Three Tips

Tip 1 - if you're ever offered a medicine that has losing a stone in weight as a potential side-effect, don't think 'Fantastic' but ask questions.

Lots of them.

While being able to feel my ribs again is nice I wouldn't go through the past month again for anything.

Tip 2 - if you ignore tip 1 and end up subsequently incapacitated and dreadfully ill try Lucozade. Lucozade really is my best writing tip - I couldn't even move around my house at the weekend without holding onto the furniture or walls but a couple of bottles later and I was propped up at my desk writing.

I may end up in a diabetic coma (in which case it's been lovely knowing you all!) but I always think it's important to get your priorities straight ;-)

Tip 3 - have a read of Joanne Pibworth's "Sequins and Secrets" over at the New Voices site, it's a corker :-)

New Voices - Taking the Plunge

There are only so many times you can change a word or phrase and then change it back again to your original choice without going stark staring mad.

So, with that in mind I've decided to take the plunge and upload my chapter to the Romance is Not Dead site.
The title is "In too Deep" and the chapter is in the Contemporary Romance section.

If you're still writing/polishing head over to the Minxes site tomorrow (Friday) - We've collated links to all the best competition tips and news stories for you in one post so you can spend more time writing and less time surfing.

Right, time to head over to Lacey's blog to get my badge for being brave ;-)

Romance is Not Dead (but it might have cold feet!)

There's never a good time to be poisoned by your medication really, but the week before the launch of New Voices certainly wasn't the best timing for me to be laid low.
Being violently ill at the same time as realising the beginning of your chapter needs to be re-written isn't a good combination. Worst thing is I've been told it will be another week to ten days until the adverse reaction wears off and I can eat and drink properly again.
So why am I sitting at my computer instead of curling up with daytime TV world? Firstly, because I wasn't convinced The Michael Ball Show wasn't making the retching worse but secondly because next to not eating and not drinking, not writing is even more unpalatable.
Congratulations to those of you who've already uploaded your chapters. Diving straight in beats standing in the shallows getting cold feet. I've always been a 'walk in slowly while gauging the temperature' kind of girl myself when it comes to swimming in the sea (but then I do live in the UK and the sea is bloody freezing!)
I'm sure I'll take a last minute 'what the heck' plunge, once I've managed to re-write my beginning.
Good luck to all my blog friends, I'm looking forward to reading your entries :-)

Which came first, the heroine or the writer?

I'm slightly less grumpy this week thanks to listening to Jack Dee's "Thanks For Nothing" which had me laughing out loud (so now the neighbours probably think I'm as barking mad as the dogs for seemingly laughing to myself ;-)

Or it could just be that I'm less grumpy by comparison to Jack...

Anyway, the question I'm turning over in my mind is whether my heroine is channeling some of my inner stroppiness or if I'm in fact channeling her? A chicken and egg literary question if you like?

I'm sure it's possible to create characters who contain nothing of ourselves in them but I've had a few heroines who've had elements of me in them, or of the me I'd like to be, and I'm sure I can't be the only one.

In my current WIP my heroine is spiky and sarky to the hero, mostly to cover up the fact that she feels incredibly threatened by his presence. I'm not sure I felt threatened by anyone when I returned to Richmond to complete the neuro-psych tests last week though, just sick and knackered but boy did the sarcastic responses keep flowing from my mouth!

When asked for the umpteenth time "What [randomly unrelated word] goes with clown?"

I narrowly avoided responding "I don't know and I don't actually give one, now let me go home to bed."

As a reward for such self restraint and given it's a bank holiday here in the UK I'm going back to bed with Jack ;-)

So, do your heroines ever influence you???

New Hero Love

I'm cheating on Jack (the hero of The Art of Seduction) - I'm falling in love with the hero of my new competition story (In Too Deep) too!

Reluctantly being forced to take a break from writing it (have decided it's more new M&S briefs than old saggy pants on reflection) I watched Dannii Minnogue, Style Queen. I have to say my attention was gripped by her very gorgeous hubby - Kris Smith (see above). Not that I approve of husband coveting, I'm just saying he happens to look very much like my new hero and if he also happens to have an identical twin brother, well...
Where was I? Oh yes, I hadn't paid much attention to Kris with a K before now but in the programme he displayed a sense of humour and a lovely caring protectiveness towards Dannii that made me instantly think of my new hero.

Yes, I think Kris will do very well ;-)

Want to know a secret?

Have you ever wondered if it's possible to make a living from writing? Of course you have, if you're being honest. And if you've been around the newbies block a few times you'll have grasped that it's a little harder than the media would have us believe, even after you sign that book deal.
'So what should we do?' I hear you cry. Funny you should ask me that, as Sue Moorcroft, author of Love Writing, How to Make Money Writing Romantic or Erotic Fiction is guest blogging for the minxes today on this very subject. Pop over and see what she has to say. If you've got any questions stick them in a comments box.
Yes we love writing and we'd continue to do it whether we got recognition and the reddies or not but...unless you're married to a billionaire (in which case why are you reading my blog instead of sun bathing on your yacht?) then it's a subject that affects us all.

***

This week I've been the moaniest Minx of them all. New medication and numerous tests in far flung places have left me mewing like a pitiful kitten to anyone prepared to listen. A few words have been penned on my potential competition entry but subsequently deciding it's pants has left me very irritable. Of course it may not be pants, just a combination of dirty first draft and that fog of tiredness that makes the entire world feel like a rotten place. So I'll reserve judgement a little longer...
How about the rest of you? Are your current WIPs pants or lacy works of La Perla art???

Going to Richmond

Both I and my partial will have been to Richmond this week but not at the same time.
In a bizarre twist of fate I was sent for neuro-psychometric tests at an address just yards from the Mills and Boon Richmond offices on Monday. And I have given myself a deadline of this Friday to submit the requested chapters of The Art of Seduction.
Although I've been so knackered since the tests that's proving harder than I thought - every time I sit down to listen to my chapters I fall asleep. I'm hoping that's more indicative of my exhaustion than of the quality of the writing!

Embarrassingly the Boots delivery guy brought my medication while I was listening/sleeping and apparently was knocking for some time before I woke (and the front door is right next to the room with my computer! I'll have to use headphones or shut windows to listen in future). After the gardener I thought it couldn't get any worse but as usual I was wrong.

I think it's a hard and fast rule that no matter how bad things are/how much you embarrass yourself there is always scope for things to be infinitely worse...
If I do lick my chapters into readable and error free form then it'll be a testament to my crit group the Minxes of Romance and crit partner Jackie Ashenden (who was lovely enough to read my revised ending while she's on holiday/conferencing in Sydney and has much more exciting stuff to be doing ;-)
So I want to say a big thanks, I honestly don't know what I'd do without you guys.

I do have to go back for more testing as I was too ill to complete it on Monday so it's going to be weird, sitting in the tests being asked about the speed of light and playing the Generation Game (yes, it's those ones for anyone who remembers me blogging about them in October!) knowing my partial is sitting in the Ed's inbox just yards away from me!

In other news I've finally become a fledgeling twitterer, my ID is romanceminx if anyone wants to find me. Tbh I'm a bit bamboozled at the mo about the whole thing so will be pathetically grateful to anyone who follows me :-)
Also I'll be blogging over at the Minx site on Friday and promise you some lovely pics of gorgeous men and a mini follow up to Heidi Rice's New Voices competition workshop last Friday.
Begging and pictures, how can you refuse???