Desperately Seeking a Title

I need a title. My Feel the Heat entry has been completely and utterly rewritten and now needs to be called something. Kate'n'Alex sounds like the title of a sitcom and although I could stick with Chasing Kate - which was the title I used for FTH - I'm not sure if it fits with the story anymore.

To show you how useless I am with titles, here is a list I came up with:

a) Chasing Kate - Again
b) The Millionaire Property Developer's Secret Bulldozer
c) The Hippy and the Property Developer Have a Weekend of Hot Sex and Live HEA
d) For the Love of Gardening (cos there is gardening in it)

Hmmm, somehow I don't think I'll be using any of the above (though I do have a hankering for the secret bulldozer). ;-)
Anyway, here's where you guys come in. Can you help me think of a title? To get you thinking, here's a quick blurb I wrote about it:

It's lust at first site when Kate meets Alex. Pity he's arrogant, rude, and worse, about to buy her much loved house with the sole purpose of knocking it down. But then he offers her way out of her money woes - he'll buy her house and let her live there, no demolishing required. For a price: one weekend with her.



Alex wants Kate like he's never wanted anything in his life. She's passionate and challenging, the perfect combination. But he's not a settle-down type of guy and so there's only one way for him to get what he wants: he'll have her for one weekend and one weekend only. However he'll soon find that one weekend with Kate isn't enough. Not nearly enough...

Okay, my blurb probably sucks (I hate writing 'em) so the other things you need to know are that secret babies, brides, virgins and/or billionaires do not feature anywhere in the story. A commune, a nice vegetable garden, an island hideaway and an old Mini do.

Anyone got any good ideas??

WIPS and Agents

I suppose everyone has seen my word counters on the side of the blog and has noticed that yes, they all stand at 100%. It's true, I have finished all three of my WIPs. Now I truly, truly don't mean to be smug. It's just that I am very lucky in that this is my day job. And having one kid at school and the other at creche means I do get quite a bit of time to write. And I do write fast when the mood takes me.

The other thing to bear in mind is that although I may have three finished mss, it doesn't mean that they are, in fact, any good! They could all be complete crap! If and when I finally do get to submit any of them, I could be soundly rejected or be told to completely rewrite them. In which case it's back to the old drawing board.

However, I'm fully of the belief that it actually doesn't matter if they are all complete crapola. They were all great practise. Old Coot (mountain climbing hero) is one that I wrote the start of, realised I had no conflict to speak of, and then completely rewrote. Kate and Alex is my Feel the Heat entry, minus the stereotypes and with added internal conflict. And Panic Attack...well, actually that was the latest one I started and the only one where I felt I actually knew what I was doing when I began it - meaning I had the internal conflict worked out first. So even if they are all rejected, I figure that each ms was a great learning experience. Nothing is ever wasted!

And now the fun really begins. Editing! So now I have to contemplate which one to start editing first (and finding titles for since I can't really submit something called Old Coot!) . While I do that, the other thing I'm wondering about is whether to pitch to an agent at the RWNZ conference. Sadly we're not getting an HMB editor this year but we are getting an agent from the Knight Agency who is actively seeking category projects. I don't know whether to pitch or not. I'm thinking not, because you don't really need an agent to write for HMB. What does everyone else reckon? To agent or not to agent?

Cliches and How to Avoid Them

Lorraine has been discussing conflict and cliche on her blog after an interesting editorial post on the Mills and Boon UK site. It's all about how conflicts can become cliches if they are used to create a character. Thought I might put in my two cents worth as it's something that the editors have pointed out to me about my own writing, so I've had a bit of experience with it (hope you don't mind if I nick your topic, Lorraine!).

The way I understand it, a conflict becomes a cliche if that's all there is to the charcter. An example would be my Feel the Heat entry. Kate was a cliched hippy set against Alex, the cliched developer. And that's all. There was nothing behind their conflict, nothing that made them anything more than cardboard cut-outs. Another example (yes, I have a few!) is the current ms that I revised. My heroine in the initial draft was a cliched geek. Again, that's all. That was her conflict. She was two dimensional. Her conflict made her a cliche. I have another heroine in another WIP who also started out like that - the prim accountant who doesn't like losing control. Another cliche. There wasn't anything more, anything that made them real people rather than ciphers. Does that make sense?

To get past these cliches, I think the answer is, as the editor put in her post (paraphrasing here), imagine your character as a real person and ask yourself: what life has this person lived that makes them who they are today? What experiences have they had that have added to their character? Okay, so your hero's mother died when he was 5 and it scarred him, but that isn't the only thing that has ever happened in his life.
For example, in my current WIP, the main conflict for my heroine is that her mother never got over her father leaving them. So she has spent years trying to make her mother's loneliness better but never succeeding (because it's her father her mother wanted, not her). She's very caring so this need to make things better has leaked into other areas of her life, namely her relationships with men. She's attracted to tortured souls so she can 'heal' them. Now, if that was all there was to her, it would make her very one-dimensional (in fact, make her a nurse and I have a cliche just waiting to go). But I have learned my lesson so her need to help people isn't all there is to her. She's developed a fear of flying after a bad flight experience, her much loved grandfather introduced her to photography which she loves, she used to go out with musicians and likes going to a good gig, she's trying to be a bit more selfish about her own needs... All facets of her, some of which are related to her conflict, some are not. But they are all part of the life she's lived up until now and make her the person she is. Her conflict does not make her a cliche - I hope!

Again, this is just my take on it. I could be wrong. Anyone else have any ideas?

Life Imitates Art

I blame my heroine. In my current WIP my heroine decides that she needs a helicopter ride to overcome her fear of flying. So off I go like an obediant little author and write her the scene she wants. Next day, my brother-in-law who is training to be a helicopter pilot rings me up to see if I want to go for a fly. How exciting yes? Well, guess where my heroine got her fear of flying? Yes, sadly, from me!
So, having written a wretched helicopter scene, I could hardly refuse an actual ride in an actual helicopter now could I? Especially since I've never been in one..

Talk about suffering for my art! Anyway, as you can see, the helicopter was tiny! It was a Robinson R22 for those who know/care about such things (and no, my daughter did not go with us - I could barely fit me and my jersey in there!).

However, I am pleased to report that despite little wobbles about how the wretched thing stays in the air and a few 'oh look, is that plane coming directly at us??' moments, it was fantastic! Flew right over Auckland and over our house (the roof is in dire need of a paint), and it's definitely a trip a heroine in need of getting over her fear of flying requires.

Have decided for my next WIP, my hero shall fly helicopters. Actually scrub that. The heroine can fly the damn helicopter. :-)

Some Perspectives

I'm feeling sick and grumpy today. Got a vile cold and aren't fit company for man or beast. Anyway, thought I needed a bit of perspective on - yup, you guessed it - waiting. Here's a quick list for you:

1. Penelope waited 20 years for Odysseus to return.
2. Pharaoh Kufu waited 20 years for the Great Pyramid at Giza to be built.
3. The average wait time for a new heart is 6 months (UK).
4. The Count of Monte Cristo was in prison for 14 years.
5. Heathcliff was away from Catherine for 3 years.
6. It takes 6 months to become a New Zealand citizen.
7. It took JK Rowling's agent a year to find a publisher for her Harry Potter manuscript.
8. The Israelites spent 40 years wandering.
9. Getting to Mars would take between 7 and 9 months depending on how fast you were travelling.
10. Keri Hulme (NZ writer) spent 10 years writing her Booker Prize winning novel, The Bone People.

In comparison, my ms has been in London for 9 weeks, which is no time at all. Nuff said, I think.

Oh, and the above facts may or may not be true - my research could be (and probably is!) highly suspect.

The Heroine Wore A Housecoat

Okay, so last post I complained about the clothing dilemma in terms of the hero. And I also wondered just what on earth a housecoat was. Thanks to Lorraine and Joanne(who has posted a lovely You Tube clip of Hilda Ogden on her blog), I now know! Yes, it is - as I feared - something my nana would have worn if she were still alive (RIP). Otherwise known as a 'pinny'. Attractive no? Can you imagine dressing your heroine in one of these? I guess they were probably thought of as hip and up to the minute in...I was going to say the seventies here but surely by the seventies they would have had fifties housewife written all over them?

Anyway, thank God the housecoat is no longer to be seen because I'm not sure I could take a heroine who wore one entirely seriously. Which brings me to another item of clothing dearly beloved of romance heroines (the ones I've read anyway): the shirtwaister. Now, I have puzzled long and hard about exactly what a shirtwaister is. I have always thought it was a little bit between a housecoat and a dress, and you know what? It is! All you have to do is add a belt!

Seriously, the shirtwaister isn't too bad all things considered. At least, it's little sexier than what I thought. Still, I can hardly talk - my heroine is wearing leather trousers at the moment. Not sure why since she's not really a rock chick and I'm not hugely fond of leather trousers myself. It just sort of...happened. She had all her clothes nicked and the hero's seventeen year old sister took her shopping and...and... Look, she's just wearing them because she likes them okay? ;-) But hey, at least she's given up her strappy sandals, a cliche according to Jenny Hutton's tips on the Mills and Boon boards...

So, what's your favourite heroine outfit then? Housecoats? Shirtwaisters? Leather trousers? :-)

The Hero Wore Pink Trousers

I've been working on my WIP today and ran into the clothing dilemma. What, you say? Clothing dilemma? Yes, indeed. The clothing dilemma frequently happens to me when I'm describing what my characters are wearing and an incredibly cool, styley outfit ends up sounding like something an old man/woman would wear. For example, I saw a picture of a fab Ralph Lauren outfit for my hero and it came out sounding thusly: "He wore a pale grey, pinstripe suit, with a bright pink pinstripe shirt, and a pink and yellow paisley tie." The outfit looked great and the guy wearing it looked really hot. Honest. No? Okay, what about this one: "His black shorts showed off his powerful thighs, the purple jersey he was wearing a nice contrast to the bright green lapels of the shirt he was wearing underneath it." Still no? All right, what about this: "The pink trousers he wore hugged his rear nicely, a pale green jersey stretched across his broad chest." No? Hey, this is Ralph Lauren. Okay, then I guess I definitely wouldn't be able to get away with the fabulous World Man outfit I saw in the shop yesterday. World (NZ designers) do great men's clothes but if I dressed my poor hero in baggy black pants, spotted shirt and a waistcoat with horses on it, it's going to sound naff.

I guess it all comes back to being scarred by reading an old 80s Mills and Boon where the hero wore a cream jacket with brown box pockets and epaulettes, and the heroine a housecoat. Ever since then my heroes have to stick with jeans and a t-shirt. Or a suit. Cut offs at a push. No patterns. Easy to describe, easy to envisage. And don't even get me started on what the heroine wears.

Anyone else have this problem or is it just me? And just what is a housecoat anyway??