Archive for August, 2006

August 30, 2006

Spirit Willing sighting

Spotted by Anna in Penrith today:

August 29, 2006

a big, round, cheeky blog post

Today, on Romancing the Blog, I talk about my ass!

Instead of talking out of it, which is what I generally do.

In other news, Spirit Willing is in stock on Amazon.

And I’m not stuck on my book any more. I even have a plot (which, incredibly, does not involve babies). Although I have a sneaking suspicion that the scene I wrote last night will have to be moved and consolidated with another scene. However, that is a problem for much, much later, after I’ve written the whole first draft.

August 27, 2006

stuck

I’m stuck on my book.

I’m tired of writing, and could do with a break–but since the book’s due in about six weeks, that’s not going to happen. I need to do about 1000 words a day whether I feel like it or not. What I really need is a breakthrough.

I know why I’m stuck–I haven’t explored the characters enough. This is happening because this book is a rewrite of a proposal I did about a year ago, which got rejected (quite rightly). So it means I’ve got a set-up and characters, but not really a plot because the original plot (past chapter four or so) was too stupid. I’m talking REALLY stupid. I swear I must have inadvertently sniffed glue or something when I came up with that plot. And you know it’s got to be stupid if even I think it is, because trust me, I have based entire books on abduction by porn-obsessed aliens and people getting locked inside cinemas.

More importantly, I didn’t develop the characters enough in the first place, so even though I’ve been doing character worksheets and trying to develop them it’s not quite falling together.

(It’s so much easier to write a book from scratch than to rewrite an old one! Why do I do this?!?! Aagh!!)

So my strategy, for today, is to sit down with a piece of paper and analyse my characters. Hopefully, this will tell me what to do with them. Because right now, I’m a quarter of the way through the book and I can either see them a) breaking up never to see each other again, or b) reconciling within about ten minutes because they are perfect for each other. Either outcome would be plausible, and both are no good to me.

God I wish this profession were easier.

August 24, 2006

victory!

YES!!

Somebody has come to my blog using the search term “cleavage“!!!!

I never thought it would happen. Wow!!

Other notable searches of the past day or so:
Cillian Murphy creepy
sexy party nipple pics

To lure more people onto this site from dodgy searches, I should mention that right now I’m writing about hot sex with a male model and that I’ve just found out that my next Little Black Dress book will be called One Night Stand.

Maybe if I work hard enough I can get to the top of Google with a strange phrase again, as I did for one halcyon week last year when my blog was the first Google result for the phrase Jean-Christophe Novelli take his shirt off.

Edit: actually, I’m still the first Google result for that phrase, AND Constantine Maroulis big zipper. Hooray!

Edit again: oh and also Owen Wilson hugging a man and nude Canadian hippies (if you put quotation marks around it. If you don’t, I’m number 18).

August 23, 2006

two elephants and a little Smith

Since I finally downloaded my photos for the expose of Kris, below, I thought I’d post a few of me, taken last Friday in London, showing off my 24-week baby bump.

Me and a small bronze elephant from Canada

Me and a street named after my child

August 22, 2006

the real Kris

I’m guest blogging over at Kris Starr’s blog today. She foolishly let a bunch of us run rampant on her blog while she’s away.

Here are some photos I couldn’t post on her blog…

Kris Starr with Labatt’s (Lisa Cochrane and Michelle Willingham in background)

Kris Starr doing a wine-fuelled chair dance (I think she was still wearing her skirt at this point)

August 21, 2006

snakes on a plane

I can’t decide whether this title is genius or incredibly stupid.

When I first heard it, I couldn’t quite believe that anyone would base a movie around this premise, and then just call it what it was. Snakes on a Plane. Not Hiss Air, or Slither, or Venom At 30,000 Feet, or That’s Not A Life Jacket Under Your Seat. No attempt to sex it up, make a the movie a little bit dramatic. Just snakes. On a plane. How mind-blowingly dumb.

Then again, as Nigel Tufnel says in Spinal Tap, “There’s a fine line between clever and stupid,” and this might be the most brilliant title ever in the history of entertainment. I mean, it combines two of mankind’s most primal fears: snakes, and planes. Also, they are both big phallic symbols, and therefore prime material for some sort of action thriller.

I don’t have a title for my work in progress yet, and I’m wondering if maybe I should follow the same what-you-see-is-what-you-get philosophy and call my book something like Sex With A Male Model.

one book meme

Nell tagged me with this one.

1. One book that changed my life: A Wizard of Earthsea, by Ursula LeGuin. It made me want to create worlds. I’ve also already blogged about how Sherlock Holmes changed my life.
2. One book I have read more than once: I’ll confess: I have to read everything more than once because I read so quickly that I often forget details soon after I’ve finished reading. I think I’ve read To Kill A Mockingbird nearly every year since I was twelve or so. Maybe I could name my son Atticus.
3. One book I would want on a desert island: Hamlet, or Middlemarch. Both of them are so rich that I could spend years imagining the implications of a phrase, or thinking about the characters.
4. One book that made me laugh: I Only Have Fangs for You, by Kathy Love. God, I love her hero Sebastian. It’s out in December! (I got to read it early because I’m her critique partner, heh heh heh.)
5. One book that made me cry: Two days ago, trying to understand the feelings of a friend, I read the chapter on bereavement in the pregnancy book What to Expect When You’re Expecting.
6. One book I wish I’d written: Great Expectations. The best example of a sympathetic, flawed hero I have ever read and a masterful use of point of view.
7. One book I wish had never been written: I was ruthlessly tortured by Henry James’s Portrait of a Lady when I was an adolescent. I’m very sorry that Jude the Obscure made Thomas Hardy decide to stop writing novels, but I suspect he was looking for an excuse anyway.
8. One book I am currently reading: Peoplewatching by Desmond Morris.
9. One book I have been meaning to read: Jennifer Crusie’s Bet Me is sitting by my bed, and I haven’t picked it up yet, because I know when I do, I’ll do nothing else but read it. For a similar reason, I’ve avoided buying Marion Keyes’ Anybody Out There?.

I would love for Anna Lucia to answer this one, when she has time, because her reading past is so dissimilar to mine, and yet our tastes are so similar.

August 20, 2006

contest winner!

Congratulations to my contest winner Lis!!

Lis correctly answered the question: In Delicious, what is the name of one of Angus MacAllister’s chickens?

There are two chickens, one called MacNugget and one called Kiev.

I’ll be mailing you a copy of Delicious tomorrow, Lis.

Thanks to everyone who entered. I’ll have all my copies of the sequel, Married in a Rush, soon, so I’ll run another contest.

Things they don’t tell you about pregnancy, part 1: My belly button has become triangular.

August 19, 2006

hooray!

Wow, what a result! Cataromance had their Reviewers’ Choice Award ceremony last night and it was excellent!

I was actually out in London with Biddy and Jenny when the winners were announced. We went to Chinatown and had a huge Vietnamese meal, and then hung out in The Intrepid Fox in Soho, surrounded by goths and rockers. Jenny and I argued over who would have the Capt. Jack Sparrow lookalike and the Chris Cornell (lead singer of Soundgarden) lookalike, both behind the bar. Jenny said she was single and therefore had precedence in picking up men. I said I am six months pregnant and at the mercy of my hormones and therefore had precedence in picking up men.

In the end we didn’t get Chris or the Captain. Instead a Czech guy came up and asked me if I was “gravity with child” and if I loved the father of my baby (I answered yes to both, though I was guessing what he meant by the first question), and Biddy and Jenny were approached by some skinny guy who was going to Germany with his unsigned band, apparently to make it big somehow.

To escape our admirers, we took a cab to Tesco’s, picked up cheesecake, and went straight to Biddy’s to check the Cataromance awards. Imagine my delight when I found the results!

Kate Walker won best M&B Modern for The Italian’s Forced Bride
Kate Hardy won best M&B Medical for Her Celebrity Surgeon
Michelle Styles won Best M&B Historical for The Gladiator’s Honour
Liz Fielding won Best M&B Tender for The Five-Year Baby Secret
And I won Best M&B Modern Extra for Featured Attraction!

August 17, 2006

Guy

This is my new hero. I’m writing about him today.

Yup.

August 16, 2006

catch-up thank yous

It’s about time I properly thanked the kind readers who responded to my two posts below about being stuck in the airport and about finding out we’re having a baby boy. I could do it in the comments section, but I love posting these lists of friends because they are really the best people.

So: Thank you Jenna Richard, Lis, Anna Adams, Lori, Wanda, Michelle Styles, Ray-Anne, Liz Fielding, Jessica Raymond, Anna Lucia, Kris Starr, Margaret McDonagh, Jenny Haddon, Kate Walker, and Saskia Walker for your sympathy and good wishes for me and the baby while we were stuck at the airport.

Thank you Michelle Styles, Dee Tenorio, Karen, Jessica, Rosie, Sela Carson, Mags, Chris M, Nell Dixon, Kris, Jenna R, JM, April, Liz, Sahndre, Julie Day, Anna A, Amanda Ashby, Anna, Sue/MsCreativity, Lynette Rees, Cat Marsters, Jude, and Lis, for your congratulations on our little boy.

Wanda, JM, Lynette, Cat and Chris M, welcome to the blog if I haven’t welcomed you before.

Jenna, while I love the name “Cillian” for a baby, I think my husband will be a little bit suspicious if I call our son after one of my celebrity crushes. Though I think I’ll be trying to get the name “Owen” past him. Heh heh heh.

(And no, he wouldn’t be named Owen Cohen. “Cohen” is my maiden name. I am not that cruel.)

JM, I do not yet know Hugh Dancy. Must check that one out. Especially as my next hero is named Hugh.

Sue/MsCreativity, I am SO glad you enjoyed DELICIOUS. You said: LOVE Elisabeth and Angus, and I also love the way you made every secondary character count too. (How did you manage that without having them take over the book?!) I don’t suppose there’s a future story for Jo brewing?

If you check out this blog post about Delicious, you’ll see how I designed the secondary characters to be echoes of the hero and heroine. Even the chickens.

And yes, Jo’s story is coming out in October. (Jo is the heroine’s best friend in Delicious.) It’s called MARRIED IN A RUSH and you can read more about it here and order it here!

And speaking of friends and books, Sela Carson has a book out this week at Samhain, a sexy, funny paranormal novella called Not Quite Dead. Check it out!