OK, settle down and make yourself comfortable, because there’s lots to tell you this time and I want you to concentrate!  I’ve spent the last week scratching my head about how to mark the publication of my 50th book this October.  I have a sinking feeling we’re all going to get sick of hearing about that book, but I felt I had to do something, and rather than wait for a frenzy in October, I’ve decided (with some prodding from Nikki!) to liven up the website all year, so we’re starting now ... 

I’ve got the message that websites need to be interactive, but it’s hard trying to think of something that will involve you without requiring a lot of time and effort on your part.  However, we’ve come up with a couple of ideas, which we think y ...

Thank you so much for all your comments on where I might start the next book. No sheikhs, no royalty … phew!  And the message I got from my new editor was only to write those kind of stories if I could really buy into that fantasy, which I can’t, so I can draw a line under that.  Instead, I’m going back to office settings with younger heroines (good call, Anne and Nell!) and the third one of the year will be a Christmas wedding story.   For the first book, I’m starting with the title originally proposed for the book I’ve just finished, but which wasn’t right for that.  It’s going to be called Cinderella’s Wedding Wish (don’t look at me, I just write the books). 

I spent New Year with friends in Scotland – on the Solway coast, where The Right Kind of Man was set, for you fans of Skye and Lorimer – and on New Year&rs ...

I know, I’m ahead of myself!   But I thought I’d get in early and update the blog while I’ve got a free evening, because otherwise it won’t get done until next year (which sounds longer than in fact it is).  I’m in a strange kind of limbo at the moment, having finished the last book of this year but not yet having any idea about what to do next.  I need to have a chat to my new editor, but in theory I’d like to commit to another three books in 2008.  Apart from that, everything’s a blank.  I don’t even have a glimmer of an idea.  There’s been some discussion recently about the importance of titles, and part of me thinks that what I need to do is start with a winning title and write the story to fit it, but I suspect this is easier said than done, and anyway, it would depend on my editor coming up with the title in question, as I haven’t got ...

Well, my new timetabling system seemed to work, as I managed in the end to send my book in four days ahead of my deadline, instead of the week later I was originally anticipating.  I’m sorry if this sounds unbearably smug, but it did feel good!  I had a last minute crisis of confidence when I reread it on Monday night, but it was too late to do anything about it by then, so I sent it off anyway, and as it turned out I needn’t have worried.  I have already had my editor’s comments back, and she seemed to like it (phew).  I just have to make a couple of small additions, and get the hero to produce a ring in the final scene.  These really are tweaks, as opposed to the tweaks editors sometimes ask for which involve rewriting the whole book! 

I’m hoping to get them done tomorrow, and that will be my writing commitments for the year done and dusted – what a relief!  I&rsq ...

Fortunately Tilly and Campbell got the thumbs up from my editor, and as you can see from my high-tech timetable here I am getting stuck into their story.  I was rather pleased with my staggered timetable – rather than a standard target of 8 pages a day, sometimes I gave myself 5 or 7, and allowed one day a week off, in the hope that I would get ahead of myself and gain a psychological boost from that.  I even gave myself a three page start, but have to admit that so far I’ve only managed to meet my target every day – there hasn’t been a lot of exceeding going on! 

Even so, the book is progressing.  I am currently stuck up a Scottish hillside with Campbell and Tilly, and beginning to think it’s time to get them down & ...

I am forging my way down my ‘to do’ list and have at last reached ‘update blog’, so must write something right now before I lose my momentum.  I am wearing three hats at the moment, with a temporary day job and a freelance editing job as well as romance writing, and as all seem to be at critical stages at the moment, my days are spent in a frenzy of activity.  Ever the Virgo, I wrote myself a list of things that urgently needed to be done, and am aiming to strike three things off every evening. It’s so long since I had a proper job and worked in the daylight hours that I am quite exhausted by all the pressure, although as you can imagine I am getting scant sympathy from my friends who have real careers and live like this all the time. 

Anyway, back to the blog, which is supposed to be about my life as a romance writer.  I was quite busy for a while with the arrangements for the annual lunch for ...

We had a few technical problems with the blog over the summer, which meant that my August blog didn’t appear, but I did write it, I promise!  I have to admit I was rather hoping that I could think of it as God’s way of telling me not to pursue the blogging side of life, but no, it appears things have been resolved.  Curses.  Now I will have to think of something to say …

It seems a long time since I actually did any writing.  I had a few straightforward revisions to do on the last manuscript (I’d overdone the heroine’s initial misery at being dumped by the love of her life, apparently, and I had to change a reference to the hero wearing long johns, which while practical in a ruined Highland castle were deemed not romantic enough) so got those done before I went off on my holiday, sorry, research trip.  I have to say, having done three books on the trot, I was very glad to go away and fo ...

Oh, dear, is it really over a month since I last updated this blog?  So much for my resolve to do it every two weeks.  I’m afraid the website drops dramatically down the priority list when I’ve got a deadline looming, and for the last couple of weeks I’ve been doing two jobs and finishing a book, and at a critical stage on all three fronts.  However, I sent the manuscript off last night – phew! – after a weekend spent tinkering with it in a rather dissatisfied way.  I’m hoping I’ll be able to get it done and dusted before I go on holiday at the end of next week.  That’s one way of saying that I’m screwing my eyes shut, crossing my fingers and wishing (please, please, please) for no revisions! 

As always I was faintly disappointed when I’d finished the book. They’re never quite what I wanted them to be, but it&rsquo ...

OK, enough with the kittens, already (I love the way Americans use “enough … already”, although I know it doesn’t sound the same in a British accent!)  No more boring you until I can report that both are suitably affectionate … which may be a very long time!  

The current book continues to progress, albeit at a very slow pace.  I’m going up to Scotland for a few days this week, and had hoped to have finished the draft before I went, but given that I’m only half way through Chapter 8, it doesn’t look as if that’s going to happen.  Keeping yourself too busy to think is all very well as a way of dealing with an emotional crisis, but it does have its limitations when you’ve a deadline to meet.  I’ve now filled my days with so many distractions it’s proving almost impossible to write!  

OK, it’s official.  I am now Britain’s Champion Kitten Bore.  They really should give me a cup.  In other words, skip this if you’re not the kind of person who goes ‘aaahh’ when you see a kitten.  But Douglas and Archie have completely taken over my life recently, and I seem to be consumed by them at the moment.  I don’t remember being like this when my beloved old cats were kittens, and I don’t know why I’m fretting so much about these two.  At least, I probably do know why – I’ve got plenty of amateur (and professional!) psychologist friends ready to identify my current obsession as displacement activity for other anxieties – but once I get into the morass that is my emotional state at the moment, it’ll all get very messy, so it’s best not to go there at all. 

Meanwhile, back at the kitte ...