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 :-)

Trailing behind/Kreativ Blogger

Okay, I seem to be slightly behind everyone else at the moment. I mean, I've only just found out that Edie has died in Desperate Housewives (I'm playing catchup with DVDs) and when Sally mentioned she'd nominated me for a Kreativ Blogger award I didn't actually know what she was talking about. But now I find I've missed loads of interesting personal facts being divulged and even missed Jackie and Lacey nominating me too! A week away from blogland is a very long time indeed.

So, I'm getting my act together, resisting the urge to blog about the boiler exploding and my life imploding and finding my manners to say thank you very much :-)

Now for seven hopefully interesting facts about myself. Hmm, well:

1. I used to read and write arabic as a child but can't remember a thing now. I also used to speak fluent spanish and ditto. Everyone said it would come back (my parents now live in Spain) but it never has. By the time I was three years old my teddy had a BA frequent flyer's badge because we'd flown so many trips together (I was an ex-pat kid).
2. I was evacuated from Iran during the revolution, along with my sister and mum. I remember everyone being very stressed and huddling round radios to find out what was going on.
3. I managed to create a few dramas of my own by nearly dying several times as a toddler - I caught a tropical fever and had to be packed in ice, walked to the bottom end of a swimming pool and had to be resuscitated and fell off a sofa and stopped breathing.
4. I once rode a racehorse belonging to the Sultan of Oman.
5. I've been told this week I have 'Acquired Dyslexia' - it happens sometimes after a head injury but no one really knows why. Ah well, at least I know why everything's been coming out as gibberish when I type.
6. I used to work somewhere that was used as a film set and was caught hanging out of the window trying to get a glimpse of Colin Firth as he went for his lunch. I also saw most of the cast of Harry Potter and got to ogle the props (the Knight bus, a hippogriff and some of the Hogsmeade shops).
7. I've had tea at Buckingham Palace and with the Archbishop of Canterbury (Yes, really!)

Now, who to nominate? Most of my blog friends seem to have already been nominated so I'm doing a quick think about who I'd like to know interesting facts about. So I'm nominating:

• Joanne Pibworth
• Joanne Cleary (who's already been nominated but has yet to divulge so I'm adding to the pressure - dish the gossip Jo ;-)
• Sri Pammi
• Lucy King (who did a recent interview for Cataromance, I don't know if everyone saw it?)
• Judy Jarvie
• Waiting for the Call
• Rachael Johns (when she gets back from holiday!)

Reasons to be cheerful

Yesterday was 'Black Monday' the day of the year calculated to be the most depressing by well, h'experts I suppose! When chatting to my mother in law about lack of heating etc a couple of weeks ago I said "Well, things could be worse". She replied doubtfully "I fail to see how." But in the past week I've been proved right - we ended up with no cold water either and then when the thaw came had extensive power cuts and the drains overflowed and blocked. I also got a stomach bug in addition to my cold.

In the interests of not depressing the hell out of my blog readers I've been thinking of reasons to be cheerful other than "it could be worse". They are rather shallow I'm afraid but they've worked for me ;-) Oh they're also a bit UK centric I'm afraid but I figure if you're in sunnier climes you might not be in as much need of cheering up!

• Hustle is back on BBC1 with the lovely Mickey Bricks (Adrian Lester) who steals from the bad guys and is the epitome of alpha control :-)

• Season 1 of The Mentalist will be out to buy on DVD very soon. I still haven't decided if it's Patrick Jane or Simon Baker I'm in love with :-)

• Most fab news of all is that a new series of NCIS is on! I am a huge Michael Weatherly fan, but perhaps you've noticed that???

The rampage of the tea-aholics

Now hot water I can do without. Heating I can do without (just). But the one thing guaranteed to put me in a strop is being deprived of my cup of tea. Not having one to start off the day just feels all wrong and trying to write without tea in my system, well...

And tea for me requires milk.

Unfortunately by the time we got out of our snowed-in village we found panic buyers have emptied shop shelves of every single drop of milk, even the skimmed and UHT stuff I've never known anyone to like.

Combine that with tankers being unable to access dairy farms and you have total and utter chaos among the tea-aholics. I'd used some of our last precious reserves for my husband's emergency flask (as advised by every single news broadcast I've seen) as he set off in the snow to see a client. Said client spied the flask and leapt upon it (well he hadn't had a cuppa for two days so I do sympathize). Then he and the husband shared the contents closeted in the office where the other staff wouldn't see them.

Anyone who's ever worked in a British office knows if the kettle ceases to the work the workers begin to revolt. I fear if milk deliveries don't resume we will have a national crisis on our hands.

You have been warned. Expect reports of cow rustling soon...

It doesn't snow but it pours...

Some lowlights of 2010 so far:

1. Falling flat on my face in a frozen forest and giving myself a black eye.
2. Discovering this morning that the temperamental hot water supply has gone the same way as the heating and is now refusing to put in an appearance at all. Not great when the temperature is going down to minus 9 at night and unlikely to rise above zero for at least a week.
3. Open warfare, resulting in a vet's visit this week, between my two dogs who have happily shared a basket and been the best of friends for four years. Any tips on how to restore harmony gratefully received.
4. Going down with yet another stinking cold. Honestly, I didn't get colds at home in the Northern Highlands (too cold for the germs to survive perhaps?).

Some highlights of 2010 so far:

1. Being snowed in today meant I got to miss physio and actually made some progress re-writing Secret Billionaire. Nobody faint, please ;-)
2. The snow also meant I got to see Holly do a mad 5 minute roll in the snow, making very cute squeaky noises and making me laugh.

A New Writing Year

It may seem like I'm jumping the gun a little here but as yesterday was the anniversary of my accident today seems an appropriate day to start a fresh page.

So. Here is my New Year writing goal - to finally complete my re-write of Secret Billionaire and send the partial off to Richmond.

Even if it means dirty dishes sitting in the sink, wearing clothes more than once and ignoring the crumbs the dogs have left on the carpet...

So what are your New Year Writing goals?

P.S. Hope you like the photograph - I took it in Pralong, a tiny village near where we were staying in Switzerland.