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.