Cat O'Lantern

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Happy Hallowe'en!!!

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Short Story Alert!

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And as if Fair Deception coming out this week wasn't enough good news, I also have a story in Woman's Weekly!

Building Up A Story had its origins several years ago when the then owner of the-house-next-door got the builders in to gut and modernise it in order to sell it on. I lived with those builders for MONTHS! Believe me, the stereotype image doesn't go nearly far enough.

However, the pain has receded and I now have really lovely new neighbours - and a short story to boot! It just goes to show that a writer never throws any experience away.

(WW on sale 29th October to 4th November - and in addition to my story you get gratuitous pics of Sean Bean as well!)
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Another nice reveiw

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I'll be getting a swelled head if I'm not careful. Elaine over at Random Jottings has read Fair Deception and loved it. She thinks I write with "great style and verve and pace" and thought that the book was "sheer delight from start to finish".

The cheque's in the post, Elaine.

Easy - not!

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My manuscript is 67,695 words.
Ideally, I'd like it to be 70,000 words.

2305 words short
272 pages

So that's an extra 8 or 9 words per page needed.

Sounds easy, doesn't it?
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It's Here!

Yippee! I'm now surrounded by lots of copies of Fair Deception.

Even better, the perfectly lovely Nicola Slade has read it and says it is sparkly and spangled and sheer, unadulterated fun!

Lori loved it too!

Thanks, girls, I couldn't be more pleased.
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Eeek!

There I was, peacefully minding my own business in the library, when I turned around and saw...

A poster advertising ME!!!

It wasn't that I didn't know I was giving a talk, you understand, I just hadn't expected there to be a poster advertising it. Made me come over all of a dither.
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Journey to the bottom of the freezer

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You know how you get days when something snaps and you look at a job you've been meaning to do for, er, months and think, "Today's the day!"

Well, today was one of those days. The day when I would chip away at the ice around the top of the freezer so the lid would fit properly again. Ten minutes, I told myself, and I could reward myself with a mug of tea.

Yes.

Only, it's just so satisfying when you ease a whole chunk away from the side, isn't it? So I fetched the sledge-hammer and chipped away some more. And then the basket was in the way, but when I tried to move it, it was actually frozen in, so... you get the picture.


By the time I'd finished the sink looked like this.


And under the basket ...

Suffice to say that I decided I no longer needed beetroot from 1994, tomatoes from 1992 or turkey gravy from 1991.

And look - I found the bottom of the freezer!


So - what's lurking at the bottom of yours?

Losing it!

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Aaarrghhh! I've lost a timeline.

I'm having a last-ish surge through Fortunate Wager and am at the checking all the dates and all the facts stage - and I can't find the timeline!

I know I've made one because I can't not have done. I make one for all my books as I go along. Being just slightly control-freakish, I need to know when I am as I write (one of my pet peeves are books where it isn't clear how much time has passed between one scene and the next). It's also helpful to know which character is appearing too much or too little. Or if the hero and heroine are spending more time apart than together. Plus it's a tremendous way of procrastinating whilst still legitimately claiming that I'm working.

So I know I've written/drawn/annotated this one. I can even see it in my mind's eye with large arrows swooping all over it where I needed to move scenes around. BUT I CAN'T FIND IT NOW!

It's obviously been misplaced somewhere in this lot.


I'm going to have to make another one, aren't I?
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