Archive for January, 2006
January 30, 2006
don’t come here…
…I’ve just been whining and making bad jokes.
Go to Anna Lucia’s blog, where she has been posting breathtaking, joyous moments.
January 29, 2006
normal life
This post-book period is very weird.
Today, I lived the life of a normal human being on a Sunday. I slept in and read the Sunday paper! I went to the supermarket and bought food! I went for a run! I talked with my husband and watched a film with him! I did a little bit of reading for school! I made a big pot of leek and potato soup for tomorrow’s dinner and put it in the fridge! I cooked supper! (Which was delicious–mackerel marinated all afternoon in ginger, garlic, chilli, and lime juice and then roasted, and served with rice noodles and sesame stir-fried broccoli.) I made a couple of dates to go out with friends this week!
Now I intend to mark some exam papers and then go to bed to read!
No walking the streets obsessing about character motivation. No talking aloud to my computer. No looking at my husband like he’s a six-eyed alien because he’s interrupted my thought processes. No hours flying by unnoticed while the same song plays repeatedly on iTunes. No refusing invitations from my friends because I haven’t done my 1000 words a day.
It’s a whole new world, I’m telling you.
January 28, 2006
a good citizen
Today I decided to Make A Difference, following the philosophy that if everybody did one thing a day to make the world a better place, it would, well, be a better place. So, in that spirit, I:
Confounded terrorists
I saw an unattended bag on Broad Street in Reading, outside the Burger King. I stared at it for awhile, to see if anybody came out with their Whopper and picked it up. But they didn’t. So I accosted a policewoman and told her about it. Of course, she was already on her way to check it out because somebody else had mentioned it to her. But who knows, if I HAD been the first person, I could have stopped Reading from being blown off the map. (Some might say Reading being blown off the map would be a good thing.)
Helped the lost
A guy with a minivan full of kids asked me how to get to his hotel, so I gave him directions. I wrote them down and everything. Of course, it was only after he’d driven away that I realised I’d said to get off at the second exit when I meant the third. I hope he is not still driving around looking.
Facilitated communication between cultures
Kathy’s book Wanting What You Get has just come out in Portugese and Kathy posted the back-cover blurb. Which I translated for her, including the touching scene (which they must have added for the Portugese edition) about Uma Thurman and the Dr Suess contest.
What have you done today to make the world a better place?
(Or, as in my case, not.)
various updates
Many a time in the past couple days I’ve sat down at my trusty Mac to update my blog, but I’ve been too darn tired. As soon as I finished RUSH and sent it off to my editor, I began to tackle the HUGE pile of schoolwork on my desk. Which is still huge. The annoying thing about teaching is that as soon as you’ve marked a piece of work, you have to assign the students to do more of the pesky stuff. My students would be much happier if I never assigned them any work, and I would be much happier if I never had to mark it, but unfortunately learning-by-osmosis isn’t the best pedagogic methodology.
Other things have been happening on the writing front while I’ve been caught up in book and school.
My US agent has started sending out SPIRIT WILLING, FLESH WEAK. That’s great news for a submission junkie like me.
I’ve been invited to join a debate to argue that “Women are more romantic than men,” at the Upminster Public Library, on Valentine’s day. The female side will be argued by Katie Fforde, Elizabeth Lord, and myself. Roger Sanderson, Stephen Bowden, and Michael Taylor will be arguing to the contrary.
Thanks to Rosie, I’ve also been invited to speak at the BookCrossing Unconvention in Birmingham on 1 July. I’m thinking the title of my talk will be “My Year In Smut.”
I’ve been trying to organise book signings, but this is a horribly complicated process and I haven’t gotten too far yet, though I have spoken to nice people.
I entered a contest with the book Kathy and I wrote together.
I have spent a satisfying amount of time lounging around in my pajamas.
January 25, 2006
goodnight
Rush is DONE, it is GONE, I am going to bed now and I wish I could sleep for a very long time but I have to get up at 6.30 tomorrow to go to work.
January 24, 2006
well, gosh.
I went to Amazon and found my cover for BEING A BAD GIRL.
image copyright Harlequin Enterprises 2006
Not bad. Of course, Oz is supposed to be blonde, but hey. The Arms. The Smile Lines. I can deal.
Nice bike, too.
(My shelfmate for April, Kate Hardy, has her cover for THE CINDERELLA PROJECT, too.)
stunnage
Thanks to everyone who pointed out I was going through post-book blues. At the moment it’s more like post-book stunnage.
This is a photo of my work space on Sunday, just after I posted below. You can see my desk overwhelmed by bits of paper, and my printer spewing out manuscript pages. By the computer is Advil and coffee; on the floor is a ream of paper and the proofs for Delicious which I can’t quite figure out where to put. That other stack is all of the Christmas cards I received, which my husband finally got fed up with and took down.
By the front left leg of the table is an epic-sized dust-bunny.
My life is slightly more organised right now–mostly because I coerced my husband into doing the mopping and hoovering for me, fine man that he is–and I’m desperately hoping to have edits done on this ms by tomorrow so I can send it to my editor A WHOLE WEEK AHEAD OF DEADLINE. Whoo-hoo!
Meanwhile, for the epilogue, I need a boy’s name that will go well with the girl’s name Lindsay. Last name Deluca. Any ideas?
(And no, she who shall remain nameless, I’m NOT using “Guido”.)
January 22, 2006
post-book
Finishing a book should be a great thing. And it is. I finished on Wednesday night; on Thursday morning I was beaming all over the place. After a holiday spent working nearly full-time, and two weeks where between school and writing I was working at least 14 hours every day, I was looking forward to some time to relax, to sleep more than six hours at a time, to have a social life.
Thursday night I made myself a nice dinner, ate it, and watched television until it was time to go to bed. Bliss. Friday night I went out with my friends and talked about other stuff than plot. Saturday I read a book and nursed my hangover and only turned on the computer to have a chat via IM.
Today, I’m feeling weird.
I’ve started to notice how dirty my house is. How the filing has piled up. How I never finished painting the bathroom and how the geraniums in the window box are mere sticks. How there are still Christmas lights in the living room. Somehow I never notice these things when I’m writing a book, or if I do, only in the most abstract way.
I’ve started to notice the time between leaving my house and arriving at my destination. And the time between turning off the light and falling asleep. The moments when I’m having a bath or brushing my teeth. Usually these are the times when I let my brain drift and figure out plot points and character. Now I have nothing to fill them with. Ideally I should find a zen-like appreciation of life in these moments. In fact, they fill up with worries and doubts, and I don’t have a fictional world to use to push the worries away.
The hours are going by more slowly because I’m in my own real world. I know that is a good thing. But I haven’t adjusted to it yet.
January 18, 2006
done
That’s it, really. I’m done with the book.
I still have to write an epilogue, but I’m leaving that till after editing.
blog neglect
Sorry I haven’t been posting anything for a few days…I’m very nearly finished writing this book and I’ve been concentrating on that.
January 15, 2006
Kathy’s contest
Today is my dear friend Kathy Love’s birthday. She is four months older than me, a fact about which I like teasing her.
She’s having a contest on her message board, for a copy of her new sexy vampire romance, Fangs But No Fangs, which is out next month.
It’s about a vampire who’s trying to become more like a mortal, by living in a trailer park and working in a karaoke bar. It’s awesome.
She has ten quotations from vampire books, films, or TV shows, and all you have to do is identify where each of them came from. My personal favourite is “I am what I am, and I don’t think Betty Ford takes vampires.”
Click here to enter her contest!
January 14, 2006
another thing to vote about
Coolest band names ever. I’ll start.
Three Dog Night.
