The weird and the wired

I've been getting seriously hyped up about the upcoming RNA conference. What better way to gear up than attending last week's talk on Writing Romantic Fiction at Reading library? The meeting got off to a weird start for me as I thought I'd lost my marbles when the nice woman sitting next to me introduced herself as Romy from South Africa. Now I have bad memory problems so my first thought was to panic - was this my fellow Minx Romy who I'd believed to be still in South Africa? Actually it was another Romy but I had a very confused moment and as both are attending the conference I shall have to try not to get mixed up :-)
It was also strange when a couple of people mentioned having heard of the Minxes blog. Not to mention difficult to say "Actually I'm a Minx" without giving into the urge to giggle uncontrollably ;-)

Other than cringing on behalf of the panel when they were asked what the formula for writing Mills and Boon was (!) the point that struck me most from the talk was the panel's answer to the question 'How many full length novels did you complete before you were published?' The answer was anything between 2 and 10, the average being 5!
it reminded me again just how dedicated you have to be and how our commitment as writers is to the craft itself, rather than to any particular story.

Having said that I am loving diving into the world of the story I'll be pitching at the conference. For a taster below is the rooftop in Marrakech that my hero is going to whisk my heroine off to

It's good to talk...

The Minxes have been brainstorming on Skype recently and it's been great - instant input and discussion (and a real laugh to boot). I'm starting to think about the new story I'll hopefully be

pitching at the RNA conference and knowing I'll be under skype scrutiny at the end of the week means I'll get my act together this week.

It's also good to listen

Reading Library has an event on tomorrow evening (2nd June) - "Writing Romantic Fiction". Julie Cohen, Nina Harrington, Tania Crosse, Beth Elliott and Janet Gover will be talking and I'll hopefully be in the audience listening. There are even rumours of a Mills and Boon giveaway at the event.

I had a sneak peek at the ipad yesterday, I'll hopefully be getting one soon and am delighted to hear Mills and Boon books will be available on the ipad later in the year - I used the voice utility to play part of a book aloud in a shop and was really pleased to hear a natural sounding reading voice, not the robotic voice I currently get on my computer. It will transform things for me, I'll no longer be stuck with just what I can get on audiobook.

Although that said there is even good news on the audiobook front. I'm trying out a romance audiobooks website, audiolark, which has some very reasonably priced titles.

I'll be listening to Nell Dixon's 'The Cinderella Substitute' as my next book which I'm really pleased about, having met her at last year's RNA conference. Talking of which I'm getting ridiculously excited about this year's conference and being able to chat to some of the writing friends I've grown close to over the past two

years :-)

Yep, Bob Hoskins knew what he was on about (famous BT ad in the 90s, for those of you outside of the UK!) .

Minxy moonlighting

I'm blogging over at the Minxes of Romance site today to introduce myself. This is a shameless appeal to blogland pals to pop over and say 'Hi' or else I'll feel the kid who plays on her/his own in the playground - you know the one (it used to be me in a dim and thankfully distant previous life!).

If you comment I promise to love you forever (well as long as you don't say anything nasty that is :-)

Celebrating

I have two writing reasons to be cheerful today:

1. My crit group's new blog Minxes of Romance is going full steam ahead and some great authors have agreed to take up our author spotlight slots. In fact we have the winner of the RNA's Joan Hessayon award (announced yesterday), Lucy King, guesting in July - you can read about her win here
2. I have started a new story AND found the paper notes for my Secret Billionaire partial so I can make some progress now...

I haven't had so much fun since my aqua-tai chi instructor told the class to swim to the deep end to warm up, completely forgetting that we had weights on our feet...

Discovering Scott Cole

I've been discovering Scott Cole this week, sorry that was supposed to be 'discovering Tai Chi with Scott Cole' ;-)

I'm trying to improve my balance and while I'm attending aqua-Tai Chi classes (yes, it's exactly what it sounds like!) I still have no idea what I'm waving about or why so I decided to buy a dvd.

And there's no way I'd be shallow enough to buy a dvd just because it has a picture of a half naked man on it, honest, it just looked like a good dvd...

Oh and if you're interested, he does do some of the workouts without a shirt on ;-)

Lessons learnt last week

1. Doing character sheets can be fun and makes synopsis writing easier.
2. Not checking emails/blogs until after lunch leads to getting more writing done (who'd have thought, eh?).
3. Ditto only checking blogs twice a week. Being forced to go cold turkey during my internet-less period helped me break the habit. I love it but could spend all my energy checking blogs, answering emails and critiquing and have none left over to write.
4. Looking at animal rescue websites invariably leads to a new addition to the household. Pipsqueak (the name I've given him) was found tied to a road sign half starved. I can only assume he was abandoned because he was old as he's a lovely little chap and has become my new pint-sized shadow. My other dogs have accepted him in true female fashion i.e. bickering amongst themselves while pretending not to have noticed him ;-)

Wicked witch of the west goes to the sea...

Thank you for the welcome back but ah I spoke too soon, the lovely internet went off and when it did come back refused to let me into anything I wanted to see. Added to being too ill to write I embarked on a course of the grumps resembling the wicked witch of the west with very bad PMT. The only highlight of last week was getting myself to the RNA chapter lunch and chatting to some really lovely and inspiring writers, one of whom has the same editor who gave me the famed Business Card.

Fired up about submitting my partial and the upcoming RNA conference even the 40 minute wait in the cold for the taxi that failed to turn up (snark ;-) couldn't totally quench the flame. Although I find nothing more irritating than burning to write and being, for whatever reason, unable to. Thankfully a last minute weekend trip to one of my favourite beaches helped bring me out of the grumps. Sod anger management, give me a bit of sunshine any day! And after a really annoying enforced rest I feel I can write today. Hooray!

Oh, and the dogs enjoyed themselves too!