Caressed by Ice

I thought I'd be able to pick up Nalini's latest Psy book, Caressed by Ice, at the New Zealand conference - and of course get it signed by her!! - but unfortunately it hadn't yet hit the bookshops there. Boo! However, it's about to be released on 4th September and Nalini has a comp going on at her blog - a quiz to see which Psy/Changeling hero you're most like.


Here's my result - and I'm stoked because I just love the sound of this ice man Judd!!!








Your Psy/Changeling Hero: Judd


Quiet, lethally contained and almost impossible to know, Judd Lauren is a Psy with incredible power. It will take one determined woman to melt this man of ice...but the rewards will be well worth the effort. Are you up to the challenge?

Caressed By Ice

As an Arrow, an elite soldier in the Psy Council ranks, Judd Lauren was forced to do terrible things in the name of his people. Now a defector, his dark abilities have made him the most deadly of assassins—cold, pitiless, unfeeling. Until he meets Brenna…

Brenna Shane Kincaid was an innocent before she was abducted—and had her mind violated—by a serial killer. Her sense of evil runs so deep, she fears she could become a killer herself. Then the first dead body is found, victim of a familiar madness. Judd is her only hope, yet her sensual changeling side rebels against the inhuman chill of his personality, even as desire explodes between them. Shocking and raw, their passion is a danger that threatens not only their hearts, but their very lives…



Find out more about Judd and the series at http://www.nalinisingh.com/

Tag Time

This tag comes via Shelley Munro...

1. You have to post these rules before you give the facts.

2. Players, you must list one fact that is somehow relevant to your life for each letter of their middle name. If you don’t have a middle name, use the middle name you would have liked to have had.

3. When you are tagged you need to write your own blog post containing your own middle name game facts.

4. At the end of your blog post, you need to choose one person for each letter of your middle name to tag. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

Well now, Christina is actually my real second name, but no way can my poor brain come up with nine different facts about me, so I'm cheating and just using the first five letters.

C - I get really cranky when I don't write. and the rest of the time I'm just plain crazy. Chocolate helps calm my nerves but hates my butt. Heh!

H - Hoping to hook a hot-shot agent **Hummmmm** I also love hot fudge (well ok cold really but that doesn't begin with H)

R - Rest, relaxation and reading are my fave hobbies. Hence the big butt...

I - I love ice cream but it hates me. Last time I over-indulged my gall bladder popped. Icky!

S - I can sleep anywhere. And frequently do!

Thief With No Shadow

What a fabulous, haunting cover Emily Gee's debut novel, Thief With No Shadow has! It just screams out pick me up! And wow, I am so glad I did. A couple of days ago I thought I'd read the first chapter while I was having my lunch. I had a pile of stuff to do that day, but the problem was - once I'd started reading I could not put the book down!

And so that night, instead of giving my long suffering family roast potatoes and yorkshire pudding, they made do with mash and baked beans because that's so much less hassle to throw together while reading at the same time. Not that I let on because for some strange reason they don't have quite the same priorities as me - can't think why...

Anyway here is the blurb:

Melke is a wraith, able to walk unseen. Feared by all, hunted and hated, she has lost everything--except her younger brother. Now she is forced to do the unthinkable: in exchange for her brother's freedom, she must use her magical gift to steal.

Melke's thieving has devastating consequences. The stolen necklace was strung with tears, and without it Bastian sal Vere can't break the curse that is destroying his family--a curse that will reach its brutal climax at the next full moon. He strikes a desperate bargain with Melke: a healer to save her brother's life, in return for the necklace.

But undoing her crime may cost Melke her own life. The necklace is deep within a salamander's den, a place of flame and pain that no thief has ever returned from. And time is running short. The moon grows full, and someone must face the creature that laid the curse and suffer its terrible vengeance.

Almost Famous

I've become a bit of a lurker on Jenny Crusie's blog since the weekend. It's huge fun, and she has a post up of random Down Under bits which is hilarious. However, the REALLY fun part is - I'm in a photo on her blog! Oh yeah! How about that then?!

Thankfully I'm unrecognisable to anyone but myself, since I resemble a hunched up old crone in fetching black, but that aside I'm quite chuffed. It's a group pic of us all in the conference room, and I'm on the far side next to the way too elegant Amanda Ashby!

See my brush with fame here

Just Step This Way, Madam...

Of course, it wouldn't have been right without having a minor drama at the airport. Last Wednesday night as I made my way through Customs I thought, oh yeah this is all right, hey! I'm on my way!

My hand luggage didn't set of any alarms this time, and as I was wearing plain boots there was no chance of any dangly bits on my footwear setting off the flashing lights.

Heh. As I wandered away from the x-ray machine thinking so where the hell do I go now? this other custom official beckoned me over. With her long evil looking wand thingy. Yikes. You've been randomly chosen... she said but really, randomly? Was it because I had a look of bunny in the headlamps terror in my eyes or do I just give off an air of arch criminality?

Anyway it wasn't so bad. She skimmed me for explosives and then prodded in my bag. And then wanted to know, in a rather suspicious manner I thought, what I was going to be doing in New Zealand.

So I told her I was on my way to a writer's conference, and she actually smiled and thawed out by several degrees. Ah, the magic of romance writers! Still, being selected as a dodgy looking individual gave me a giggle, in fact as soon as she waved me over I had the worrying urge to giggle and had to keep chewing the inside of my lip so I wouldn't start grinning like a demented troll.

But I have another pic from the conference, which the lovely Emily Gee sent through. I do have to thank Emily for sorting me out at the Thai restaurant we went to last Thursday night. I'd never eaten Thai before, and didn't want to risk upsetting my delicate stomach *snort* with something over-spicy. Anyway she helped me select something which was very tasty, although I wasn't at all sure about the large sluggy looking things I discovered lurking in the rice.

Emily, Sara, Kate, Me, Amanda & Ellie

Conference Cocktail Party

This was huge fun being in a room full of women (and some men I hasten to add!) who all loved writing and romance. It was a bit like being a kid in a sweet shop - no matter who you spoke to, they all wanted to talk books! I kept expecting to wake up hahahaa!

Giovanna,Natalie, Barbara, Amanda & Cassandra

As you can see from the pics, Amanda brought her halos along, and Sara brought some gorgeous cherry jewellery, and by the end of the evening half the conference delegates were wearing Suzy's cherries and Holly's halos!

Later that night, as we were getting ready for bed, room service knocked on the door. Sara peered through the peep hole and said, we didn't order room service (well you can't be too careful and I had just watched that last episode of Medium...)

Turns out my lovely hubby had ordered pink bubbly to be delivered in celebration of my birthday the following day! Awwwwww!!!! He's such a romantic on the quiet!!

Me with the Ice Bucket

Conference 2007

Oh WOW! Back from the conference, fired up, motivated and

raring to go!

Amanda, Me & Sara

First off, it was absolutely wonderful to meet up with Sara and Amanda again. I'd been kind of worried in case there were awkward pauses but no chance! It was just as if we'd last seen each other a few weeks ago - they both looked exactly the same as they did in Leicester three years ago!

And what can I say about Jenny Crusie that hasn't already been said... OMG that woman is amazing. Even suffering from the flu she was motivational, witty and passionate and her workshop with Anne Stuart was hysterical!

Of course we had the double celebrations of both Amanda and Sara's debut novels hitting the shelves and it was just fantastic to be there in New Zealand and share in all the excitement.

More coming up tomorrow!

Two Days and Counting

Only two days until I'm on my way to the New Zealand conference! And, as is only right and proper, I came down with a stinking cold and sore throat over the weekend. Then today my youngest daughter came home looking somewhat zombified and is currently flat out on the sofa. Being the kind motherly person that I am, I'm trying to look after her without actually breathing her air space.

Sooo.... I've started to pack, have checked my passport a dozen times, read the airline's website once or twice and have also managed to avoid watching any of the disaster plane docus that are constantly on the telly (not easy since my husband has a sick addiction to programmes like that!)

It will be great to get together with Sara and Amanda again - I can't believe it's been three years since we last saw each other! - but I'm sure we'll make up for the lost time not spent at local bars. ha ha ha (!)

On the books front, I've just finished Phillipa Ashley's Decent Exposure. This is the first Little Black Dress book I've read and can I just say... wow!! I really enjoyed it, and intend to pick up a lot more LBDs in the near future.

Happy Release Day Amanda!

Hooray! It's finally here. The release day for You Had Me at Halo!

Huge congrats Amanda!

Holly Evans has just seen her body laid to rest. Now she would like to move onto the afterlife. But apparently she has some mortal baggage to unload first, starting with the matter of how she died. Her heavenly shrink isn't buying that she didn't kill herself and says she must return to earth to straighten things out. The thing is, she needs to borrow the body of computer geek Vince Murphy to do it. Oh, and although Vince was supposed to have vacated the premise, he apparently never got the memo.

Now, Holly has forty-eight hours to resolve her issues while sharing arms, legs, and...other things...with a guy she barely noticed while she was alive. But the real surprise is what life has to offer when you have only two days to live it.

"It's The Lovely Bones meets Bridget Jones in this fluffy take on what happens after death...it's a fun, witty traipse through the afterlife."

-Publisher's Weekly

"This book has a delightfully quirky concept that develops into a fun and interesting story. Peopled with a fascinating variety of characters, it also has an intriguing mystery and a charmingly different type of interaction between the hero and heroine. Expect a delightful tale with a wonderfully distinctive ending."

-Romantic Times 4 1/2 star

Countdown to Conference

Only nine more days and I'll be on my way to New Zealand! Omg it doesn't seem possible. It feels like only last week I was thinking about booking the flight, and now it's almost here!

I think I'm organised. Today I exchanged my Aussie dollars for NZ dollars and - gasp - have finally sorted out international dialling for my mobile. I'm about to dust off my youngest daughter's hot pink luggage (which I am borrowing...) and double check nothing I intend to wear on the flight will set off the alarms. (this happened to me the last time I travelled to the UK. On the stopover at Singapore, no less, I not only set off the alarms with my SHOES for god's sake!! but also had to open up my hand luggage as my make up brushes showed up on their x-ray screens as potentially lethal weapons. Like, yeah I am a dead ringer for Buffy!)

Whoops

I've done it again. Forgot all about my blog. But what with various nasty viruses doing the rounds, school holidays and major dramas concerning my two little princesses *inserts cough here* (no really they are little princesses, even if they do both tower over me now... sigh...) blogging got left by the wayside.

Not that I haven't been writing. Glances over shoulder to make sure nobody is checking up. I've been writing up a storm. Sort of. Apparently I have only two weeks left of this lazy life, as at conference my CPs are going to have Serious Words. eek!

Zombies Rule - Too Cool for School!

Fellow witch Amanda is having a cracker of a week - after a truly fabulous four and a half stars review for You Had me at Halo from no less than the Romantic Times, her agent has just sold Amanda's brilliant zombie YA novel in a two book deal to Puffin!

Go, Amanda!

Zombie Queen of Newbury High!!

Halo Honey

Check out Amanda's blog for the cutest promo idea ever!! I love it and I want one. Like, Right Now!!!

Second Virginity Cover!!

Fellow witch Sara Hantz finally has the cover for her debut YA novel - and it's absolutely perfect! I still can't upload pics but you can see it here. Aren't those cherries just too cool?? So exciting!

PS - I can now upload pics! Hooray!

Not a lot been happening on the writing front just lately, but I've been messing about with my Bebo account, and let me tell you, as a tool of procrastination there's not much that beats it!

Kanga Oooh!

I was driving my son to school this morning, and as we turned off the horrifically busy dual carriageway into the main road of a new estate that's being built, a HUGE kangaroo suddenly bounded across the road. The car in front of me slammed on the brakes, I slammed on the brakes, and all but climbed out of the window in excitement.

OMG! A kangaroo! He leapt across the road and into the scrubby bush beyond the school. But god knows where the poor bugger thought he was going, as within two minutes he'd hit another housing estate.

We've lived in Australia for over eight and a half years, and that's the first time anything like that's happened to me. There are wild kangaroos who frequent various golf ranges (not that I play golf but the one time I accompanied my brother it's kind of intimidating having those enormous bucks staring you down), and for sure you see them more frequently once you get more into the country (again - not that I ever have, discounting the distressingly high level of road kill) Just don't expect anything like that to happen when you're mere feet from roads which are close cousins to motorways.

It's an awful shame so much of their habitat is being eroded. I keep hoping this kangaroo had the sense to turn round and go back the way he came, because he was heading directly into the city. But having said that, I must admit seeing him quite made my day!

Agent Idol

So, I was chatting to Sara earlier today about the RWNZ conference in August, and getting very excited about it all, when somehow - and I'm not at all sure how - I found myself persuaded to enter the Agent two page critique workshop being held early on the Saturday morning.

This is a kind of Agent Idol, where the agent cold reads two pages of your manuscript and then proceeds to tell (everyone) whether or not it grabs her attention. An amazing opportunity to witness the workings of a top agent's mind to be sure, but is this something I'm quite up for?!

In fact the only reason I'm going along with it is because Kristin Nelson seems such a lovely person that I'm quite positive she won't morph into a scarified version of Simon Cowell once she starts reading the pages. And - I think - the pages are submitted anonymously so if i just sit there with a paper bag over my head no one will be any the wiser should she get to mine. Mind you the title of the workshop is a little eye popping - Cereal Killers - just hope that refers to the ungodly hour rather than anything else...

Waiting Game

With two requested fulls and a couple of requested partials out with agents, I'm in a permanent state of excited anticpation mixed with terror. Every time I turn on the computer my stomach churns in case I have an email from an agent. Then when I do have an email from an agent, I have to Gird My Loins before I open it. But I'm determined that this time around I am NOT giving up after hitting double figures. I really have to give Neo the best chance possible and getting fed up with the whole submission process within a month or so isn't exactly the way to go about things, especially since this ms is getting quite a bit of interest and positive comments.

In other news, my printer finally gave me the finger last night and gave up its coil. Gah. Will have to postpone any snail subs I had in mind for the time being. I also took some pics of the new office but unfortunately mislaid the digital camera immediately afterwards so have yet to upload! It's nice to be so organised!

Room with a View (of the side fence...)

When my two girlies left home three weeks ago, I was far from celebrating *sniffle*. Another milestone and not one I espeically wanted to cross thank you very much. But there you go. On the upside, they moved in together with another friend, their house is only five minutes away by car, and so far I've seen almost as much of them as I ever did when they lived at home.

Their moving out left us with a couple of spare rooms. OMG. So much spare space, my poor brain couldn't quite cope. After moving darling son into the larger room, my husband and I decided we would finally Have Our Very Own Office. Hooray! Up until now we've both had our desks and computers at the back of the family room which makes it very, umm, cosy but horribly messy.

So over the last week we've been shifting stuff, he's been decorating like a thing possessed and at the weekend we moved into the back bedroom. It's fantastic. At last I've got walls where I can display all my incredibly important bits and pieces (aka pics of my babies when they really WERE babies) plus spread out my books! Oh yay.

Now all I need to do is buckle down and write something but alas I think my muse has buggered off.

le sigh.

Slave to Sensation

I've just finished reading Nalini Singh's Slave to Sensation and all I can say is Oh My God. What a fabulous start to a new series. Lucas is one totally hot hero, Alpha to the core but sooo adorably protective of Sascha I completely melted. I'm already chomping at the bit to pay another online visit to Rendevous so I can snap up book 2, Visions of Heat, which looks just as riveting. And can I just say I hope Hawke is going to have his story told... hmmm??

Here's the blurb:

In a world that denies emotions, where the ruling Psy punish any sign of desire, Sascha Duncan must conceal the feelings that brand her as flawed. To reveal them would be to sentence herself to the horror of “rehabilitation”— the complete psychic erasure of everything she ever was….

Both human and animal, Lucas Hunter is a Changeling hungry for the very sensations the Psy disdain. After centuries of uneasy co-existence, these two races are now on the verge of war over the brutal murders of several Changeling women. Lucas is determined to find the Psy killer who butchered his packmate, and Sascha is his ticket into their closely guarded society. But he soon discovers that this ice-cold Psy is very capable of passion—and that the animal in him is fascinated by her. Caught between their conflicting worlds, Lucas and Sascha must remain bound to their identities—or sacrifice everything for a taste of darkest temptation…

Claiming the Courtesan

Hooray! At last I've read Anna Campbell's debut, Claiming the Courtesan (an Avon Romantic Treasure), and oh wow. It was well worth the wait. If you love hot romance, dark, tortured heroes and heroines who are anything but meek and accommodating, I thoroughly recommend this fabulous book.

Here's the enticing blurb... have been trying to upload the book cover but for some reason blogger is hating me today. Ho hum!

He would marry her, and possess her in every way possible.

The Duke of Kylemore knows her as Soraya, London’s most celebrated courtesan. Men fight duels to spend an hour in her company. And only he comes close to taming her. Flying in the face of society, he decides to make her his bride; then, she vanishes, seemingly into thin air.

Dire circumstances have forced Verity Ashton to barter her innocence and change her name for the sake of her family. But Kylemore destroys her plans for a respectable life when he discovers her safe haven. He kidnaps her, sweeping her away to his isolated hunting lodge in Scotland, where he vows to bend her to his will.

There he seduces her anew. Verity spends night after night in his bed… and though she still plans her escape, she knows she can never flee the unexpected, unwelcome love for the proud, powerful lover who claims her both body and soul.

And for my Next Trick...

I was thrilled to get a request for the full the other day, and dutifully checked both paper and ink levels. yep okay there. Bought a huge envelope. Started to read through the manuscript (yet again. I just can't seem NOT to read through it every time it's requested which means of course I'm sick to death of the thing).

So today I start printing and what happens when I get to page 20? Well, the printer decides to go on strike. bloody hell. I can't believe it. I've tried being nice to it, shouting obscenities at it, and giving its lid a few well placed bashes, but all to no avail. It's so annoying and frustrating because I can't see what the problem is (apart, of course, that it's NOT PRINTING). The green light is flashing away, mocking me which means it's plugged in (first question my other half will ask... ha!)

So I'm pretty pissed off at the moment as I'd planned to have this in the post this afternoon. Now I have to wait until my techno genius gets home to figure it out (and I bet it will be something really simple which will just make me madder than ever!)

I Married A Genius

No I haven't quite died a cyber death, but man it's been close. Good thing I happened to marry not only a Sheer Genius but someone with so much patience he obviously got my share as well. Said Sheer Genius spent so many hours sorting out the computer and my website (which for some mysterious and very annoying reason keeps deciding to vanish everytime I upload something to it. Hence, I haven't tried to fiddle with it for the last three weeks!) it was giving me a headache. But unlike me, he doesn't scream at the computer screen, froth at the mouth or tear his hair at technical glitches. He just sits there and does all kinds of incomprehensible things until it's sorted. Like I said, I married a Genius. Heh heh!

On the writing front, I finished the YA romance within three weeks and then spent at least that length again honing the blurb. And as for the title, well let's just Not Go There. I've never had so much trouble over a title, and titles are always something I struggle with but this one - unbelievable. My daughter even ended up asking her boyfriend for ideas!

So now it's onto the agent search and wait. So far I've had a very nice request rate so perhaps my blurb was worth all the blood sweat and tears after all!

Gremlins in the Works

Okay not quite gremlins. More like spiders. In my computer tower. Like, eew!!!

No wonder I was having so many computer woes!!

As my sister in law said it puts a whole new spin on the term web site!

Hopefully I'll soon be sorted again, as currently I'm working on two different computers, backing up all over the place (which is not a bad thing, but with my memory is very stressful as I try to remember where my most recent version now is!) and my emails are landing everywhere.

On the writing front, I've been very bad and put Angel to one side to work on my YA. Hopefully I'll have that one finished within the next couple of weeks and then it will be back to Angel. At least that's the plan, and a girl has to have a plan doesn't she?

Revamped

It's not that I'm stuck on my wip, since I'm still loving it, even though I did just realise I'm not sure how it's going to end (details!!) but I must admit I've been spending several hours revamping my website when I should have been tackling the next chapter.

I loved the black background of my old site, but decided it didn't quite gell with the tone of my writing. So I thought I'd give it a face lift and brighten it up.

For a techno-twit like me, that's a lot easier said than done. At least it didn't need prints to identify me (ha de ha) but apart from that it's like trying to wade through superglue.

Anyway, I finally uploaded it last night if anyone would like to take a quick squizz and discover how the witches came to be.

XX and Proud of It!

Not that I'm paranoid or anything, but I'm starting to think there's some kind of conspiracy going on with the computers at home. Now the laptop's finally accepted that yes, I am human (well most of the time) and lets me on to play, guess what? My pc decides to have a sulk.

For the last couple of days my monitor's been very iffy. When I say iffy, I mean not booting up. It just sits there completely blank. SO frustrating. Last night, when dh got home from work he gave the cables a tug, jiggled the monitor a bit and presto. On it went.

So this morning, when it refused to co-operate, I jiggled the cables, wobbled the monitor and switched it on and off a few times. Nothing.

Gah.

This afternoon, when dh arrives home from work, he just gives it a quick tug and would you believe it. On the bloody monitor goes without so much as a squeak.

I'd say how annoying, but I'm not going to because at least it's running. But honestly, how bloody annoying!!!! What is it with computers and their relationship with the Y chromosone? Are they chauvinistic, or just plain slutty?

I am an Alien

My darling husband has desperately wanted a new laptop for over a year now (ever since one of our equally darling daughters managed to make our old one explode... hmmm) unfortunately there's always been slightly more pressing things we needed to do with the credit cards such as paying the gas bill (borrrring...)

Anyway, I have a writer's retreat coming up and have to confess I wasn't looking forward to using pen and paper to do my writerly writings. I mentioned, in passing, what a shame it was we didn't have a spare laptop floating around, and had all but decided that I'd use the upcoming weekend as a chance to re-read some of my craft books.

OMG. The other afternoon darling husband comes home with a brand new shiny notebook. Much excitement ensued, especially when I discovered it was one of those posh ones where you have to use a finger print for security.

What fun! He embeds his prints no problem then I do mine. Correction, I attempt to do mine.

The computer rejected my first few tries with a very unfriendly big red cross. How rude.

But then things got nasty. When I attempted again, it told me NO JOINT DETECTED.

Umm, excuse me???

I tried again. The computer kindly explained the problem. NO PRINT DETECTED.

Well duh. Things are only funny for so long. By this time my son was almost hysterical with laughter, and my husband grabbed my finger and jammed it on the display panel. Several times. With no effect. (and as an aside, my fingers hurt for AGES afterwards!!)

He told me I wasn't covering the entire panel. Well, how was I supposed to make my finger wider??

I even tried washing my hands but to no avail. The Computer Did. Not. Like. Me.

Ah. The wonders of technology. What's so bad about a good old fashioned password, that's what I'd like to know???

Barefoot Bride

Had some nice news this morning. I received an email from the lovely Jessica Hart saying I'd won her Harlequin Mills & Boon March release Barefoot Bride. Yay me! I love winning books! Jessica's website has recently been updated, so if you haven't visited for a while, pop over and have a look.

WA Writers Retreat

Angel is moving along and I'm up to just over 20k. My only worry here is I'm going to run out of words at the 50k mark. Then again, I thought that with Kill Lill and ended up having to cull several thousand just to get it under 100k. Hmm. Definite pattern there.

Nothing much else to report on the writing front, except to give a big shout out to Julie Anne from the Clayton's Conference fame. She's doing a great job of getting together romance writers living in WA, and is organising a writers retreat in a few weeks time, right on the ocean's edge. Talk about inspiration! Not only that, but she's also set up a brilliant website WA RWA. Pop along and have a look (and drool over the gorgeous setting of the retreat!)

But they ARE Real People!

Anna's comment the other day on how our characters are so real to us, got me thinking. Because it's true. My characters are real to me, not just figments of my imagination, but living breathing people, with hopes, fears and expectations of their own. I know every other writer will completely understand that, just as many non-writers will think I'm totally barking!

And they don't just take over and become real people when I sit down to channel their thoughts. They're in my head all the time, whether I'm ironing (tho I must be honest here - I so rarely use the iron it has cobwebs... ), burning dinner or being the on call taxi service to my darling off-spring. Occasionally other thoughts might intrude, such as - bloody hell, I've forgotten to buy the groceries again - but they are fleeting since let's face it, grocery shopping is borrrrrring! And listening to our characters is way more fun.

I have this huge fear that one day I'll wake up and there won't be anyone chattering away inside my head. Not only would I go insane if deprived of my writing outlet, but how in the world would I occupy my mind??? All that grey matter jiggling about with nothing to focus on. Nightmare!

Angel (no, not THAT Angel... hahahaa)

Last weekend a new idea hit me. Instead of the straight contemp romance I'd been planning (and which I have about a million scribbled notes about), this streetwise angel set up residence in my head and wouldn't budge.

Now, the germ of this idea first sprang into life about eight years ago but I hadn't thought about seriously revisiting it. Not too sure why, because it has all the slightly odd elements I enjoy writing about. I think it was psychological - a truly lovely editor spent a long time with me on that original manuscript and it was accepted for publication, only for the publishing company to go into liquidation.

Anyway, for some reason last Saturday it was all I could think about, and what's more this time around the angel wasn't taking any back seat in the story or being an ambiguous 'is he or isn't he really there' kind of character. Oh no. This time he has Issues, he has Attitude - and he also has a couple of secrets he's conveniently 'forgotten' to tell my heroine.

So this is good news for me, apart from the small fact that I'm flying into the mist with it - a truly terrifying prospect for someone who usually plans and outlines to within an inch of her life! The slightly not so good news is I've stopped querying agents on my last one. oops. This is getting to be a very bad habit. On the plus side, I still have requested partials out there on two separate novels, so I'm just going to see how it goes.

One last thing - the lovely Anna has mentioned my blog in her Favourite Things! Go check out her website and if you haven't yet, don't forget to read the excerpt of her upcoming Avon release, Claiming the Courtesan.

Name Tags

Sara tossed out a fun tag, so here's my effort:

1. YOUR REAL NAME: Christina

2. YOUR GANGSTA NAME: (first three letters of your name, plus izzle) Chrizzle. I could live with this one

3. YOUR “FLY Guy/Girl” NAME: (first initial of first name, first three of your last) Cphi. I look like an element

4. YOUR DETECTIVE NAME: (fav color and fav animal) Lavender Kitty

5. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, Street you live on): Chrizzle Breaker. Convoy, anyone??

6. YOUR STAR WARS NAME: (the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first name, first 3 letters of mom’s maiden name) Phichher try saying this without spraying everywhere

7. SUPERHERO NAME: (favorite color, favorite drink) Lavender Bacardi or whisky

8. YOUR STRIPPER NAME: (the name of your favorite perfume/cologne/body spray)Beautiful/Intuition/White Linen... just call me Estee

9. YOUR WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (mother & father’s middle name)Herbi Wood I'd be a nymph what else!

Jenny Crusie is a Goddess

Last night I read through the online writing workshop Jenny Crusie and Bob Mayer are doing on their blog - He Said, She Said. OMG. If you haven't dipped your toe over there yet go at once! It is amazing. I became really sucked into the protag/antag lesson and then followed the discussion over to Jenny's Cherryforums. It's absolutely NOT procrastination, I promise.

So I'm reading through and then I got one of those total BAM moments. Literally. It was just one little sentence but it really jiggled my brain. Jenny was talking about the antagonist, and this is the line I had to read three times... and then copy down. '... the antagonist is NOT the bad guy, he's a character who has his own goals and motivations.'

Bing! I know it's obvious to everyone else but in my head (which as the witches are well aware is a very scary place to be) the antagonist = villain. NO!! Oh wow. This is a personal revelation. I always have characters doing their best to screw things up for my heroine and hero, but I just hadn't realised that was my antag. Duh. It's amazing how one little sentence can clear the fog from the brain.

On the Hunt

Phew. It's hot. Knocking 40 degrees for the last couple of days and more of the same for the next week. Even when I sit right next to the air con, it's like I'm in an oven. Not very conducive to writing! haha. Oh well that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it (literally... eww ok too much info there)

Well it's That Time again. When I start looking for agents. I recently realised that when it comes to agent hunting, I am a bit of a wimp. I have a list of about 15-20 and that's about it - I then move on to my next project. I just heard of someone landing their agent after querying over 150 agents. Eek! After I picked my eyeballs up off the desk and adjusted my specs (and rearranged my brain which was having a fun time squelching inside my head) I decided this time I really have to be rather more proactive. So we'll see how I get on with that!

It's Australia Day today so it's barbeques all round. I'm off to light up the barbie and slap on the steak. Yum!

Happy New Year Again!

Another year over. Welcome to 2007 and hope everyone has a happy, peaceful and successful year. Hmm yes I know it's a week late but you know what they say...

So what have I been doing? Quite a lot, but unfortunately not a lot on the writing front which is why I've been a bit quiet on the blog.

Hubby's neice had her baby last week which was lovely news. Of course officially that makes me a great aunt, but since when can a twenty nine year old be a great aunt... so we'll just forget about the generational thing I think! The baby looks adorable and it's times like these that we really miss not being closer to family.

I joined the RWNZ just before Christmas, but am just waiting for confirmation. Hope it didn't get lost in the post since this is the first step for me making it to the conference in August. It's going to be very special, not only will we be able to celebrate Amanda and Sara's debut books hitting the shelves but my birthday falls right in the middle of the conference weekend (oh and did I mention my dh is also accompanying me?!)

By the way what's with the new blogger thing? I thought I was on the new blogger but now apparently we are out of beta...

Finito

At the end of last week I finally typed The End on Crazy. What a relief that was. I had nightmares of the final chapter hanging on until Christmas which would've made me right cranky. The lovely witches read through the whole thing over the weekend and can I just say a huge thank you girls! Especially re suggestions to bring the internal conflict forward. So that's something for me to tackle once the turkey's been scoffed.

Other news - I sent off my fee to join the RWNZ today, which is the first step towards me attending the New Zealand conference next year. I'm so excited!

Also thinking of resurrecting my shelved YA. The one that started off as a YA idea, but by the time fingers touched keyboard morphed into a paranormal romance. But I think it might work better overall as a YA romance. Hmm. We'll see!

Top Five Christmas Songs

I've been tagged by the fragrant Sara so here we go

Top five Christmas songs

Last Christmas by George Michael or was it Wham. I have a feeling it was Wham. Wow, does that one take me back. I loved the snowy video to this song as well.

Merry Christmas Everybody by Slade. Well just because it's sooo loud and happy!

Do They Know It's Christmas. Because it made me think.

Hark the Herald Angels Sing. I adore this carol. I can't sing to save my life, and my rendition of this sends brave men into hiding, but I don't care. It's just a gorgeous song.

Happy New Year by Abba. Okay no comments because I chose an Abba song!! And it might not strictly qualify as a Christmas song but New Year is close enough. And the words always send shivers along my arms. I can NOT believe this was in the charts way back in 79. It's totally not possible.

Prescription for Happiness

Received a couple of early Chrissy pressies today, when fellow witch Pat's most delicious Christmas cake arrived. Hooray! I brought it into the house, and my son sort of leapt on it. I kid you not. He said, 'Is this the cake we had last year?' and without waiting for a reply began to rip it open. 'I can smell it already!' he yelled (the alcohol, he meant... not that I'm raising a lush or anything...) and mmmm my stomach is rumbling as I type since I'm dying to dig in with a good dollop of cream!

Enclosed in the parcel was a copy of the People's Friend Story Collection, Prescription for Happiness by Patricia Posner, aka Our Pat! I'm hopping mad my digital camera isn't working, since I want to take a pic of the gorgeous cover and upload it here. But it's lovely, with the most adorable little girl on the front which is a good thing, since I'd always imagined little Pippa to be that cute!

So... Huge Congrats to Pat!

Hot or Not

I stumbled across the Cover Cafe Contest earlier, and spent way too long looking through all the categories. There are some truly gorgeous covers about, and then there are - um - well, to put it kindly, not so hot ones. Here's the link if you fancy a bit of a procrastination!

Halo Cover Analysis

The lovely Kate Allan has a very informative blog, Marketing for Authors. She's currently analysing the marketability, aka the BUY ME! factor of book covers, and yesterday cast her eye over Amanda's You Had Me at Halo. It's a fascinating read, and impressive just how accurately Kate assessed Amanda's book from the cover (which, let's face it, totally rocks!)

Proud Mama Moment

It was my son's Year 7 Graduation Ceremony this morning, so the girls and I got there nice and early so we could get a good seat in the front row. I told them I might shed a tear or two, which didn't go down too well but hey this is my baby we're talking about. It doesn't seem possible he's been at this school for eight years, and on Friday will be leaving for good. Where's that adorable little four year old with the cherubic face and golden curls?

So then onto the prize giving, and to my delight he won a Citizenship Award and the Guiness Book of World Records. Darling daughter #2 whooped - which was a bit embarrassing since nobody else whooped at any time during the ceremony! - but annoyingly the digital camera chose that very moment to expire. Grrr!!!

20 Christmas Things You Never Wanted to Know

Sara tagged me, so here goes!

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate? Never tried egg nog, sounds foul!
2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? OMG definitely wrapped. With shiny ribbons and curly bows...
3. Coloured lights on tree/house or white? Used to be coloured, but a few years ago I tried to get co-ordinated, so now they are white candles
4. Do you hang mistletoe? No
5. When do you put your decorations up? First weekend in December. ARGH. That means this weekend...!
6. What is your favourite holiday dish? Roast turkey. Roast potatoes. Cranberry sauce. Try cooking that lot in 40 degree heat
7. Favourite holiday memory as a child? My brother and I opening our Christmas pressies early in the morning sitting on our parents bed (they were still half asleep at the time...)
8. When did you learn the truth about Santa? I'm still looking - cause the truth is out there...
9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? No
10. How do you decorate your Christmas Tree? The kids do it now
11. Snow! Love it or dread it? Love it when I'm inside looking through a window. Dread driving in it. okay so I just totally pinched Sara's line for this!!!
12. Can you ice skate? No
13. Do you remember your favourite gift? Hard to choose just one. So I'm not going to. Ha!
14. What's the most important thing about the holidays for you? Family getting together
15. What is your favourite holiday dessert? Pat's Christmas cake... with cream! Chocolate liqurers, dainty little shortbreadish biscuits with cream...I like cream...
16. What is your favourite holiday tradition? Um, stuffing ourselves with Christmas turkey?
17. What tops your tree? Angel.
18. Which do you prefer giving or receiving? Giving.
19. What is your favourite Christmas song? Last Christmas
20. Candy Canes! Yuck or Yum? Nah, they make my teeth scream

Gift of the Goddess

Phew, feast your eyes on this pretty boy, girls!

Being what you might call a bit of a virgin when it comes to erotica, I wasn't quite sure what to expect when I bought Denise Rossetti's Gift of the Goddess (well okay, I'd read plenty of excerpts on Ellora's Cave, but I'd never read an entire novel before!)

Oh. My. Goddess. This book is hot hot hot! Once I started reading I couldn't put it down or - since I have it as an e-book - couldn't tear my eyes from the screen. It wasn't just that the sex was scorching (it was!) or that I learnt a couple of things along the way (umm... I did...!!) there was also a cracking plot, fabulous fantasy world and wonderful love story. My personal fave hero (there are two and I'm going to leave that to your imagination...) was Mr Gorgeous, pic above, and I'm not surprised Denise loves her cover because it totally rocks!

Updates

Nothing much to report in my writing life, since I seem to have spent the last couple of weeks racing around like a headless chicken doing all sorts of non-writerly related stuff. At least I've managed to post off a couple of Christmas parcels to the rellies in the UK which is majorly amazing as usually I'm still panicking about doing that come15th December.

as for my ModX. Amanda once said her wip is the story that wouldn't die. Well all I can say about my wip is it's the story That Will Not End. After chopping out 21k, the word count is slowly creeping up again, and I'm currently at almost 62k with still three chapters to go (or thereabouts). On the plus side I still love this story which is surprising considering it's the third total rewrite I've given it!

Oops I did it again

Haven't blogged for ages again, I mean, so thought I'd better check in just to prove I'm still alive. heh.

Sooo what's been happening... lots of family stuff and children's birthdays, not so great news from rellies in the UK which is upsetting, and trying to get organised so Christmas doesn't rush up on me when I'm all unprepared, which is my normal MO!

Writing wise I am still wading through the last 40 odd pages of my Mod X. On the good side though I did manage to cut 21,000 words from the original - so now I'm 2k under the line's word count.

Two more fabulous agents requested partials of Kill Lil last week so I'm in a constant state of nervous excitement. More nerves than excitement if I'm honest but who wants tmi?!

Tagged & Tickled

Thank you Amanda for tagging me! And here we go...

To help other writers by providing access to a repository of information, all drawn from personal experience, I am to list five things not commonly known about me. If my personal experiences prove interesting to writers out there, published or unpublished, they are free to contact me to draw from my vast wisdom.

1. I was 8 months pregnant and at the christening of my dh's neice. I consumed 5 helpings of trifle (what can I say, it was delicious?) Towards the end of the afternoon I started to feel a bit... full. The indigestion got worse, we went home. Did I need to go to the hospital, concerned dh wanted to know. Nah, I assured him, I was fine and besides it was World Cup year and he wanted to watch the match. Went to bed. Settled down. I decided I needed to go to the hospital. hehe. Ended up losing all that lovely trifle (over the doctor. he was not impressed) and having an emergency C section. Aah sweet memories!

2. I've had 23 inches of intestine removed which is why I have to graze constantly on such goodness as chocolate, latte and pastries (er, well because stuff goes through me more quickly, see, and leaves me all empty and hungry?)

3. When I woke up after having my gall bladder removed, my dh was at my bedside. He gazed lovingly into my eyes and said, 'Guess what?' I began to sniffle with emotion, sure he was about to tell me how dearly he adored me. He raised his hand and showed me a plastic tube. 'The surgeon gave me your gall stones to take home!'

4. When I was a child I went to watch Crackerjack and got to go up on stage at the end of the show and meet the stars. All I remember is being told 'DON'T CROWD MICHAEL ASPEL!' I was so traumatised I completely ignored him after that!

5. It doesn't matter how many times I watch it, every time I see that clip of the baby elephant peeing and poo-ing all over the Blue Peter studio, I end up weeping with laughter. In fact I'm sniggering now as I type!

A note from Sharon, the creator of People Collection posts: "PLEASE LEAVE THE FOLLOWING IN ALL ‘PEOPLE COLLECTION’ POSTS:Remember that it isn’t always the sensational stuff that writers are looking for, it can just as easily be something that you take for granted like having raised twins or knowing how to grow beetroot. Mind you, if you know how to fly a helicopter or have worked as a film extra, do feel free to let the rest of us know about it :-)"

I tag Monica and Nell!

Sara has also tagged me, so will be back soon with more marvellous... er.... moments!

Two Weeks Notice

MySpace admin sent me a warning the other day which totally cracked me up. They'd discovered I hadn't put my right age on the profile (so who's to say I'm not really 100 years old then?!)

Anyway, I got slapped wrists for pretending to be older than I am and got two weeks to put it right. yeah okay! I got the impression they thought I was under 18 ( and I understand the reasoning, protecting under age users etc...) however how on earth can they really police it?

But it reminded me of the time when I was 16 and pretended to be two years older in order to get into see an X-rated movie. Ha. Catch me doing that now! That led on to me remembering the numerous Friday lunchtimes when my friend and I used to get happily plastered in local wine bars (I think I might have just given away how ancient I am!) before staggering back to work. And we were NEVER asked to show any ID before being served. At least, not until we went out celebrating my friend's 18th birthday when, for the first time ever, we were actually legal - and had to prove it. My friend was livid!

Things to Do

Omg. how totally cute is this cover? Look at that adorable little face!

I've been looking forward to reading the lovely Nell Dixon's Things to Do for ages. There's romance, suspense and laugh out loud moments as the heroine, Emma, gets herself deeper into trouble at every turn. I'm loving it!

As an aside, when Miss Snark ran her Crapometer for synopses a while back, this is one of the few that cracked her up!!

Off the Planet

As if I didn't already know, I've now been stripped of any delusion that I harbour a shred of techno-savvy. For the last few days (feels likes months!) I've been building a website on FrontPage. Hmm. After about an hour of trying to open FrontPage, I emailed Amanda to ask her how.

She told me.

Yay! I opened the page and subsequently had to email the poor girl every half hour to ask her what to do next! A.R.G.H. During the last week Amanda's held my cyber hand and poured gin laden tea down my throat to calm my frazzled nerves. I bet she wished she'd never encouraged me to do the bloody thing now!

Because I have no wish to embarrass myself further, I'm going to cut a Very Long Story Short (will just add that building the site on FrontPage faded into rose tinted nostalgia when I tried to figure out the mysteries of Freeparking, Godaddy and transferring my pages into the folder! NIGHMARE CITY is all I can say!) and am desperately relieved to announce my new webpage is now up and working!

Claiming the Courtesan

Wow. I just had to share Anna Campbell's cover for her debut novel coming from Avon in April 07, Claiming the Courtesan. Is this dark and sexy or what? I think the Cover Goddess is excelling herself just lately!

Phew

A couple of days ago I thought it would be a good idea to convert my blog over to the beta version. Umm, hello! Good idea not!

Okay I exaggerate. But my blog was in transit for two whole days! Two days when I couldn't log on and seriously thought it had got lost in the mysteries of cyberspace.

Thankfully, it finally arrived. And I have to say the people at Blogger are very nice and helpful, and whether it was coincidence or not within a few minutes of my third email to them this morning (Oz time) they had replied, said they'd looked into my account and the confirmation email was on it's way. In fact it arrived at exactly the same time.

So, I had a little play with the new features but haven't really worked them all out yet as I haven't a clue why some of the links and headings are odd colours. But to be honest I'm just so relieved I have my little blog back I'm not too worried about all the details!

OMG Halo Has a Cover!

Look at this fabulous cover! OMG it's absolutely perfect! I was so excited by Amanda's news I dragged my youngest daughter over to upload the pic for me!

Can't wait for August 2007 when You Had Me At Halo finally hits the shelves! Hooray!

Tweaking

The lovely witches are reading through Kill Lil again which is no small thing considering it's a hefty 402 pages in TNR. Eek! I've been through the whole ms once over the weekend, tweaking as per suggestions from Sara and I'm hoping to have this baby out the door on Wednesday.

Fingers crossed!

Good News Friday

Hooray. I'm so excited. A top NY agent just emailed and asked to see the full of Kill Lil. That's after having read the partial, so I'm stoked to know she likes my voice so far! And I only posted it off to her a month ago.

So now I'm off to read it (again...) and see if there's any more polishing/editing/tweaking that needs to be done. Hopefully there won't be too much, since I've gone through this ms sooo many times during the pre-submission process.

In other good news - I got my acknowledgement letter from Mills & Boon today for the Modern Xtra I sent them a couple of weeks ago. I was getting a bit paranoid, thinking my sub had got lost in the post but thankfully not. The editor ref is Sha, and being nosy I went and had a poke through the archives on eharlequin to discover who she is!

Pink Heart Society

There are some weird people out there. People who bash Romance because it has a Happy Ending. Well duh. What's so bad about that? I like reading books with happy endings. In fact I try to avoid books that I know are gonna make me cry since I hate feeling depressed - but that doesn't mean I bash books where everyone dies at the end. Or in the middle. Or even at the start (unless it's a romance. Then I'd get cranky).

It's the same with chick lit. I think that gets as much negative press as romances and why? Because they are hugely popular and masses of people (okay, probably masses of women) read and enjoy them. But is that any reason to look down noses?

Well. So I'm gonna say it here and now. I love reading romance. All types of romance. Historical, contemporary, hot and steamy (can't wait for Anna's book to hit the shelves!!) or tender and sweet and every flavour inbetween, including paranomal and time travel. I also happen to love Stephen King (he hooked me on my honeymoon. No, I am NOT going to say anymore about that... heh) where characters frequently die horrible deaths, and Tess Gerritsen (ditto), so it's not that I'm averse to bumping off fictional characters. Just depends on my mood at the time.

So, in honour of all books category, the Pink Heart Society was formed, and if I wasn't such a techno-dunce I'd put the little dancing pink heart up here on my blog. Unfortuately whenever I tried copying the code all it did was make the font go wonky. Sigh. As soon as I either work it out, or bribe my daughter to lend me her brain, I'll put it up.

Update Hooray! the lovely Ally Blake pointed me in the right direction and now I have my very own dancing heart on my blog!

The Boss's Convenient Bride

The Boss's Convenient Bride

I had a lovely surprise in the mail the other day, a signed copy of Jennie Adams debut Silhouette Romance book, The Boss's Convenient Bride, which I won at the Clayton's Conference a couple of weeks ago.

This is such a lovely, feel-good romance, and left me all warm and tingly as Nicholas gradually realised he felt a whole lot more for Claire than simple old lust. heheh. Don't you love to see a hot guy suffer? Claire is more than a match for her boss, although she does have to contend with a right pain of a sister who manages to screw up all her plans. Well, almost! And the epilogue had me sighing with a big happy smile on my face.

This is a September release in North America, with Jennie's Her Millionaire Boss hitting the shelves the following month. Unfortunately us Down Under have to wait until November for that one!

Bye Bye Pluto, Bye Bye

So, just like that, poor old Pluto is no longer classified as a planet. Instead of seven planets in the solar system we now have eight, and a new category of 'dwarf planets'.

Well, duh. If scientists can do that, I don't feel at all bad making up my own fantastical universes where the sun and moon inhabit the sky at the same time whenever the fancy takes me. Actually, I never have felt bad about doing that, but I have to say I do feel a bit weird about having the planet Pluto demoted like that.

But times change. When I was at school I was taught dinosaurs became extinct because they were too big, slow and stupid to survive (umm wake up call... they survived for how many millions of years on earth before they were wiped out? And humans have been around exactly how long by comparison...?)

This of course has nothing to do with writing, and the title has nothing to do with Pluto and everything to do with me playing Bye Bye Baby by the Bay City Rollers this morning. I guess I am feeling kinda nostalgic. By the way, anyone remember the BCRs?!

Slave to Sensation - Nalini Singh

This is a brilliantly cool idea for online book promotion - see below!

I am participating in a blogging experiment hosted at dearauthor.com. To enter the contest, put up this blurb, image, and trackback and you are entered to win the following prize package.

$200 Amazon gift certificate
Signed copy of Slave to Sensation
New Zealand goodies chosen by Singh
ARC of Christine Feehan's October 31 release: Conspiracy Game

You can read about the experiment here and you can download the code that you need to participate here.

SLAVE TO SENSATION Nalini Singh Berkley / September 2006

Welcome to a future where emotion is a crime and powers of the mind clash brutally against those of the heart. Sascha Duncan is one of the Psy, a psychic race that has cut off its emotions in an effort to prevent murderous insanity. Those who feel are punished by having their brains wiped clean, their personalities and memories destroyed.

Lucas Hunter is a Changeling, a shapeshifter who craves sensation, lives for touch. When their separate worlds collide in the serial murders of Changeling women, Lucas and Sascha must remain bound to their identities…or sacrifice everything for a taste of darkest temptation.

Excerpt

Featured Attraction

Well, yum. The hero of Julie's debut M&B Modern Extra, Featured Attraction, is hot, funny and totally irrisistable. And did I mention hot...?

Besides having a little accident while *ahem* cooking dinner (for some weird reason my family thinks it's slightly warped to read in the kitchen - who knew) I had to escape to the bathroom to finish reading about Jack and Kitty. Hey, no way was I going to leave myself hanging after they managed to lock themselves in a deserted movie theatre with only popcorn, chocolate covered raisins and multi-flavoured condoms for company (and I wasn't disappointed there...waggles eyebrows)

I loved the way Jack dug himself into a bigger and bigger hole (at times literally!) and oh yeah what's with this John Cussuck thing going on?!

Can't wait to read more of Julie's work, and hopefully not so belatedly next time!

The Gladiator's Honour

I've just finished reading Michelle Styles's The Gladiator's Honour, her debut Mills and Boon Historical Romance, and wow. What a fantastic book. I absolutely loved the tortured Valens, cruelly sold into slavery and gladitorial combat, and really felt for him as he battled to win back his honour and family name. Julia Antonia, his Roman noblewoman heroine, is torn between loyalty to her father, and love for Valens. In ancient Rome a match between a patrician and slave is forbidden, and towards the end of this story I was completely choked up.

The Gladiator's Honour has received rave reviews, and yesterday won the Cataromance Historical Romance award - congratulations, Michelle! And who better to present the award than the divine Orlando Bloom?!

Michelle's next historical is A Noble Captive, and I'm really looking forward to reading it.

Next on my tbr pile is Julie Cohen's debut M&B Modern Romance Extra - Featured Attraction - which also won the Cataromance award yesterday. I'm hoping to hide from the family tomorrow so I can finish it in one sitting!

Clayton's Conference

And what is the Clayton's conference I hear you ask.. well I will tell you. The Aussie RWA conference was held at the Gold Coast last weekend, but for those of us unable to attend there was... ta da... The Clayton's!

Julie Anne did a magnificent job of organising our online conference, with a Q&A session with Mary Hawkins on Friday and a workshop with Desire author Bronwyn Jameson on Saturday. Then on Sunday we had an online brainstorming session where we also fantasised about which author we were going to be when we grew up (Susan Elizabeth Phillips & Carly Phillips were mentioned - I'm sort of half way there with the surname, right?)

We had a short story competition which had to include the code word 'Amethyst', which I'm ashamed to say I didn't enter (must try harder). All the entries were amazing, the judging was a close call and we ended up with a three way tie!

Over the weekend we submitted chapters to be critted, and some of the girls have formed a new crit group. We drank heaps of cyber bubbly, scoffed a mountain of cyber (and in my case not so cyber oops) chocolate, and stayed up late chatting on messenger (good job my dh was away that weekend!)

Romance writers really are lovely. Several authors generously donated their books and critiques as prizes for our conference, and I won Jennie Adams debut novel for M&B Harlequin Romance, The Boss's Convenient Bride, and also Bron's 2006 RITA finalist, The Rich Stranger.


As a PS... I had no idea why it was called Clayton's and not wishing to appear a complete ignoramus at the conference I asked Amanda. Here's what she told me...

Claytons is/was a non-alocholic drink and the tagline
was 'the drink you
have
when you're not having a
drink' so anything that is claytons is
like a
pretend
thing, hence clayton conference. See, learn knew
stuff
everyday!

Mr Gorgeous

I had a yummy surprise in my mailbox yesterday afternoon, in the form of Mr Gorgeous.

Okay, so it wasn't actually Mr Gorgeous in person, but his pic sizzles and looks very inspirational up on my wall next to the computer.

If you want a peek at this hot bod, check out Denise Rossetti's website (warning! hot stuff! Over 18 only!) He's the delicious hero from her upcoming Ellora's Cave debut, Gift of the Goddess. If he's the gift I'm next in line, hehehe. Ahem. Great review of him on Cover Snark, too!

The Synopsis Has Landed

Why is writing a synopsis such a pain in the butt?

Over the years I've tried so many different ways of doing the thing, but none of them quite made sense to me. A couple of years ago Sara nudged me in the direction of Kathy Carmichael, and I have to admit after reading her brilliant workshop notes, a few tiny lightbulbs flickered in my brain. Yeah, only a few and they only flickered, but trust me, that's a huge improvement.

Sooo... last week it was time to tackle Lil. Urgh. I spent hours and managed one whole page. Yay me! I knew I should've struggled onward but since I felt like I'd just done ten rounds with a couple of Sumo wrestlers (not in a good way) I thought, 'Tomorrow!' (stop singing. You know who you are...)

I just find it really hard to know how much detail to put in. Too much emphasis on the relationship and it sounds like there's no plot. Too much plot and the relationship is buried. Double argh. I dtiched the sub-plots, excised all names but five (but they are Really Important Names...) and it came in at three pages exactly.

My lovely fellow witches gave it the once over and came up with ways to tighten and focus, which I duly undertook today, and I think it's okay. Sort of.

Here's hoping!

Acting Your Age... or not...!

When my sister-in-law and I were sixteen, we'd look at Old People messing about and say, why don't they just act their age? Everyone knew you were totally past it by the time you hit thirty, so why were they pretending to be teenagers?

Ha ha. Guess what. I hit thirty and didn't feel Past It at all. In fact I didn't feel that much different inside from when I had at sixteen.

The other day it occurred to me that my eldest daughter is the same age I was when I became engaged to her father. I had a bit of a wibbly moment because how on earth did that happen? Has there been a rip in the space time continuum, flash forwarding me into the future? I mean, come on. No way can my own daughter be that old already!

See, I don't feel old inside (I'm ignoring the dodgy bits of me that wake up each morning feeling about hundred). My daughters have long given up being scandalised by my behaviour on msn (my god, you act sooooo juvenile! is one of the more polite phrases aimed my way) although my son cringes big time when I inadvertently use the word 'cool' in his presence. hehehe. Like I would do that on purpose?? After all, parents don't even know that word, so how can they use it?

No matter whether I'm writing a contemporary romance or one set in the far distant past, my protags emotions are still the driving force of the story. Will my gorgeous, sexy hero and kick ass heroine grow boring and staid in their older years? I don't think so. Age is definitely just a state of mind, and a lot of things don't change nearly so much as we think they will when we're in the middle of the angsty teenage years.

So how old are you inside, where it really matters?!

Contest Promo

From Lauren Barnholdt's Blog Introducing....THE REALITY CHICK BUZZ THE BOOK contest!

The PRIZES:(1) Your choice of either an iPod Shuffle, OR a fifty dollar Amazon.com gift certificate
(2) An autographed copy of REALITY CHICK by Lauren Barnholdt
(3) A copy of the August issue of Teen People, which lists REALITY CHICK as a Can't-Miss Pick for August
(4) Free tuition to a session of Lauren's YA writing class

THE CONTEST:

STEP ONE: Simply copy and paste this whole message (including the info about the contest) into any blog, message board, email list, myspace bulletin, or anywhere a lot of people will see it!

REALITY CHICK by Lauren Barnholdt is NOW IN STORES!

Going away to college means total independence and freedom. Unless of course your freshman year is taped and televised for all the world to watch. On uncensored cable.

Sweet and normal Ally Cavanaugh is one of five fresh people shacking upon In the House, a reality show filmed on her college campus. (As if school isn't panic-inducing enough!) The cameras stalk her like paparazzi, but they also capture the fun that is new friends, old crushes, and learning to live on your own.

Sure, the camera adds ten pounds, but with the freshman fifteen a given anyway, who cares? Ally's got bigger issues -- like how her long-distance bf can watch her loopy late-night "episode" with a certain housemate...

Freshman year on film.
It's outrageous.
It's juicy.
And like all good reality TV, it's impossible to turn off.

IN STORES NOW!Check out Lauren on the web at www.laurenbarnholdt.com or on her myspace at www.myspace.com/laurenbarnholdt

STEP TWO --Email Lauren at lauren (at) laurenbarnholdt.com and let her know you've posted about the contest and the book, and you'll be entered to win the prize pack! The winner will be picked at random on September 1st. The more places you post, the more entries you get. Have fun and good luck!!!

Slash & Burn

Apart from playing about on MySpace - oops did I say playing I meant networking! - I've also been polishing Lil to get her nice and sparkly in readiness of submitting to agents.

As I send the witches each chapter (or three or four) as I finish them, I edit along the way taking into consideration their suggestions, and the theory here is at the end - there shouldn't be too much left to tighten, polish and tweak.

Ha-de-ha.

Okay well it is a good theory but doesn't quite work in practice. Especially when the end product comes in several thousand above and beyond what I originally anticipated.

Sooo... I've been cutting. I slashed over half a chapter from the first 40 pages (suggested by brilliant cps) although I did have severe palpitations at the thought (as Amanda and Pat probably remember from that msn chat!) but the beginning is a lot tighter now. While I would have tidied it up during edits, left to my own devices there's no way I would have seen there was so much... how can I put this... waffle?!

Last night I lost a further 8 pages. Great news! By the time I got to THE END today, I'd added another three. Argh! While I was cutting, I was also adding! Bad move. Except the adds were essential! (Honest!)

MySpace Junkie

I get very fidgety when I've no book to work on. I know I have 400 pages of Lil to edit but I just can't face it at the moment - and besides, everyone says it's a Good Thing to leave the ms for a few days at least before going back to it. Sooo... sounds good to me!

The problem is, I can't physically stay away from the computer for any length of time. So instead of resting my poor eyes what have I been doing?

Well aside from revamping my blog and tidying up my webpage (and chatting to witches via msn which I don't think counts unless we call it... oh yes I've got it - brainstorming!) I've only gone and got a MySpace page. And this was after saying, as late as Saturday morning, that I didn't think it was worth me doing one until I actually had, well you know - a book to promote or something?!

But as the witches will attest, no sooner do I say that I could never do this, or can't ever see myself doing that... off I go and do it. Three years ago I knew I could never write a novel that was longer than 50k - six months later I wrote one that came in at 80k. Two years ago I baulked at the thought of writing in first person - a year later I'd written three in first person present tense. Though I suppose that does mean I'm open to trying new things!

But - back to the MySpace page. OMG. I love it. My youngest daughter, who is a total computer whiz, fixed it up for me last night. Oh, my slide show. I keep having to hop on just to gaze in total rapt delight at the hunks. Especially the divine Hugh Jackman (who my daughter accidently named Huge Jackman at first hahahah I nearly didn't get her to change that!)

Tarting up the Blog

After Sara and Amanda revamped their blogs, I decided to jump on the bandwagon and tart up my own one, which had been very pink and girly for waaaay too long. I rather love the black ones, because they are dark, sexy and mysterious but unfortunately I have trouble reading them, so in the end I picked a nice yellow.

Ha! Not really.

Ahem. Okay Lil update. Spent several hours yesterday hopping backwards and forwards between the first three and last three chapters making sure everything tallied. When I could no longer focus on the computer screen due to splitting headache and throbbing eyeballs, I shot the whole thing off to the witches.

HUGE sighs of relief my end this morning. So far, no gaping plot holes have been discovered, and all comments/suggestions/crits are easily fixable.

I'm taking the weekend off though, and will get back into the edits next week when my brain is less fried.

Hooray!

After what feels like forever but, after checking my diary (yes I'm that anal, I actually wrote in my diary when I started this one!) is in fact 19 weeks and four days - not sure how many hours - Kill Lil is finished!

Typed THE END this afternoon and goggled at the page for about 20 seconds trying to pluck up the nerve to hit word count. I had visions of it being in the region of 110k which would NOT be a good thing, but thankfully it came in at just a shade over 102k. Totally relieved I immediately closed the doc and collapsed under the desk in a freaked out heap.

There's a lot of editing and polishing ahead but hey - it's done! I'm soooo happy - there were moments when I seriously doubted I'd ever manage to tie up all those pesky loose ends I'd created. As soon as I've given it the final run through, it's off to the witches for their invaluable comments, crit and suggestions.

Oh yeah. And I'm completely knackered.

Happy Birthday Sara!

Enjoy your champagne and takeaway!

It's one of those very strange quirks that all the witches, no matter which birthday we celebrate, remain eternally twenty-nine!

Scorching Regency

A couple of years ago, while at the RNA conference in the UK, I met up with a fellow member of the RWAustralia, Anna Campbell, who was touring Europe at the time.

We kept in touch and I was thrilled to bits when her novel was recently picked up by Avon (after a bidding war!) Because Anna always referred to this novel with a cute acronym, I sort of assumed it was a light hearted Regency romance - perhaps a comedy of manners.

Man, was I ever wrong! Anna's website is now live and she has an excerpt posted. It's dark, incredibly sexy and has a baaaad hero! All I can say is go and read it. Now. And swooooon.

Honing the Historical

One of the many reasons I wanted to attend the RNA conference this year was to catch Michelle Styles, Harlequin Mills and Boon historical author, workshop on Making Your Historical World Come Alive. Now, strictly speaking I'm not writing an historical since my setting is mythological and the time period is so-called prehistory, but since it's definitely not contemporary I really wanted to soak up her advice.

So I was really happy when she offered to send anyone who was interested the notes from her workshop. And they are proving to be very helpful.

I especially liked the section on imagining your novel is a movie and then justifying each scene in terms of the budget available, as to whether or not that scene is working hard enough. Since I always imagine my novels are movies unfolding in my head (I've never pretended I'm not deluded!), I can really relate to this, and it makes a lot of sense to me.

Once I finish with Lil and start on the editing (oh joy... yeah right...!) I'll be using Michelle's notes to help tighten and polish. Considering I've just hit 91k and STILL have a fair amount of loose ends to tie up, I definitely need all the help I can get!

Ideas from Space

Amanda's been talking about where writers ideas come from on her blog today, and it got me thinking to my own early efforts. And it was a bit of a shock to realise that, from an early teenager, I've always managed to somehow incorporate aliens, space or time travel.

It's a shock because when I first started to write seriously seven years ago, I focused firmly on straight contemporary romance (apart from my first M&B effort, which included a fallen angel but let's not go there). But thinking back, all my early stories were not only a bit on the weird side, but they rarely had happy endings. For instance, one of my space epics ended up with the crew missing the re-entry window and bouncing off Earth's atmosphere into goodness knows where.

In fact I used to bump off my characters on a scarily frequent basis!

So although my wip is entirely different from anything I've ever written before, in actual fact all I've really done is get right back to my very early writing roots.

So, Sara, are you sure you no longer want that motel in space idea, because I have to say the premise is becoming more appealing by the second!

Sara Hantz Sells!

Hooray! Such exciting news. One of the witches, Sara Hantz, has just sold her debut novel, titled The Second Virginity of Suzy Green, to Flux publishing!

It's been murder keeping my mouth shut about this, but now it's all official, because it's in Publisher's Marketplace.

Sara Hantz's debut THE SECOND VIRGINITY OF SUZY GREEN, about a girl who
joins a virginity club in her new town to try to make a new start, to Andrew
Karre at Flux, by Sara Crowe at Harvey Klinger
(world).sara@harveyklinger.com

Sara's chronicled her brilliant sale story on her blog - I love sale stories and this one is a cracker! I got all emotional just reading about it again!

Huge congratulations, Sara. This is wonderful news, and we're all so proud of you and can't wait to see our Suzy on the shelves!

And - yes! Due to living down under I just so happened to be happily snoring away at every critical step. It's just got so way beyond a joke now, I mean what is the mystical link between the witches receiving fantastic news from NA and my nasal passageways?

You Had Me At Halo

Crawling from my sick bed to post this fantabulous news from PM...

Fiction: Women's/Romance Amanda Ashby's YOU HAD ME AT HALO, in the vein of All of Me, about a woman who dies with unresolved issues and comes back in the body of her geeky co-worker in order to sort them out, to Anne Bohner at NAL, in a nice deal, by Jenny Bent at Trident Media Group (NA).

Yay Amanda! Won't be long before our Holly hits the shelves now!

Gabby Moo

The love scene is in the bag and it only took me four days!

I decided to check my word count. 70k by the computer, and I still have heaps of plot left to unravel and subsequently tie up. My original thought was this novel would be about 85k - hmm bit offside there! (hey look did you notice I threw in a footy term there?!)

There's a definite pattern to how I write. When I start, I have this deep rooted fear there's no way I'll ever manage to find enough words to carry me through to a decent length book (say, 80k). Half way through I have a major panic attack that the whole thing stinks and I have no idea where the damn thing is meant to be going.

Then, I hit my stride as everything starts coming together and the words pour out faster onto the computer screen. Suddenly it's no longer a question of will I have enough words - but rather, omigod I am going to have way too many!

But for some reason that happens every single time, and now I'm just not going to worry about it. I know my earlier chapters need a good pruning which will lose me a few pages, and so long as I don't hit the wrong side of 100k I think I should be good to go.

And I think I need some kind of deadline to finish Lil. Maybe second week in July!

Lil Update

My wip is renamed - for the third time! I think it had something to do with all of us calling it Kill Lil, it was inevitable eventually I'd end up sliding Lily in the official title.

And it's weird. My last ms was written entirely from the heroine's pov, but all the witches immediately dubbed it Neo, after the hero. But the current one, despite starting off in the hero's pov and also having the villian's pov, is definitely Lily's story.

I'm now just over two thirds of the way through and am approaching the Sex Scene or, as one certain witch likes to refer to such things, the Smut Scene (not that I write smut, perish the thought, I'm sure I don't know what she means?)

So for the next few days I'm going to have endless headaches, chewed fingernails and doodles on my notepad as I attempt to get the love scene just right. It's not that I don't enjoy writing them, I just find them totally exhausting and a real challenge to make them steamy and believable (no third hand suddenly popping up from nowhere!)

Bodily Fluids

It's trickled through to me that it's World Cup time and football dominates the telly. I'm not a great sports fan but I am not averse to leering at fit guys running around a pitch chasing a ball. What's not to love there?

Well, I'll tell you. Whenever I get sucked into it and am avidly drooling at the screen, we zoom into a close up. Nothing wrong in that except I can guarantee the buff bloke will then immediately spit.

Argh. Even writing that word makes me squirm. I Can. Not. Bear. Spit. Argh.

It's totally gross and nasty not to mention unhygenic. What's the matter with these guys, can't they swallow??

I always have to then convince myself they're just spitting out chewing gum and nothing more - er - personal. Double ugg.

Australia is playing Brazil tonight and I wouldn't mind watching it, but the thought of seeing mouth fountains really turns me off!

A Rose by any other name...

The only problem with having cps scattered across the globe (apart from the obvious one which is we can't all get together on a regular basis for a bloody good booze up - umm I mean a deep and meaningful discussion on all things literary)is the different time zones we inhabit.

Whenever one of the witches gets good news from agents, editors or whatever - I am ALWAYS asleep. Without fail. It's just not cricket.

It's bad enough being out of the loop when all these various excitements take place, but there's more! Just to add insult to injury I now appear to have earned a rather unfortunate nickname.

From the creative brain that thought of dubbing my wip Kill Lil comes this gem. I am now offically known as The Snoring Witch.

The Snoring Witch!! How elegant is that?!

A Toothy Tale

My poor hubby. A few months ago one of his teeth dropped out at the dinner table (it's not funny... really, it's not... and is no reflection whatsoever on the state of my cooking) and every time he smiled he looked like a gangster. It was sort of scary. Anyway he finally gets around to going to the dentist where they took x-rays, moulds and measured him up for a new tooth.

For the last 4 weeks he's been putting off going back to get the thing fitted, but finally, when the dentist called him again on Friday, he arranged to go in this afternoon. Phew. At last!

Yeah, right. He turns up at the dentist only to find a man with a van there, lugging out all the furniture. Apparently the dentist is 'relocating' and this bloke is carting all their stuff to the new premises. Where's that? enquires my dh. Suddenly shifty, the bloke says he doesn't know.

Doesn't know? Doesn't know? This bloody dentist has my husband's new tooth! What the hell use is a single tooth to them? Couldn't they have passed his notes (not to mention tooth) onto another dentist before deciding to do a mid-afternoon flit?

And since when do dentists do a runner in any case?? Too weird!

Critique Musings

There's (another) great post on Miss Snark today regarding the joys and tribulations of asking your other half to read your masterpiece. Basically, it's probably not such a hot idea unless you have the hide of a rhino.

My dear hubby is very supportive of my writing habits, but he really doesn't get what I write at all. Considering he reads boring HowTo books and I write paranormal romance I should know better than to ask for his opinion but hey. I want him to love my work! So every now and then I give in to a masochistic urge and wheedle him to read my latest effort.

Um, yeah. As the witches know, the first para I wrote was a short aimed for Arabella magazine. I'd never written (a) a short before or (b) a spicy paranormal and I was sooo excited when I finally finished it. I cornered hubby, refused to acknowledge the look of glazed terror that crawled across his face, and urged him to read my gem which was all about Death and Eternal Love set on a beach at midnight, with vampires and witches thrown in for good measure.

He read it in silence, a frown of bemusement clouding his face. Not such a great sign really.

'So, did you like it?' I couldn't help asking when he finally finished all (12!!) pages and put them to one side.

Silence. Then - 'What was it about?'

Me, slightly taken aback. 'What do you think it was about?'

Him - 'Well, she was in hospital, wasn't she?'

Me, totally shocked. 'What?'

Him - 'She was delusional, wasn't she?'

Me - 'Er, no. She was on a beach at midnight.'

Him - 'Yeah, but not really. I mean really she was in hospital because she was sick wasn't she?'

To put it mildly, I was quite upset he completely missed the point of my story. Luckily the wonderful witches understood this was a paranormal, which meant it didn't have to follow the rules of our boring old everyday world.

And that's the magic of finding crit partners who really get what you're trying to do. Not because they think everything you write is great (how helpful would that be?!) but because they understand where you're trying to go and, because they're on a similar journey, have the necessary tools to assist (yes, I LURVE Stephen King!!)

So much as I love my hubby and would be thrilled if he enjoyed my writing, I know better than to ask him to crit my work. I have three brilliant CPs for that who have no hesitation in telling me if something doesn't make sense, needs tightening up or rethinking.

Not all writers need or want a crit group, but for those who do want critical feedback our significant other isn't always the best choice!