Archive for January, 2008
January 31, 2008
working on a new book
Leo asked, in the comments to the below post:
When you’re working on a new book, do you work on a character sketch and a complete synopsis first? Or just go ahead and start writing and see where the character takes you having a general idea in your head of what type of person you’re writing about?
I really really wish I could write a complete synopsis before I began. It would help me so much and most likely make me a much less neurotic person. But I generally only have a vague idea of what will happen before I begin. I usually know up to about chapter four (with Girl from Mars it’s chapter seven, so that’s pretty good). Of course with a romance you know the heroine and hero will get together, but I usually have very little idea of how.
I will have one or two ideas of things that should happen, generally big set-piece scenes or scenes that are inevitable (for example, in Delicious at the end of the competition they’ve been training for, or the wedding in Married in a Rush, or when Eleanor goes into labour in One Night Stand). But I won’t know where they’re going to end up in the book. Generally the plot is a big vague cloud.
I do develop my characters a good deal before I begin to write, though usually that’s just the main character(s) and the secondaries develop themselves. After a chapter or two I need to stop and refine my ideas of all the characters, according to how they’ve come to life in what I’ve written (because they do that by themselves). For example in what I’ve written recently for Girl from Mars, I originally saw the heroine’s friend Digger as rather clueless. But as he’s done and said more, I’ve realised he’s one of the wisest characters in the book. So I have to revise my character sketches (and the first few pages of the book) accordingly.
But I generally do have a good working knowledge of my character before I start to write.
I know everyone does this differently and there is no single “right” way to write a book. What do you do?
a good day and Valentine’s books
Actually yesterday I was being unnecessarily whiney. It was a good day. Fecklet was at his child minder’s so I had the entire afternoon to fail to write, and I managed to scrub the bathroom, do two loads of laundry, descale the shower as previously mentioned, catch up on promo, package up some books to send, and go for a long walk along the river Kennet (a path I write about in One Night Stand, and which I last walked when I was nine months pregnant).
And eventually I also wrote 1500 words.
As tomorrow is the beginning of February, the month of Valentine’s Day and all things love, there is lots of exciting stuff going on in romance world. I’ve got two massive parties to go to next week–the RNA Awards lunch on Monday and Mills & Boon’s 100th Anniversary on Thursday. Plus, there are media promos everywhere and some fantastic book giveaways at the moment, too.
I’ll be blogging about a really big one tomorrow (a Modern Heat treasure hunt! Avast! she says in fake pirate-style). But one that starts even sooner than tomorrow, due to the Australian time difference, is Nicola Marsh’s Be My Valentine competition.
She has fourteen romance authors guest blogging on her site every day, each one with a book to give away. (I’ll be up on the 9th, and the other authors are like a who’s who of romance–Liz Fielding, Jill Shalvis, Lucy Monroe, Anna Campbell, Kate Walker, Nalini Singh, Bronwyn Jameson, Jaci Burton, Fiona Lowe, Christine Wells, Yvonne Lindsay, Barbara Hannay and Kate Hardy–whoa!)
And then, on the 14th, she will be giving away a big Valentine treat of 14 books.
Go over to her blog to see the rules, and I hope to see you there.
January 30, 2008
rock
Agh! After writing like the wind yesterday, today I find myself writing like a–well, what’s so slow it’s not moving at all? A rock, I guess. A rock firmly stuck in the mud.
Part of this is because what I was writing yesterday was a flashback, so it sort of had a shape to it before I even started. It began in one place and ended in another and then it was done. Whereas today, I’m back to the main story, and I’ve got to move that forward. As usual, I have little idea of where it will go because after the initial set-up, I never have a clue about plot.
Character, yes. Plot, no. And you know what I said about characters giving you the plot? This is all well and good until they hold out on you, just hanging out in your brain and saying, “Yeah? So? You wanna make me?”
And my house smells of vinegar because I’ve been descaling the shower head.
January 29, 2008
holy inappropriateness
You really need to see what Vanessa Jaye found.
January 27, 2008
six random things
Jessica Raymond tagged me to say six random facts about myself. I will tell you six random things that are on my desk in front of me right now.
1. The receipt for my dress for the Awards Luncheon next week. The dress itself is hanging up on the closet door nearby, so I can admire it occasionally.
2. A tube of E45 and a tube of antibiotic cream. Poor Fecklet’s eczema has flared up with his teething–it’s a big molar coming through and he’s miserable.
3. A mind map of the main characters in Girl from Mars. I like to plan things on paper so I can draw connections between them, and this is one of several.
4. A cheque from my agent! Hooray!!! New frocks all round (see 1)!!
5. A plate designed by Ewan McGregor and sold for charity, and a mounted sketch of a nearby country lane, both awaiting framing/hanging on wall.
6. A post-it note with essential reminders to myself, to keep crows at bay. It says:
B) YOU HAVE SOLD TWELVE BOOKS AND KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING
Occasionally, I even believe it.
I hate to be the end of these chains, but I’m not going to tag anyone because I know people are very stressed right now. But if you’d like to do this, please consider yourself tagged and leave a link in the comments.
January 25, 2008
whoredom and loyalty
Because I am being an internet whore (hooray!) I’m a guest today on Jennifer’s Random Musings. Pop on over for a chance to talk about beautiful men and also to win a copy of One Night Stand!
I said I’d blog a little bit about my process for plotting a novel. I’m not much good with plot as a whole; I tend to find that the characters provide the action, so my main job is figuring out the characters. Yesterday, I wrote down a whole bunch of questions about my main character, her three best friends, and the comic book she works on. I’ve answered some of those questions, but I’ve got more work to do on it. As I answer the questions, often scenes pop into my head.
In the early stages of structuring a novel I need to think about how the themes of the book work, and how the secondary characters reflect the main character. Like, for example, in One Night Stand, the characters of Eleanor’s relatives, Sheila and June, reflect issues that Eleanor herself is going through, about change, parenthood, and the nature of responsibility. I developed them and chose what happened to them purely because of how these things would affect Eleanor.
Girl from Mars is about loyalty, and I’ve begun to figure out why and how loyalty affects Fil (the heroine) and Dan (the hero). Now I’m going to do some work about what loyalty means to her three best friends, Jim, Digger, and Stevo–and also what it means to the character in the comic book she draws, “Girl from Mars”.
This should, pretty much, give me the plot! For example, I’m suspecting that Digger has a secret about his family, a very good reason why he doesn’t owe his father any loyalty at all. But something traumatic will happen that tests how he feels about his father and what kind of person Digger is. Of course Digger is a secondary character, so I need to think about how and where I can place this traumatic event so that it actually tests the protagonist Fil’s emotions and sense of herself, too.
I really find that choosing themes in this way, or an issue I want to explore in various permutations, helps me develop the story. Other themes come in, too, and it all gets complicated, but having a general “big idea” is really useful to me.
January 24, 2008
back to the aliens
I gave in my revisions for Honey Trap yesterday, and spent the afternoon unsuccessfully shopping for a frock for the RNA awards lunch on the 4th of February. I figure as I’ve been shortlisted this is a good excuse for a new dress. Why is it, though, that when you don’t need a new dress you see loads and loads of them that you love, and when you do need one, everything is either black or stupid?
Anyway now it’s time for me to get back to my next book, Girl from Mars. I opened the word doc this morning and had a read and I am happy to say that I just LOVE this heroine. She is absolutely hilarious and also very sweet and (like all my characters, strangely enough) completely obsessive. I laughed out loud several times. So this is all a really good sign. If only I knew what was going to happen.
I’m going to spend a few days brainstorming and diagramming.
January 22, 2008
Romance Bandits
I’ve got a post about dreams coming true today on Romance Bandits, a fantastic group blog. You can leave a comment for a chance to win a copy of One Night Stand.
Fecklet has started to play in a different way. Instead of just hitting or shaking or pressing or biting things, he’s begun to use them. He holds a toy telephone up to his ear and starts talking. He rolls cars around on the floor and makes “brrrrrmmm” noises. And it’s any toy telephone (or real one), and any toy car, so he’s recognising that different things have the same function. It is, of course, adorable.
January 19, 2008
my launch party
I would like to say that I was all Zen-like clam on the day of my launch party, but to tell you the truth I was as hyped up as a speed freak. I was up at 5 am with the Fecklet, and pretty much paced around the house until about eleven when Waterstone’s called to say my books had arrived, after which Fecklet and I danced like wild things all over the living room.
After that I relaxed a bit (though by that time my post on Romancing the Blog about being a neurotic fool had already been published). I went out and bought a bunch of wine, picked up the seven dozen glasses I was borrowing, bought crisps and orange juice and dropped it all off at the shop by 2 pm. That gave me a whole five hours left to…well, let’s put me in a good light, shall we, and say I relaxed? 
Husband took care of the baby while I performed the rituals of putting on makeup and doing my hair and nails, rituals to which I have become a stranger in the past thirteen months. Oh, hello, foundation, where have you been? And you, lipliner, wow, is that what you look like? Then I tripped happily down to Waterstone’s, where my lovely agent had already arrived and the staff had already set up everything for me.
Then, the party started!
My editor Cat Cobain, agent Teresa Chris, me, and Headline editor Claire Baldwin
I’d made name tags, each one describing a different character from One Night Stand, and everyone had to choose the one that best suited him/her. For example, Gets Drunk, Gets Horny, Gets Angry. Or Former Geek, Now Babe Magnet. Or Pregnant By Mistake.
My guests were a great mix of people. I had my mates, of course. Then there were members of Reading Writers, and Thames Valley Writers’ Circle, and the RNA. Several local authors dropped by, including crime writer Patrick Lennon, children’s author Lee Weatherly (aka Titania Woods), Roisin McAuley, and Tania Crosse, as well as booksellers and my local councillor. I was happily surprised to see my MP, Rob Wilson–and promptly made him wear a name tag saying Throbbing Member of Parliament. And of course, there was David Tennant, and his date.
No, wait. I tell a lie. David didn’t show up, though I did invite him. But here are some more photos of the people who did.
After much drinking and chatting (and, I hear, networking), my Fantastic Editor, Darling, Cat, tapped on a bottle of champagne with a pen, immediately sending the contents frothing everywhere. Having grabbed everyone’s attention with flying booze, she said a few very embarrassingly nice things about me. Then Teresa (Fabulous Agent, Darling) announced that I’d been shortlisted for the Romance prize (hooray!).
Me listening to people saying nice things about me
Then Teresa poured me a very large glass of bubbly and I toasted Teresa, Cat, my husband Dave, and the Fecklet and no doubt would have continued toasting everyone had I not been required to read a bit from One Night Stand, with silly voices and everything.
I think I was talking about Cat giving me lots of revisions–ahh sweet revenge! Note killer boots which still don’t make me as tall as my editor.
I’m not sure what happened next in the room because happily, I was deluged with people wanting books signed. Signing books is what every writer dreams about before they are published. The idea that someone could want something you’ve written, with your scrappy signature on it, is quite incredible. The reality, of course, is that you can never think of anything witty to write.
What the heck do you write!?!?
Then we went to the pub.
Today, I am washing seven dozen glasses!
(PS Photos provided by Brigid Coady)
(PPS If you lost a glasses case at the launch, or alternatively if you are David Tennant wanting to apologise for not making it, please email me!)
January 18, 2008
shortlisted for the RNA Romance Prize!
Well I am feeling a little bit bleary this morning and there seems to be ketchup on my keyboard from the after-party sausage sandwich I had when I got home, but I am bravely hauling myself onto the world wide web in order to announce my very cool announcement, which is this:
Fellow Modern Heat author Kate Hardy has also been shortlisted, as have Romance writers Fiona Harper (twice!), Liz Fielding, and Lucy Gordon. It’s such an honour to be on the list with friends and wonderful writers. You can see the whole list here.
Serendipitously, Driving Him Wild is released next month in North America, under the title of His for the Taking. It’s available on eHarlequin both as a print book and as an ebook.
And the launch went wonderfully. I’ll blog about it properly when I’ve got my head on straight but meanwhile here is a photo of me doing a reading from One Night Stand.
January 17, 2008
phew!
The books are there!
January 16, 2008
launch
Tomorrow evening, I’m having a book launch for One Night Stand. It is in the Broad Street Waterstone’s, and I will read a bit from the book and then sign copies for anyone who happens to want to buy one. Then, I plan to drink.
One thing is marring my sunny skies…the books aren’t available. The warehouse is empty of them, because they have sold out and are being reprinted. Between them, the hardworking bookshop and the wonderful publishers have arranged for a stack of the books to be sent direct from the printers to the bookshop, which is totally going beyond the call of duty and they are amazing, amazing people. The thing is, this can’t happen until tomorrow. The. Day. Of. My. Launch.
I trust the bookshop; I trust my publisher; I do not trust the road between the printer and the bookshop which I am convinced is going to be closed because of a freak snowstorm or something.
All of my guests have a great sense of humour and I’m sure they will understand if they come to celebrate a book that isn’t. But I do hope it is. Please keep your fingers crossed.
On the other hand I have some KILLER BOOTS and a gorgeous velvet jacket to wear. And sequins. Yes!
Oh and I will have an extra-special announcement to make.
