Very little to report on the writing front for the last couple of weeks, as I have been working on my thesis, and trying to get a mass of data into some kind of order.  This is always the point where I think writing fiction is so much easier, because you can make it all up, but I’m sure I will be singing a different tune come October when I have to start the next book and am faced with an empty page …

As far as writing romance is concerned, I have come down from the cloud I was on last time I wrote, and my glow of smug self-satisfaction has faded somewhat, no doubt to the huge relief of everyone who knows me.  I have a new editor now, and I have been discussing options for the next few books – or rather, she has been patiently listening to me fretting about whether outback books are as popular in foreign language markets as they are in the UK and North America.  I get sent two copies of every international edition, and I keep one on my shelves so that I can look at a book like The Convenient Fiancée and see how many times it has been translated compared to Outback Husband, say.  The trouble with this is that I start to get paranoid.  Why no Japanese edition of Outback Husband ? and so on, when I should just stop worrying about it and get on and write the story as it comes.

Which is what I am going to do next.  I’ve agreed an outback setting for the next book, followed possibly by three linked ‘city’ books.  So far I’ve got an idea that consists of about three lines and an awful lot of question marks, with not even any names to inspire me.  I think about it when I’m walking Mungo or trundling away on the treadmill at the gym (yes, I’m still going!)  but I’m not getting very far.  I know how to incorporate an outback hook and a baby hook, but would really like to get in a ‘marriage of convenience’ hook as well.  Thinking up a reason for the heroine to agree to something like that isn’t easy.  I haven’t got a name for her yet, but I know she’s not wet and she’s not silly, so it’s got to be something good.  I’ll have to keep working on it …