Archive for February, 2007
February 28, 2007
David Tennant and a curtain.
Well, my heroine and hero have had sex, argued, and done a little more arguing. I’m trying to decide how soon to get them back together. I guess I’ll just write and see what happens.
In the meantime, to inspire me, here is David Tennant in front of what looks like a 70s motel room curtain.
February 27, 2007
bestselling and shortlisted
Hooray! Spirit Willing, Flesh Weak is on the Waterstone’s bestselling romance chart!
(This might have something to do with the fact that Waterstones are doing a “buy one, get one free” deal with Little Black Dress books–get yourself down there while they’re cheap! If you go to the one in Reading, all the copies of Spirit Willing are signed…) 
Thanks to Phillipa Ashley for telling me–she’s on there too with Decent Exposure.
While I’m celebrating good news, I should mention something I’ve been meaning to, which is that Married in a Rush has been nominated for a Cataromance Reviewers’ Choice Award. Yay!
Later, I have another beautiful picture of David Tennant to post.
February 26, 2007
David Tennant and a chip.
I have wasted huge amounts of time today inviting celebrities I fancy to be my friends on my MySpace page.
February 25, 2007
yippee!!!
I just turned on the television and it was DAVID TENNANT NAKED!!!!!!
Yes, oh Lord yes, life is sweet.
good books and bad
Because I have so much reading time while I’m feeding the baby, I’ve been trying out some new authors. So far this has worked quite well–I really enjoyed the children’s fantasy/adventure/comedy Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer, and fell in love with the hero of chick lit novel Making Mischief by fellow London RNA member Liz Young. I’m halfway through another children’s book, The Wind Singer by William Nicholson, which like Artemis Fowl is also fantasy, but of a very different sort, much more epic and serious.
I’ve also read a thriller by a mega-bestselling American author, and it was CRAP. Really, really awful. The characters were wooden with little motivation, and I saw the plot twists coming a million miles away–despite the fact that they made little logical sense. The writing was at about a fourth-grade level, only both clumsy and stupid; the children’s books I’ve been reading have had more sophisticated writing. There were continuity errors (people suddenly changing rooms, or what they looked like)–and yet despite this the author felt the need to repeat information over and over, in case you might have forgotten a major plot point over the course of ten pages.
What could have been potentially interesting plot or emotional development was skimmed over. At the risk of giving the identity of the book away, an example of this was when one of the main characters, a priest, is the only survivor of a plane crash. This should be an exciting, harrowing, thrilling incident, right? The entire scene takes about a page to recount; there are no details, and the priest sort of staggers off when it’s done without seeming to have really noticed what’s happened, or trying to help anybody else.
I only read to the end because a) I couldn’t move as had baby attached to me, and b) I wanted to know if I really had guessed the ending about fifty pages in. I had.
Yet this guy sells millions of books. It truly makes no sense.
February 23, 2007
Boy meets girl
Today The Boy and I went out for coffee with a nice woman I met at New Parents’ Class. Her daughter was born on the same day as my son, so we thought it would be fun for them to get to know each other.
Her little girl, dressed in innocent pink, slept like an angel in her pram. When she awoke, she sat, calm and serene, on her mother’s lap, smiling at me and my baby.
My little boy, on the other hand, was wide-eyed and awake. He grizzled, demanded to be fed (necessitating my getting my breasts out in public), sprayed milk everywhere, burped, pooped, and conversed loudly before falling asleep sprawled and drooling on my chest.
Upon waking ten minutes later, he demanded more food, burped again, pooped again, ignored us by staring at the wall, and farted.
My husband thinks this is great.
February 21, 2007
hooray!
Well, thanks to the very kind people at BBC Radio Berkshire who rocked him and cooed over him, The Boy managed not to wail for the ten minutes or so I was on the Henry Kelly programme. It all went very well, I think, and the cool part is that I’ve been asked to come back once a month to talk about a couple books I’ve read.
Which gives me a good excuse to read lots of books, and will be a great experience for me!
We’re off for a large hot chocolate with a bit of extra chocolate on the side to celebrate…
February 20, 2007
listen and laugh
I’ll be on BBC Radio Berkshire tomorrow (Wednesday 21st) at around 11.30 pm talking to Henry Kelly about Driving Him Wild.
February 19, 2007
thank you, Oscar Meyer
I have found American bacon in my supermarket! The kind that goes crispy when you cook it!
After fifteen years in this country, that is truly something to celebrate.
In other news, I am getting used to having important phone conversations whilst holding my baby. He had a huge poo (clearly audible over the phone line) when I last talked to one of my editors, and today he was eating very loudly as I talked with a nice man from the BBC.
My word count has been going up, but the word meter site is down, so I haven’t been able to update it. I’m nearly 60% done with the book. I think I might post an excerpt soon, as I am inspired by Anna Lucia’s wonderful excerpt from her wip posted on her blog.
February 17, 2007
ten things meme
Donna tagged me with this thing, which is to reveal ten random facts about yourself.
1. The little fingers on both my hands are bent inwards at a 45 degree angle. This runs in my family, and was one of the first things we looked for in my son. He han’t got it, to the relief of my husband, who wants to teach him to play guitar.
2. I physically can’t play the guitar myself, because of my fingers.
3. I also can’t use them to type. Despite this, I type 80 words per minute, using eight fingers.
4. When I worked as a barmaid in a pub, I used to amuse myself by making up limericks about the customers.
5. I stole my junior prom dress from the costume cupboard at my high school. (I still have it.)
6. I used to believe that maraschino cherries were a cure for menstrual cramps, and ate a jar of them once a month. They didn’t really help.
7. I always base my heroes’ looks on actors, and I always include the actors’ names somewhere in the book.
8. I have had pink hair. And purple hair. And just about every shade of red you can buy.
9. When I was a kid, I always used to get jealous of my friend Jen Sassi because she had long black hair and got to be Princess Leia and I had to be C3PO and walk funny.
10. I have owned five guinea pigs: Oscar the Grouch, Slash, Morticia, Hoodoo, and Fang.
If you’re reading this, consider yourself tagged! And tell me if you’ve done it.
February 15, 2007
One Night Stand
They’ve posted a blurb for my next Little Black Dress on the Headline website:
One Night Stand
The fabulous new title from the author of Spirit Willing, Flesh Weak.
Estelle Connor may have written seventeen steamy novels, but her own life is more mundane. In fact the nearest she comes to sex is having to listen through the thin walls of her house as her friend and neighbour, Hugh, makes love to an ever-changing stream of female conquests. But then one night she makes a one-night-only conquest of her own, only to wake up alone, a bit repentant, and as she later realises, very pregnant. Desperate to find her missing lover, if only to tell him he`s going to be a father, she enlists the help of Hugh to help her search – but begins to realise that the perfect partner could have been right under her nose all this time…
You will notice from my sidebar that I am, tonight, 52.9% through writing this particular book. I was relieved to see that the story is still the same as the back cover blurb, though I’ve changed the heroine’s name to Eleanor.
It’s out in hardcover in August and in paperback in November.
I guess I should get to writing.
February 13, 2007
seven and a half weeks later…
I can fit into my jeans again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
