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 books, playing Boggle and laughing.  I’d expected to enjoy myself, but I had no idea it would be quite such fun! 

We concentrated on the structure of the story rather than on the admittedly tricky business of putting words together in a certain order. No amount of sparkling dialogue or simmering sexual tension will work unless you’ve got all the elements you need to drive the story forward and keep the reader turning the pages, so we started off by talking about hooks, and the importance of creating a situation that forces your hero and heroine together, and the motivations that will keep them together, however much they might want to walk away. 

Then we looked at character and the need to  think about giving the hero and heroine inner goals, as well as at plotting, dialogue and how to invest a story with sexual tension.  And somehow, sitting under a vine-laden pergola, with the garden as a classroom, none of it seemed too difficult …

The course was a mixture of me talking (feedback: too much of that!), group discussions, and working on our own stories.  For me, the best bit was listening to people talk about their stories, and playing around with ideas about how to make them work in the group.  I found that really exciting and it was amazing how characters and situations started to come alive as we sparked ideas off each other.

Some great stories began to take shape over the week, and I was quite puffed up with pride in them all by the end, although I don’t actually think it was much to do with me. It was about being with like-minded people in beautiful surroundings, with nothing to distract you but the sound of the river and the clanging of the church bell, no deadline beyond the next fabulous meal, and no responsibility beyond wondering if it was time to move into the shade or not … 

We had one day off, on the Wednesday, when we took the train to Lucca.  I had lunch in a  shady café on the Piazza Anfiteatro, and then spent a lovely afternoon fantasising about being Italian and living there in my next life as I drifted in and out of bag shops, salivated in the most wonderful delicatessens and cycled all the way round the spectacular city ramparts.

Here’s my bike on top of the ramparts...

...and these are the ramparts from outside the city, a photo I’ve only included because Carolyn told me it would be boring, so now of course I have to put it in rather than admit that she was right!

But now it’s back to work.  It suddenly turned into autumn while I was away, and I have that “new term” feeling: I want to sharpen my pencils, start a clean notebook and get myself organised. I’ve got five separate projects to juggle this autumn, but my week at the Watermill has left me raring to get on with all of them … for now, anyway!  I wonder how long that will last??? No holding your breath, anyone!