Archive for February, 2005

February 27, 2005

honest

I’ve been working on my revisions all day. Really. I haven’t been googling my old boyfriends and random other people I used to know at all.

Nor did I find this really nifty “what dog are you” quiz on on of my friend Rosie’s blogs. I’m a Welsh Terrier. Fine-lookin animal.

Nope, as a matter of fact, I’ve been incredibly productive today. I’ve cleaned the entire house, solved all my friends’ problems, worked out a new method of losing weight painlessly, and nearly finished my revisions with one hand tied behind my back.

Tonight, I plan to leap some tall buildings in a single bound.

February 26, 2005

owen and harry

Finished the paper edits last night. Now I have to type things in and write some new scenes, and one whole new chapter. If I work very very hard, maybe I’ll have it done for next week.

As inspiration this morning I watched selected highlights of Starsky and Hutch. “Highlights” mean the parts where Owen Wilson is particularly gorgeous. I am slightly obsessed with Owen Wilson. As my friends Anna and Biddy and Jenny know, because I forced them to see S&H with me and I clutched their legs really hard every time Owen came on. Jenny also gave me a signed photo of Owen for Christmas, and my lovely Harlequin editor Tanya gave me an Owen Wilson calendar (which is in my profile photo, on left).

Anyway, besides pure gorgeousness, Owen is an inspiration for me because I based the hero of Spirit Willing, Harry Blake, on him. Sort of. Watching S&H made me realise quite how different they are. I stole Owen’s hair, and his face. The certain so-laid-back-he’s-horizontal charm he shows every now and then in his films. I think Owen and Harry’s hands are the same, too.

But Harry is taller and a bit broader. (Romance hero, don’tcha know.) He’s very English–brought up in an upper-middle class family in Surrey, educated at Cambridge. So his while his voice has Wilson’s laziness, it sounds completely different–deeper, with a RP accent. His actions, while laid-back, are more deliberate than Owen’s are in his films. Owen Wilson usually plays charming tricksters, good-natured screw-ups; while Harry is a little bit tricksy, and he has screwed up, he’s much more forthright and sincere and dedicated to his principles.

If my story were ever made into a film (like, in my wildest dreams), I’m not sure Owen would be right to play Harry.

Wait a second. What am I saying?!?!? Of course Owen would be right to play Harry. He’s an actor, I’m sure he can do English and principled. Owen, if you’re listening–I’ve got a job for you, honey.

Still, it’s strange how imagination takes over and transforms ideas into fiction.

At Cirencester, we were talking about basing heroes on real people, and it got me thinking–I do it all the time. But then again, I’ve only written seven books. Will I run out of film stars to fancy?

And then what will I do for research?

February 25, 2005

it hurts to think

working on: revisions to Spirit Willing, Flesh Weak
progress: paper edits up to p 191 (of 346)

Got into work this morning and my students were moaning about the work I set them. “It hurts to think,” I said, “but it’s good for you!”

Which is pretty much how I feel about my revisions. They hurt to think about. And they’re going slowly. But they should be good for me.

What makes me paranoid is that I get bored so easily reading the ms. I fell asleep reading it last night, at 9.00. Of course I’ve read it like seventy times before, so that’s probably why (plus I’m tired), but it does make me wonder…is it just damn boring?

(No, I know it’s not. Enough people have liked it for me to know it’s not boring, whatever other faults it may have. It’s just a thought I can’t help having. Stupid crows of doubt again.)

(apologies to Anna, to whom I emailed this earlier today…I’m being lazy recycling blogger.)

February 24, 2005

a mystery

Why is it, that I wake up excited to do revisions, go to work and think about exciting new revisions to do as I drive, spend the whole day at work wishing 4.30 would come so I can go home and do revisions, go to the supermarket on the way home and rush through the aisles so I can get home to do my revisions, and then when I get home I do absolutely everything possible I can do to avoid doing the damn revisions?

February 22, 2005

top tips

The workshop day in Cirencester went well. Despite a single really really bright light and a big phallic microphone on a big phallic boom,** the TV crew weren’t too intrusive and of course I’m a damn show-off anyway. They filmed all day for a five-minute spot, so I have no idea what parts of the day will be aired, and, as of yet, no idea when it will be aired either.

The zit wasn’t too bad in the end. Top tip learned from models (well, from a women’s magazine): put toothpaste on your incipient zits. If you can stand having white patches on your face and smelling like you use spearmint makeup, your zit will dry up faster.

(Top zit tip number two: wash off toothpaste before going in front of TV cameras.)

The ever-charming Katie Fforde gave a talk on creating character. One of the exercises she had us do was to write about your character from three separate points of view: from her own, from someone close to her, and from someone living on the same street who doesn’t know her. I chose to do Carla, the heroine of my next novel, and discovered that while my heroine thinks she is a well-balanced, healthy person with a good social life, everyone around her believes she is a freakish recluse with a very odd sense of humour. Excellent.

Anita Burgh talked about pacing, and man that was a great reminder for me, especially her ideas about causality. It might sound blindingly obvious to a normal person, but I seem to have problems remembering that a big event will actually lead to more big events, and not merely melt into nothingness. Now, of course, I have so many ideas for the revisions of the middle SPIRIT WILLING, that I’ll probably explode if I even attempt them.

(And let’s not think about the causality of my exploding. More zit imagery. Yuck.)

I had to run out during Penny Jordan’s talk on plotting but she has kindly posted the content of it on her blog. She’s also posted a competition to win a place at this summer’s RNA conference in Egham, which is incredibly generous.

My seminar was fun. Lots of chocolate, lashings of strawberries, quite a few laughs and the debut of the Touchy-Feely Box. And best of all I got to project this picture

onto a seven-foot screen. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

A good day all round, with lots and lots of good people.

**Er, I told the sound guy that I’d write a novel with a sexy sound guy in it and this “big phallic” sound stuff is to help me get in the mood.

February 18, 2005

bulletin

I’m interrupting my tour of the sinful parts of Paris because I have some writing news, and this blog is supposed to be for writing, after all.

My editor gave me some revisions on Reckless and they were excellent and–just as good–easy. I’m worrying they were too easy. Anyway, I’ll find out soon. Keep fingers crossed for me.

Tomorrow I’m giving a workshop on “Writing the Sexy Bits” at the Write From the Heart mini-conference in Cirencester, and I found out recently that it will be taped for a new BBC1 daytime television program about reading, Page Turners. And guess what? I’ve got a huge zit on my chin. So the nation will not only see me talk about sex…it will see my zit, too.

the real paris..part three: men in uniform

The Eiffel Tower is the secular symbol of Paris; Notre Dame is the sacred. The twin towers reaching up to heaven–the architectural miracle of the gothic windows–the rows of stone saints and grinning gargoyle devils–it’s enough to make even the most ardent of nonbelievers think of God.

We were distracted by the firemen.

So distracted, that we had to follow them all around the Ile de Cite. I actually bumped into Jenny as I was taking a photo of their truck; she had stopped in awe because one of them had stepped out.

Lust, I tell you!! The whole city is boiling with it!! Blame Paris!!

February 17, 2005

the real paris..part two: lust

Surrounding the Moulin Rouge and stretching down the Boulevard de Clichy, as far as the eye can see, are establishments catering for lust, their advertising signs as big and overwhelming as libido. Les SEX SHOPs. Les LIVE PEEP SHOW!!s. Les LINGERIE SEXYs. Shops full to the brim of scraps of PVC and leather, 10-inch heels and handcuffs, poupees gonflables.

We wondered why most of the signs were in English.

Even more interesting are the people. We saw a dreadlocked guy surrounded by TV cameras, entering the red-painted door of a live sex show. A French rock star? We saw a single prostitute in a doorway, bored-looking and evidently in drag. We saw pairs of elderly French ladies happily eating their lunch in a cafe directly next door to a shop whose door was a curtain painted with a naked woman’s buttocks.

But that’s only the most brash form of Parisian lust. It spreads through the whole city like the scent of perfume, sometimes chokingly strong, sometimes only a tantalising whiff. You can find lust everywhere in Paris…even outside a church.

Stay tuned for the next episode…

the real paris..part one: Ewan

Yeah, forget the fancy tourist guides and the guided tours. Forget the fluffy kitties and the cutesy birdies I posted about below. I’m going to come clean.

The real Paris is a much more interesting place than they make out. It’s a hotbed of seething lust, of unabated greed, of wild debauchery.

Or at least, that was the Paris I saw.

We begin our tour of The Real Paris with the Moulin Rouge–a world of glamour and passion. Actually, I was on the lookout for Ewan McGregor.

There he is. In the diamond-paned window, just to the right of the windmill blade, his wide smile gleaming, his wicked eyes flashing. Wearing a sinfully debonair tuxedo and singing “Your Song” and just waiting for a somewhat over-imaginative romance writer to scale the building and make him hers.

To be continued…

February 16, 2005

paris

Paris was brilliant–wine, cheese, crepes au Grand Marnier, more wine, good company, beautiful scenery, great shopping, and a bit more wine. It even snowed on our last day–just enough so that popping into a cafe for some vin chaud was absolute heaven.

Here is a photo of one of of Montmartre Cemetery’s resident cats:

And one of the bird market just round the corner from Notre Dame:

Along with the cats and birds, I seem to have several photos of firemen and gendarmes. I took them for Jenny, of course.

February 12, 2005

au revoir

Off to Paris. Be back Tuesday.

February 11, 2005

party time!

Wow, Suzanne chose my blog for her Friday night blog party! Yay!!

Tonight, I will be packing and embarking to Paris on a romantic Valentine’s Day lesbian love weekend.

(Well, actually, it’s not lesbian–I’m going to Paris with my friend Jenny and for cheaper insurance we’ve said we’re a couple. There won’t be any girl-on-girl action going on. We might go wild and do some shopping and drink some wine. Perhaps I will kiss her cheek. But we are going to Paris, and it will be Valentine’s day. Plus, I hear it’s going to snow. How romantic is that?!)

Anyway, good to see you all! Make yourself at home and I’ll try to pop in before the love-fest–er, the platonic trip to Paris.