An interesting choice of metaphor

I'm doing a quick post to quell rumours that I've been crushed by a giant writers' block falling from the sky. Instead I've been surrounded by cardboard boxes (some of which have fallen on me actually) and having yet more problems with my internet connection (grr). Anyway, just because I haven't left any comments on your blogs doesn't mean I don't love you all anymore, in fact I've really been missing my daily blog check and can't wait for life to let me slot back into my normal writing-obsessed routine.

So, to say sorry I haven't been around here are some romance novel quotations that I hope will make you smile :-)

1. His body was hard -- not hard like Milosevic, the Serbian strongman, but hard like the marble on your shower floor, when you fall and bang your knee.

2. Her embrace made his manhood swell like week-old roadkill on hot asphalt in the Georgia sun.

3. Her breasts heaved like a stormy ocean, and her pointed nipples were like hypodermics washed up on the shore.

4.Her petticoats dropped to the ground, rustling like a cockroach in a sugar bowl.

5. He tore open her blouse like a Publisher's Clearing House letter in which he, and some guy named Steven Bouber from Stockton, California, were potential finalists for the $10 million prize.

6. With each breath, her chest heaved like a bulimic after Thanksgiving dinner.

7.Then he kissed her, like a butterfly kisses the windshield of a Porsche on the Autobahn.

8. His manhood stood at full attention, stiff and stony like the vice president.

9. Beatrice was on him like a piranha on a corn dog.

10. His chest was her pillow, and oh, did she drool.

The phantom phone ringer and a creative glimmer

Yesterday I actually wondered if the house might be cursed.

With the heating, hot water heater and drains all still on the blink and the phone line recently joining their strike after a valiant 6 day disruptive action campaign - crackling, disabling my internet and ringing at random times in the night with no one at the other end of the line (and spookily no call registered when 1471 was dialed). Well, maybe it was the internet withdrawal but when my lovely audiobook-playing iphone died and resisted resuscitation the whole curse idea seemed highly plausible. A notion that was only compounded by the electric blanket joining the 'things on the blink' list. Okay, so I've suspected for a while that my skin crackling with electricity when in bed was probably a bad sign but I needed it to keep WARM.

What's next? A plague of locusts?

On the plus side I am now deliriously grateful when anything previously taken for granted actually works. This morning I beamed at the BT man who fixed the "massive circuit failure" and gave me my internet back. It works. It works! I am no longer cast out into the utter darkness :-)

And another smidgeon of hope - I had a new story idea yesterday and an idea of how to fix Secret Billionaire (focussing on the emotion and motivation in each scene and maybe starting completely from scratch again. Gulp). Not exactly a complete demolition of writer's block but it's a start.

And I'm feeling surprisingly zen. Riding on the tide of my internet high I have a dream that one day I will again live in a home with piping hot water and those warm white things on the walls. The internet will flow unimpeded and my iphone pick up emails without my having to climb a tree and... Bother, my dream has just been interrupted by the kettle making a loud screeching noise. No, not the kettle, please spare the kettle (see The Rampage of the Tea-aholics).

I'll be back soon to see what you've all been up to. Plagues of locusts allowing of course :-)