I’ve been doing some more teaching, this time as an evening class on writing popular fiction generally at the university here in York – not quite as glamorous as Tuscany, I know, but just as interesting in a different way.  One of the things we’re going to look at is the whole process of writing, so I have been giving that some thought lately. How *do* I write?  It’s easy to talk about character or plotting or dialogue, but actually getting the words onto the screen is a much more mysterious process.  For me, it certainly involves at least two rubbishy drafts and an awful lot of staring at the screen in despair.  The account of my day in

I’m just back from a week in Tuscany.  Not a holiday this time, as I was teaching a romance writing course, but I had such a good time, it honestly didn’t feel like working.  The Watermill at Posara is a lovely old building in a beautiful place, and the weather was perfect, but what really made the week for me was being with other people who were interested in romance. 

Some groups never gel, but this one did right from the start, and one of my lasting memories of the week will be sitting around the big table, talking about our favourite b ...

Mistletoe Marriage is out now in the UK  in a Mills and Boon Special Release called Sleigh Bells and Wedding Rings.

The Silver Thaw - Betty Neels

Pretty nurse Amelia Crosbie had never met a more infuriating man than Gideon van der Tolck! As the Christmas season drew nearer, the handsome doctor seemed determined to make someone his bride – but surely it couldn’t be Amelia?

The Christmas Basket - Debbie Macomber

Former sweethearts Noelle and Thom can have a second chance at love – if only they can close the bitter rift between their families with the spirit of forgiveness.

Mistletoe Marriage - Jessica Hart

A wedding could be the answer to all Sophie’s problem ...

It feels odd to be talking about Christmas when summer is barely over, but I’ve just received big box of the North American edition of UNDER THE BOSS’S MISTLETOE, which is out this November.  There’s still no sign of the UK paperbacks, but here is the NA cover again, since it’s such a nice one!  The only thing I knew when I set out to write this story was that it had to incorporate a Christmas wedding, and I plotted it with a friend as we walked the South West Coast path in Cornwall this time last year. 

The original story was ...

Oh, dear, I was very sorry for myself last time, wasn’t I?  I hadn’t realised quite how boring I was, so apologies to everyone who waded through the last blog! I’m glad to report that toothache is now but a distant memory, vanquished by a lovely relaxing week in Greece.  We had the top floor of a house overlooking Stoupa, with an L-shaped balcony that caught the afternoon breeze from the sea.

I could have happily spent the entire week on that balcony, looking out over the bay and to the mountains beyond but managed to drag myself down to the beach at Kalogria, all of five minutes’ walk away.  Soft sand, clear turquoise wat ...

It’s been ten days of such ups and downs that I don’t know whether I’m coming or going today.

I began on a desperate down, with Mungo, my elderly and diabetic Westie apparently very ill, and I went downstairs on the morning of the Friday before last convinced that the time had come to call the vet.  But he got out of his bed to greet me and wagged his tail, and was so much perkier on his walk that I decided to wait a little longer (up) 

He was better enough for me to leave him on the Saturday to drive over to the RNA’s conference in Penrith for the afternoon.  I was giving a workshop called ‘Nobody mention the F-wor ...

You wouldn’t think it from this blog, but I have been hard at work over the last few weeks.  I’m taking a break from romance and writing a ‘time slip’ novel this summer, and I have to say that I’m finding it challenging, but generally in a good way.  I have been playing all sorts of psychological tricks on myself to write something different, and have a whole new routine which involves getting up at 6.00 am every morning and writing 500 words before I’m allowed to start the day.  I have always been an evening person, and usually do most of my writing after 9.00 pm, so it’s a big change for me, and so far it seems to be working.  I suspect it’s only because it’s summer and so light in the mornings.  I can’t see me doing this ...

I looked at this card a lot last summer!  It has been stuck up above my computer for years, and I was writing Honeymoon with the Boss while outside it was as grey and miserable as only an English summer can be.  The story is set in the Maldives, so whenever I was short of inspiration (quite a lot of the time, as it turned out), all I had to do was glance up.  My scanner isn’t very good, and puts dirty yellow dots all over everything, but the original card is beautiful, and always makes me feel as if I’m wallowing in a lagoon, digging my fingers into the white sand and listening to the hot wind soughing through the coconut palms (my toes are curling just thinking about it!) 

The book is finished and the sun is shining – hurrah!  I typed THE END at four o’clock on the dot on Saturday, and after a drink to celebrate that night am now in full-on achievement mode.  Yesterday I defrosted the fridge, cleaned the oven AND had a major weed/tidy in my poor neglected garden, and now I’ve even got round to updating the blog … am I a machine or am I a machine???  True, I can’t quite bring myself to tackle my accounts, the next big job, but I don’t want to lose the glow too soon! 

Actually, I haven’t yet sat down to reread the whole manuscript yet, so perhaps all this celebration is premature, but it was such an enjoyable story to write in the end, that I’m hoping that bodes well for it.  I liked writing it in the first person, and the guidelines allowed for a lighter emotional conflict than normal, which suits my style, I think.&a ...

Hhmmnn.  There I was feeling very pleased with myself – verging, indeed, on the insufferably smug – having got to the end of a full draft last night, with still a whole month before my deadline. How quickly things can change!  I’ve been enjoying writing this book, too.  It’s a romantic comedy, based on the Pick Your Own Romance survey I ran here last year as part of the 50 book celebrations, and writing it in the first person made it feel a lot fresher for me.  So I’ve been rattling away, not bothering with too many articles or inverted commas, and telling myself that the final draft would just need a bit of polishing and punctuation. 

WRONG! 

I sat down this evening and reread the entire draft and it’s obviously going to require much more work than I’d thought.  So much for ducking the usual Chapter 7 crisis!  I don& ...