Archive for January, 2005

January 30, 2005

finished.

See that photo of my work space on the right, there?

That was taken when I was relatively calm, in a lag between finishing a first draft and revising it.

I’ve just finished my revisions. That involved writing 25 pages or so, this weekend (thank you, John Lewis busker), and rereading everything and filtering in stuff and doing silly picky things like making sure my heroine, who’s from South Carolina, says “y’all” at the correct times.

So here’s a photo of my work space taken tonight, while I’ve been wrapping things up:

(You can see a bigger image by clicking on the link, but it’s very big. I’m not good at this stuff.)

From left:.

Edward Gorey day-by-day calendar, given me by Harlequin Presents author extraordinaire, Kate Walker.

Flowers I bought for myself to celebrate finishing edits. (Prematurely, I might add.)

Printout of ms with lots of notes scribbled on back.

Lovely orange iMac. Technology and style, all in one orange package. Note post-its on screen, which say respectively, “FIRST DRAFT!!” and a lovely sentiment from my friend Joyce: “Everything is okay in the end. If it’s not, it’s not the end.”

Glass of water.

Green & Black’s Organic Maya Gold chocolate. Food of gods. I have subsisted on that and cold pizza this weekend.

Empty can of “Belle of Maine” fiddleheads I use as pen holder. To remind me of my childhood, when I used to eat baby ferns. My kingdom for a good fiddlehead…

Pink Alessi pencil sharpener shaped like pig. Yes, I have a designer pencil sharpener. I have posh friends.

Glass of red wine.

On printer: pink post-its with things I have to remember for revisions, plus a note to remind myself to write a thank-you note to the nice policemen who caught the person who burgled my house back in November. Hooray!

On printer: Owen Wilson calendar given to me by kind editor, with important things on it like how many pages I’ve written, dates of speaking engagements and school functions and rare social outings, and my most fertile days of month.

Behind printer: groovy orange 50s lamp bought in junk shop in Brighton. Matches iMac. Am I obsessed? Surely not.

In front of printer: Dana. Best tool for spontaneous writing since the pencil was invented.

If you look closely, you can see the blood, sweat, and tears, too.

January 29, 2005

+2,392

Okay, I got off my butt and wrote 12 more pages (or 2,392 words).

Was helped vastly by going into town (not a procrastination technique, I swear–I had to buy a friend a birthday present). There was a guy playing a guitar in front of the John Lewis department store. The first time I walked by, he was playing “I Love You Just the Way You Are.” Which is like the complete message of this scene I’m writing.

So I was grinning like crazy as I went into a shop to buy a birthday card.

When I came back out, he was just finishing up “Everybody’s Talking At Me”. Love that song. About someone trying to escape from the pressures of their life by going somewhere new. Just like my heroine is.

So I gave him some money for making my day. And as I walked away, he started playing “My Sweet Lord”. Now that song doesn’t have anything to do with my story (well, my hero’s father is a minister, but that’s it), but it is my own personal philosophy that you can never get too much of George Harrison singing about his Lord. I went straight home, put on All Things Must Pass, and wrote ten pages.

That busker is an absolute genius. Anybody got writer’s block? Go down to the front of John Lewis and check him out.

seven words

How to write:

Wake up bright and early, deciding that I have to write an entire chapter today and revise the ending tomorrow, in order to get my ms to my editor as soon as possible. I have to make my hero and heroine dress up in Hallowe’en costumes. It should be fun.

Go downstairs, check email, check blogs, check eHarlequin.

Decide to read one chapter of the ms I’m critting and end up reading two chapters instead, making extensive notes.

Plug in Dana and transfer the four paragraphs I wrote last night in bed onto the Mac. Reformat them, reread them, decide the last paragraph has to go.

Make some tea and toast.

Read a couple more blogs, and check out Romancing the Blog. Read about using TV to inspire you to show and not tell, by Shirley Jump. Decide I don’t watch enough television. Read about overanalysing the market to try to get published, by Shannon Stacey. Wonder whether I’m overanalysing the market. Feel horribly insecure about the column I’m going to write for Romancing the Blog (on Feb 9th!) because all the other columnists seem to be interesting intelligent people, and I can’t even write a stupid scene about my heroine choosing a Hallowe’en costume.

Buckle down to work. Rewrite deleted paragraph. Delete it again. Make a page full of scribbled notes on the back of a ms page, about what the h & H’s costumes mean, and what they’re going to do in this scene, and what the h’s emotional progression will be. Write the last line of the chapter. Wish I were there.

Go upstairs, cuddle with husband and neighbours’ cat, read an article about 70s British sex comedies. Tell husband I’m stuck. He says, “Go write it.”

Go downstairs, decide I need music. Put on Luxuria Music but decide that bossa nova beats are far too mellow for the kick in the ass I need. Put on Club977 for 80s hits instead.

Do the washing up. Package up the recycling. Take out the garbage. Make coffee.

Sit back down and write blog entry.

Total time: 2 1/2 hours. Total writing: Page of notes. Blog entry. And seven words on ms.

January 28, 2005

curses!

Husband calls upstairs earlier this evening…

“So the guy at Starbuck’s is cute, huh?”

He’s discovered the blog! Foiled again!

January 27, 2005

a completely objective opinion

I have been writing stories with Kathy Love since we were teenagers together, *mumble* years ago.

Some might think that might make me slightly biased.

Her latest novel, Wanting What You Get, has an acknowledgement featuring me which made me cry. And her first hero, Chase (in Getting What You Want), owned a truck that was named after my car, Helen Wheels.

Some would think that might make me slightly biased, too.

Sometimes, when she is writing a story, she asks my advice and then follows it.

That could maybe result in a biased sort of feeling.

Last night, she called me up from her sickbed to help me out with a problem with Reckless and by the end of our conversation, I had a fantastic idea I can’t wait to write.

That would make me kindly disposed to her, which some people would call “bias”.

However. I have also read all of her novels, published by Kensington Zebra and Kensington Brava. And every single one of them has made me laugh, and cry, and fall in love with her characters. She has impeccable comic timing, huge insight into human nature, and a style that sucks you in and doesn’t let you go. Plus her heroes are like seriously gorgeous.

And about that, I am absolutely objective. Because it is the truth.

She’s a finalist for All About Romance’s Best Debut Author award. You can vote here. Go ahead and vote for her. Go on.

Don’t make me have to beat you up, now.

January 26, 2005

editorial correction

I have been told by my friend Jenny, who accompanied me on my Rock Night, that my account is somewhat inaccurate. She writes, in part:

I like your account of our rock night, however it makes me sound like a floozy who goes after married men! I didn’t know he was married!

I’d like a retraction or you’ll be hearing from my lawyer.

Retraction follows:

Jenny is not a floozy who goes after married men. (I couldn’t possibly comment on whether she’s a floozy who goes after unmarried men.)

Call off your lawyer, Jennifer.
Biddy, although I can’t fathom why, would also like it to be documented that she spent the evening flirting with an older gentleman with a mullet hairstyle.

Sheesh! And I thought we fiction writers were exempt from libel laws!

January 24, 2005

a tip

If you ever want a lift to your spirits (and you’re female), go to the Costa coffee on platform 1 of Paddington Station. The baristas *always* flirt with you. Always. Even if you’ve spent the night on a friend’s sofa and you’ve got hair like a dog brush.

January 23, 2005

not!

Some rock chicks we were. Here is a point-by-point comparison of What Real Rock Chicks Would Have Done, and What We Actually Did:

What Real Rock Chicks Would Have Done: Clutching backstage pass in hand, Real Rock Chicks (RRCs) would have gone straight to the backstage area and spent the moments before the gig in the band’s dressing room, drinking their rider (Jack Daniel’s) and performing sexual favours for the band.
What We Actually Did: Clutching backstage pass in hand, we went to the pub down the road where we met my husband (the band’s guitar tech) and delivered a guitar pickup to him. Though I was tempted to drag him off and perform sexual favours for him (I haven’t seen him in a week), the pub was crowded and I thought it would be rude to leave Jenny and Biddy on their own. Plus, he hadn’t washed his hair in a few days, since he’s been living on a bus. Rock ‘n’ roll is not clean, people.

What Real Rock Chicks Would Have Done: At the gig, RRCs would have found three hunky rich men (preferably in leather) and gone with them to the restrooms to snort cocaine from the pristine lavatories. And then performed more sexual favours, and washed their mouths out with Jack Daniel’s.
What We Actually Did: We found a table in the corner populated by a lone guy in an overcoat who knew all the band’s songs by heart and told us all about the millions of great gigs he’s been to lately, while we nodded and tried not to feel old because we didn’t know who these bands were.

What Real Rock Chicks Would Have Done: Thrown themselves into the mosh pit and been manhandled by bouncers.
What We Actually Did: Drank vodka and tonics and discussed the bass player’s stage marching.

What Real Rock Chicks Would Have Done: At the aftershow in a glitzy hotel, where champagne flowed like water and cocaine drifted like snow, RRCs would have stunned the band with their sexy dance moves and probably whisked them off to perform more sexual favours.
What We Actually Did: At the aftershow in a grotty black corridor, where the bar charged £3.80 for a vodka in a plastic glass, Biddy fancied the bass player’s dad, Jenny charmed a happily married man, and I shook hands with the band and thought they were very sweet.

What Real Rock Chicks Would Have Done: Gone back to the band’s hotel and thrown the TV out the window.
What We Actually Did: Went back to Biddy’s sister’s flat and drank herbal tea and played with her dog. We did ask if we could throw the TV out the window, but Biddy said no.

Sigh.

I did wear a miniskirt and black biker-style boots, though.

*Bill & Ted’s air guitar solo*

January 22, 2005

rock on, dude

Just about finished with the new chapter seven. It’s much better than the old version. Mills & Boon works on computer word count, whereas Harlequin works on page count, so I can add quite a bit to my ms, which is great. It’s a different way of working for me–my writing is so dialogue-heavy that my page count tends to be waaaay above my word count.

Anyway tonight is Rock Night. I’m going with Jenny to London, where we’ll meet Biddy at heavy metal pub The Intrepid Fox and then we’re going to the Astoria to see the 22-20s, which is the band my husband is working for. Then an aftershow party. It all sounds so glam. Better dig out some lipstick and hairspray.

On the other hand, I’ve found a way cool lounge music internet radio station.And I’m reading a lovely M&B medical romance that comes out next month, The Baby Doctor’s Desire by Kate Hardy. The heroine, Jude, is an obstetrician and a singer of torch songs and old classics. It’s the second in Kate’s trilogy about London City General–I read the first one, The Doctor’s Tender Secret and loved it so Kate kindly sent this one to me, too.

It’s days like this I wish I had long hair to headbang with. Of course the 22-20s aren’t heavy metal, and right now I’m listening to a funky instrumental version of “The Fool on the Hill”, but you can never overdo it with a bit of tasteful headbanging, I feel.

January 21, 2005

tra la la

…I get to write about my hero in a wedding dress shop…

“I’ll have to call it off,” Daisy said into Oz’s chest. “I can’t get married in this.”

“You don’t have to call it off, sweetheart. There must be some other dresses in the shop.” He looked doubtfully at the masses of white satin enveloping his sister’s slender body. “Unless that one ate them all.”

She sobbed.

Marianne came around the side of the Harley and put her hand on Daisy’s shoulder. “Come on, hon. It’s a bad dress. But we can do better.” She shot Oz a look that was the direct opposite of the honeyed voice she was using to speak to his sister. “You’re not helping her with the dress-eating comments,” she muttered.

Oz lifted his hands helplessly.

January 20, 2005

six sux

Well, I knew that chapter six of Reckless was bad…too long, too rambly, too inactive…but wasn’t sure how to fix it. Vanessa suggested some good cuts, which I did (she’s mistress of cutting, that Vanessa, ggg), but it was still just dead-feeling.

Talked with Anna tonight and between us, I think we’ve sussed it. There were two things going on: Oz prying into Marianne’s past, and Oz revealing his own past. That was one too many; it was diluting the impact. I like having a lot going on in each scene, but Marianne is complex enough that in a book like this, I think we can deal with one problem at a time. Besides, they were just talking.

I’ve edited out Oz’s past, and split the chapter in half, and decided to put a change of scenery and a bit of humorous action in the second half. I came up with the humorous action…Anna came up with how to fit it in. In terms of plot, I think in a linear way…finish this scene, deal with everything, go on to next. Anna writes out of sequence, so she thinks more creatively about how to put things in order.

One of my reasons for starting this blog was to document my writing process, and that means every time my crit partners save my butt (as Kathy did with the sucky ending of this book). I’m lucky to have three very different crit partners, with three very different styles of writing and talking about writing.

Without them, my writing would be a lot worse. I can’t say it enough: Thanks, guys.

January 18, 2005

they’re staring at me

To my right: a 400-odd-page pile of novel, awaiting revision. I promised my agent back in November that I’d have it done by January.

To my left: a 200-odd-page pile of novel, awaiting revision. I told my editor last week I’d have it to her within a couple of weeks.

Soon to arrive in the post: a 200-odd-page pile of novel, with red ink all over it from my editor.

I’m surrounded. I’m never going to get out of this alive.

Meanwhile, the 80s internet radio station is playing Bobby McFadden’s “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.”