I’ve had an interesting afternoon so far. First, I re-read Nina Jones and the Temple of Gloom, to do the revisions and line edits. And I made myself cry, on the third-to-last page. My husband thinks this is proof positive that I’m mad as a box of frogs. “But you already know what happens!” he says.

Well, yes. But…

Anyway, after that I promptly climbed up on the roof of the shed to pick blackberries. I’m now stained purple and scratched red, but I have enough for a small crumble.

Meanwhile, I’m blogging at Romancing the Blog today about reading tastes and how they change.

My Valentine’s Day contest winner is Becky for saying:

We will celebrate 29 years together this July and I can honestly say I still love my hubby. It’s the little things we do for each other that matter. I mean flowers are nice but seriously when he cooks me a great meal or does the dishes I fall in love all over again.He also allows me to be me even if it is something he isn’t interested in. Same goes for me. We also share our day with each other on the ride home from work and really LISTEN to each other.

That is lovely, Becky. I’ll be emailing you to ask which book you’d like.

In the spirit of Becky’s reply, I’ve written an open thank-you letter to my husband on Romancing the Blog today.

However, in a completely opposite spirit, Kate Johnson is having an anti-Valentine’s contest on her blog, which I thought twice about sending people to because I want to win the book, but I also want to read cringe-worthy Valentine’s stories.

I’ve got a post up on Romancing the Blog today, about things I find, and wish I’d find, in my keyboard. It’s the sort of procrastination technique I use when I’m avoiding writing. Please check it out and leave a comment so I don’t feel like a weirdo.

(That said, last week I wrote just under 10,000 words. So I can’t be that stuck.)

I’m now obsessed with voice, of course, and I’ve been thinking about character voices. I may have mentioned once or twice (or SEVERAL FREAKING TIMES) that I’ve had some difficulty getting into this book I’m writing now, and that the first section of it is totally wrong. One of the things that’s wrong is a character’s voice. See, the heroine has a friend at the beginning of the book, and when I was writing her, her voice just leapt off the page. She’s quirky and quite extravagant, and she was lots of fun to write.

This is great, of course. Except that as I kept writing, this friend faded into the background, as the heroine has left her behind to go somewhere else, and in this new place, the heroine meets another woman, a fairly odd person with whom she’s destined to get close. Now, as soon as I started writing her, her voice leapt off the page, too. She was speaking straight into my ear.

What’s the problem, here? Well, you’ve probably guessed it–both characters had the same voice.

If something like this happens, usually it’s telling me I’ve got something wrong. Maybe the characters can be merged into one, for example. That can’t happen here–both characters are necessary, but for different reasons, and they’re separated by time and space. What it means is that one of the characters is going to need to be given a different voice. In this case, the first, original character needs to change, probably to be made more conventional, so that the second character, when she arrives, will have the full impact.

Ohhhh, revisions are such a good, good thing. And these revisions are going to be such hell.

Has this happened to you?

Hello all, I’ve got a post up about doing research on Romancing the Blog today.

God, I am incapable about writing about anything but breast pumps. Have just written a Romancing the Blog column entitled “Heaving Bosoms”.

And they say that MEN are obsessed with tits.

I’ve got a post up on Romancing the Blog today, about Mummy’s Mucky Book Hour.