM is also teaching - in Oxford - on Friday - we're staying there first and then heading for Kent. I'm looking forward to this workshop - it's the first time I've had a full day to teach and talk about writing romance and I plan to cram as much as I can into it - and hopefully have a lot of fun too

So If I don't manage to find a pojnt to plug my computer into anywhere, then I'll see you on Monday - have a great weekend.

Outed - so celebrating

Ah – I see that in a list of comments to my previous post I’ve been outed - and by my family of felines, not less – add a dash of dogs (a cluster of canines?) – and then there’s one Anne McAllister who, I suspect is behind this sudden rush to the keyboard of the furry bodied amongst us. So thank you all, Gunnar (the Great) Micah (who I hope has washed the mud off his beautiful fur) . Mitch – who is THREE and I hope also had a happy happy birthday yesterday. (And I hope that Anne offered some ear rubs from me to celebrate). Thanks also to Bob (who is indeed the King of Cats and at 17 an elder statesman too) Sid – yes birthdays do mean food (for you at least) , dear Ivan and his doppelganger Spiffy – and of course the ‘fiend’ Dyl the Vill (Villain)

So yes – for those who wondered what the ‘special day’ coming up was – here it is. Once upon a time, a long long time ago, in a town called Newark, Nottinghamshire, (see pictures) a little girl was born. My mother tells me I was born at 12.45 – and she knows this because I was born at home and just as I appeared, downstairs, lunch was just being served to my father and my two elder sisters.
So obviously I was always able to appreciate food – even then!

We only lived in Newark for another 18 months so I left when I was still tiny, but when I look at pictures of the place – like the ones shown here – I realise just why I have always loved towns or cities where there is a river, a castle and an old church. So my birthplace must have made a huge impression on me, through the eyes of a toddler, even though I can remember none of it now.

So it seems appropriate that, to celebrate the Big Day (the numbers involved in which are getting way too big for my liking!) that I should be heading for York together with the BM, the Offspring and his lovely girlfriend. York of course has the river, the castle, and the Minster – and it also has Bettys teashop (and no, there shouldn’t be an apostrophe there). In Bettys I shall enjoy a ‘birthday tea’ which makes me sound so much younger than I actually am.

But only yesterday someone asked if I would wish any of the years away – well, the age in years yes – but having reached this point in life I am just so happy with the way things are – with the wonderful family and friends I have the success of my books, the way my career has gone, and the life that I live – then No. If your birthday is a time for looking back then I’m pretty damn happy with the way things have gone – and if the birthday is a time to look forward – then great – I’m looking forward to more of the same!

Which, in my book makes it a Happy Birthday to me!

Publication day - I think?

I love writing for Harlequin Mills and Boon. I really do. I’ve always enjoyed reading the books, I enjoy writing them (well – sometimes – when the Sicilians aren’t being bolshy!). I love chatting to readers, working with writers. I’ve even learned to grit my teeth and smile through the ‘don’t you want to write a proper book?’ or the ‘pink and fluffy’ comments. A long time ago I got used to the fact that the books are only out on the shelves for a month. That has both advantages and disadvantages – the audience of readers out there (is it possible to have an ‘audience’ of ‘readers?) know when the books are out. They’re looking for them. When the new books come in, they grab them. The shelves are always being refreshed, the readers are always coming back . . .But of course you only have that month in which to sell.

Or do you?

Sometimes you have more. Sometimes less. It all depends on the whim of the book distributor, the shopkeeper and the staff they employ to actually put the books on the shelves. If the books have a publication date – as most Modern Romances like mine have - of the first Friday of the month (that’s the official publication date) then you can find the books in the shops any time from the previous week (so pushing off the shelves the previous month’s titles) or – if the shop hasn’t got round to organising it – any time in the next 21 or so day. Why 21 – after all a month has about 30 days doesn’t it? Ah yes, but there are those books that arrive ‘early’ - ie in good time for the next month – and so they take this month’s off the shelves to put the new ones on. So in some places you might just get a fortnight in which to have your book on display.

And then there are the books like my current USA release – The Married Mistress. This is not in the general run of Presents but in a special set of Promotional Presents – a selection of six books that appear every quarter and which are given a different publication date to keep them separate from the regular monthly run. Confuzzled? Yes - I know I was. And heaven alone knows what the bookshops think and when they put them out. I just have to pray they will put them on the shelves sometime.

But then there are the on-line stores, aren’t there? They make it easier – don’t they? Don’t they? They list the books and you can order them and – even better – the books stay in their stock long after the ones on the actual physical shelves in actual physical bookshops. Well yes – but when do they release them? Publication day – or some other day of their own choosing? This morning I had a quick browse in the online bookshops for TMM. The eHarlequin web site has had it listed and has been selling it for a month or so. Amazon.com lists it as being published on May 9th – so it is ‘not yet released’. In fact, it’s so ‘not yet released’ that someone I know who tried to order it via Amazon.co.uk – where it’s also listed as Publication date May 9th – put in their order when it was ‘not yet released’ – and then found that that order was cancelled because – apparently – publication of the book had been cancelled. Er – no! It’s ‘not yet released’ – not never released. And they now have it as available secondhand! Duh??

Meanwhile Barnes And Noble has been selling the book for the past 4 days – so much so that when I looked this morning TMM was actually at #1 on the B&N list of top-selling Harlequin Presents novels. (Pause for small shout of celebration – Yeah!!) And BAMM has it happily on sale too.

So what do I conclude from all this – nothing much except that somewhere, some day, somehow, The Married Mistress is supposed to be on sale in America some time in May. If you’re reading this from America and you want to read it, I hope you find it without too much trouble. It is out there – I think!

If anyone actually sees a copy, will they please let me know? I'm beginning to wonder . . . .

Special days for special friends

Today is an important day for two of the very special friends that my job as a writer has brought me. When I started out, with my first ever book published in 1984, I never thought beyond seeing that book on a shelf in a shop. Since then I've learned that the romance writng community, although far-flung and international, can be very close knit, warm and immensely friendly. Thanks to author meetings and the internet, I have met some of my favourite people in all the world - people I would never even have known existed if they didn't write for - or, in some cases, aim to write for, or work for the same publisher as I do.

As I said, today is an important day for two of these dear friends.

Firstly, Michelle Reid, who is celebrating her birthday today. Apart from being one of my special friends, Michelle is also a writer whose books I truly love and admire. If you haven't tried any of her novels, then I suggest you go out and find some soon! She does have a new book in September so you can spend the time in between then and now catching up on her backlist. (Oh I wish I hadn't said that! Now I want to go and do just that myself!)

Unfortunately, Michelle doesn't have a blog herself but you can always wish her Happy Birthday here, and I'll pass the messages along.


Also today my dear friend Anne McAllister has her second cataract surgery. At first, she didn't believe me when I told her the effect it would have just having one eye done. But now she does - and she's been enjoying seeing things properly after far too long.

So tomorrow, hopefully, when the blurring eases, she will see even more clearly.

And so, for her special delight - seeing as , in her comments on this blog, she has referred to the Fraudulant Feline - the one that pretends to be Sid but appears in guises and postures so undignified that Sid would never deign to be seen in - just so that she can see him in all his glory - here is

THE MAN (sorry - THE CAT ) HIMSELF

FRAUDULENT FELINE

And while I'm talking about Anne - sorry I'm a little late with this because a certain Sicilian got in the way - I should have mentioned that her book The Antonides Marriage Deal. Like Michelle, Anne is one of my favourite Modern/Presents auhtors. Her books are very diffferent from Michelle's - which is what I love about the scope of the Modern Romance line at it's best. With Sicilian 1 tweaked within an inch of his life and sent back to my editor who I hope will love him, I spent part of the Bank Holiday weekend curled up with Elias Antonides. No, I wasn't being unfaithful to the BM, just enjoying spending time with the hero of Anne's book. This guy is seriously addictive - once I started, I couldn't put him - sorry - the book - down. I'd lived with Elias, so to speak, from the moment he was a twinkle, or, rather the light of inspiration, in his author's eye, until the moment he too was 'tweaked' into shape and slipped into the publishing schedule. But although I knew quite a bit about him, I loved reading his story as a whole, meeting his sparky heroine Tallie and seeing them fight against their attraction, give into it, and finally head for their happy ever after.

A perceptive reviewer on Amazon.com said that reading The Antonides Marriage Deal

Reminded me of a Kathryn Hepburn and Spencer Tracy movie, the bantering, power
struggle, and sexual tensions

I'd agree with that.

Finally, I have another friend for whom this day is special too, but this year it has a poignancy that will make it difficult for her to get through. Marilyn, I'm thinking of you, and remembering Ron too.

In transition . . . bits and pieces

Short and sweet today as I'm in transition from one Sicilian to the next so I'm catching up on all my administration and finance matters so that I can start again with a clear - well, clearer slate!

So just to say - Congratulations to my friend Michelle Styles whose very first M&B Historical novel The Gladiator's Honour is out this month. I have my own copy beside my bed and I hope to spend some quality time with the handsome and intriguing Gaius Gracchus Valens when I get a break from Sicilian 2. I love the fact that I had a chance to give this book a tiny push towards publication and so it's a special thrill to see it in print and on the shelves - and, much as I love Regency romances, I'm also delighted to see Historicals branch out into other less 'well populated' periods of history. Look out for the book in shops now.

Seeing as I'm not posting much today, those of you who are interested in writing and learning more about the process may be interested in an interview I did with one of the owners of the We Write Romance web site , Terescia Harvey. She asked some really interesting and thought provoking questions and you can find the interview here. I've also done an interview for the WWR site about my next two books in America and that will be up on the site some time soon if you want to check it out. It's a great site to look around.

Thanks to anyone who followed my link from here to the Romance Junkies web site - they made the one million hits record they were aiming for with more to spare! Again if you're interested in writing they had their annual writing contest coming up soon - check out the site for details.

Finally, seeing as I'm passing on information to anyone interested in writing romance - if you live in the UK and are anywhere near Swanley, Kent - I will be running a full day workshop on writing romance there the weekend after next (14th May - They wanted it to be this weekend, 7th May but I have other plans for then!). Anyway, there are still places available for this - details can be found on my web site - Events page - or by emailing the organisers - Elaine Everest or Kelly Rose Bradford. I'm busy preparing for that right now - yet another of my administrative jobs. I think it's going to be a lot of fun - I'm going to cram as much as I possibly can into the day.