I Hate Beginnings

It wasn't always this way. I used to love them. I used to find them really easy. An idea would pop into my mind and five seconds later I was writing it and it would just flow and the world was full of happy bluebirds and fluffy bunnies and singing princesses. Of course afterwards I'd have to rewrite the whole story fifty times over (including the stupid beginning) but hey, at least the start went well...

Sadly this is no longer the case for me. I've started my new WIP and it's taken me a week to get the first chapter right. This is unusual for me since when things are going well I can write a chapter in a day. My problem is - I think - that the more I know about character and conflict, the easier it is for me to see when it's missing from my story. Last year I'd push through the hard bits and just write in an effort to find the story. Now I'm finding I can't do that. Now I'm realising that when it gets hard, it's usually because I'm missing something vital and if I write through, I'll only end up rewriting over and over so it's better to get it right first time round.

This beginning hate is also partly a change of process. Instead of having an idea of the set up and writing instantly, I spend a LOT of time thinking about the story first, getting it straight in my head initially. This has been great in terms of conflict etc but when I sit down to write I've sometimes got too much information in my head and I struggle to get the balance of conflict, backstory, and character right in that first chapter.

Then there's the writing away and suddenly having to stop because you've realised you haven't nailed the characters down as well as you could have. This in particular has been a real bugbear for me, especially with this WIP, probably because my sheikh and his oil baronness were so strong in my head. I always knew what they'd say in any given situation because I knew them. But this time round it's been a struggle to fix Mr Rough and Miss Prim. She was easier. But he...I just couldn't get him. It's like the difference between a statue of a man and the living, breathing reality of him. I knew his appearance, his conflict, a fair bit of backstory but he just wouldn't come to life for me. I suppose the good thing is that now I know the feeling of having a character come to life - my chessman, my sheikh - I can recognise when it's not happening and can stop and try to find the 'key' to the character. And for me that's usually figuring out their layers. ie what's the mask they wear in public (their identity) and who are they behind this mask (their essence).

Anyway, to cut a long and VERY boring story short, once I'd figured out Mr Rough's identity (after only having to write his POV twice!) the stupid statue finally began to show signs of life and now I think I have him. Just as well since his conflict is going to be an extremely tough one to write and he's going to be another dark, angry hero that I will have to break. Hehe. *rubs hands*.

Does anyone else find beginnings tough? Or is it just me??

Peek of the Week - With Ink

See the inspiration for my new hero - and be afraid. Be very afraid!

Marriages of Convenience - Hot or Not?

I've kind of been slack at blogging lately. And slack at Twitter. About the only social media thing I haven't been slack at is Pinterest. Sigh. I've never been one for collages for my mss but there's something about Pinterest that's just so...Hmmmm.....

Anyway, my excuse for this slackness is due to finishing Mr Sheikhypants. Which I now have. Yay. Of course it does mean that now I have to write the synopsis. Not yay. Synopses and I do not get on. I'd far rather immerse myself in my new idea. Because yeah, now the sheikh is done, I have to put him away and think about the next story, and in the interests of staying ahead of rejections, I'm going ahead with a new Presents/Modern.

This new idea has come together rather different to anything I've done before and I think it's a good thing. Instead of coming up with a set up and charging straight into it, I've actually taken the time to think about it before I start writing. Isane, right? ;-) I've decided to do a marriage of convenience story since I haven't done one before and they're always popular, with an enemies to lovers slant on it. But it isn't really the trope that's the important bit. It's the characters that matter most. And this time I've actually tried to think about who they are as people first, before I decided on their conflict.

What I find interesting about this process for me now is that it feels like the characters come together in a much more organic way rather than merely being a collection of traits and conflicts stuck together. And now I know what type of people they are, I can look back over their pasts and see what their conflict might be and how it has shaped them. All of this without writing a word of the story.

However, this is going to be a tricky story. My hero has a very dark conflict, though actually, that's not the tricky part. The tricky part is thinking of a good reason for a marriage of convenience! Anyone read any good MOC stories lately? Was the reason for the MOC plausible?? Any hints gratefully recieved...

Adventures at 3.30am

I am a slacker. I was going to post earlier but I've totally been recovering from the trauma of getting up at 3.30am to pitch Mr Sheikhypants to unsuspecting editors (not to mention actually writing as much of Mr Sheikhypants as I possibly could). Naturally enough I had the usual nightmare - that I'd slept through and missed the pitch. You cannot imagine my relief when I looked at the time and saw it was only 12.30am. Thank God.

Anyway, a couple of hours later I dragged my sorry self out of bed and (despite terrible worries that the power would suddenly cut out or my computer refuse to work) managed to log on. It was a wonderfully friendly experience. I've never really been in a chat situation and it was fabulous that the editors were hanging out in the waiting room chatting with everyone too.

I was last on the list and around 5am eventually got to pitch. And I'm not ashamed to say that I froze. Completely. Twice. My head was full of GMC so when one of the eds asked me how my hero would pick her up in a bar, I kind of just stared at the screen going 'huh?' Of course AFTER the pitch I thought up all kinds of fabulous things to say such as my hero does not go to bars to pick up women! But did I say that? No. However, what I did manage to do was get across his conflict which they thought was 'very emotionally powerful'. Cue yays from me!

The editors also gave me some good advice re the heroine and also that since my voice is 'light' I need to get some darkness in there - cue more yays from me since I do love the darkness.

Anyway, I think I did all right since they asked me for a partial and synopsis, which is fantastic (the partial bit, not the synopsis)!

So go the sheikh!

Master Class at the Sisters

Naturally since I am the WORLD EXPERT at pitching, I am doing a post on pitching at the Sisters today. Here in fact. Of course, when I say world expert, I mean that term very loosely. Exceedingly loosely. In fact, I'm actually no expert (shock, horror), more of an enthusiastic amateur. And it's basically a post I wrote about the route I took when pitching. If you're interested...or you could have a look at this picture instead. Who is the inspiration for my blue-eyed Sheikh...

Mr Sheikhypants Wins!

Okay so I was naughty and didn't tell anyone that I'd entered the Presents pitch on eHarlequin. I probably should have but to be honest I have been getting a little sick of announcing that no, I didn't get anywhere so I thought if no one knew and I didn't get picked then I wouldn't have to say anything.

But, well, I did get picked. And Mr Shiekhypants seems to have been a winner.

To say that I am moderately pleased would be to say that Sally Field was quietly satisfied with her Oscar win. :-)

And I have to say, I am quite shocked because it was only an 80 - 100 word blurb, plus a 250 word excerpt so you had no room at all to pitch your idea. I am also not the world's best pitcher. However, I will say that having a hook really, really helps. And some books are 'hookier' (if that's even a word!) than others. I have no idea whether that was what made it with mine, but having a tough oil baroness for a heroine helped. She was totally my hook and I shamelessly used her!

I do hope, however, that I haven't bitten off more than I can chew with doing a sheikh story...

Oh well, I guess that's me all up. I like to make it hard for myself and not play it safe. But at least it's another small step forward in this ridiculous roller-coaster ride of a journey.

Playing it Safe

Sometimes I wonder if I'm not making things harder for myself. I'm thinking this after reviewing some feedback for a contest I entered a while back. It was my chess playing hero's story and he didn't do all that well in the contest. Why? Because one judge HATED the story. Now, most of the other judges really liked it. They scored me really well. But this one, particular person just did not like it at all. In fact, the only thing that would have made this story better for them would be if I had never written it at all. Same with my other entry - which actually did really well but only just missed a final placing. One judge did NOT like Presents. They did NOT like alpha males. And they stated it in the feedback sheet and scored me accordingly.

So now I'm wondering if entering my writing into contests is really a good idea. I knew my chess hero wouldn't get anywhere because he's a very polarising hero. He's damaged and hard and screwed up. He's a love him or hate him kind of guy and sure enough one judge loved him and one judge hated him. Perhaps if I'd played it safe and softened him up, he would have done better in the contest. Perhaps that's what I should be doing with all my stories.

This is why I'm wondering if I'm making it harder for myself. Because I don't like safe, tried and true conflicts. I like difficult, dark conflicts. I like flawed characters. Because they're interesting and when they overcome their difficulties, the emotional pay off is that much more intense. But it IS hard to pull off and some readers just don't like reading that kind of stuff.

It's a conundrum. My chess player was, I think, the first character I've written that truly came alive to me in my head. Who made me see that my characters in previous stories were amalgams of forced together traits and conflicts, like a badly put together mosaic. But he came together really organically, as a whole person, and just leapt off the page at me. I never had to question what he would do at a particular moment in the story because I always knew, because I knew HIM as a person. He has a special place in my heart for precisely that reason and when I write now, I remember how his character came together and if I'm not feeling that way about the characters I'm currently writing then I know I have to stop and think about them some more. I must admit though that when I wrote it, I did wonder if I should pull back on him. But then to do so would have been to make him someone he wasn't and I couldn't do that.

So I guess that's my conundrum, do I play it safe with the tried and true and make it easy for myself? Or do I keep writing about the characters and conflicts that interest me and perhaps make that publication goal harder? What would you do?

Mr Sheikhypants

When I was at university, I got through my English degree with a healthy dose of Mills and Boon. Shakespeare and Chaucer and Dickens and Bronte were leavened with lots of billionaires (or millionaires since a million bought you a hell of a lot more then than now!). But back then I was most particular about my heroes. I didn't like Mediterranean heroes and I didn't like sheikhs. I used to find them ridiculously over the top and one things was for sure, even when I thought I might give romance writing a go, I swore I would never EVER write one.

Oh how times change.

In my quest to challenge myself, I've decided to tackle a sheikh. When I announced this to some dear friends of mine (you know who you are!), one of them in particular could NOT get his head around it (he is a guy so fair call). He had many questions, all of which stemmed from the most basic of misunderstandings - why would anyone find a sheikh sexy? Of course, he's thinking real life. But these stories are NOT real life. They are fantasies. And for many women, a sheikh is the ultimate fantasy.

He's dark. He's brooding. He's alpha. He's kind of mysterious. What's not to like?

So I figured out a premise and considered my sheikh. Dark? Check. Alpha? Check. Brooding? Well, I tried to make him brooding. I really did. I wanted him kind of harsh and angry because that's what sheikhs are, right? Except Sheikh Fred (as he came to be known) wouldn't. He kept kind of morphing from Angry Sheikh into Amusing Sheikh. I did have to consult the inimitable Ms Yates who is experienced in all things Sheikhy and she suggested I let him do what he wanted to do. You'd think I would have learned about not imposing what I wanted on my characters but noooo.... Anyway, so it seems that this hero is not to be a dark, brooding, ruler of a mysterious desert desmene. He's to be a wry, amusing, charming ruler of a mysterious desert desmene.

I don't know whether this will work. It could be that this is my point of difference on the sheikh story (I'm not saying there aren't other sheikhs like Fred out there though). It could be a terrible travestry. However, I DO know that underneath he IS dark. He's got major issues. He just covers them with an amusing front. Which kind of makes it darker in a way....

So, anyway, back when I first read M&B, the heroines in sheikh stories tended to be ingenues thrown onto the mercy of this powerful, brooding king. I get that part of the attraction is the heroine being totally out of her depth but - again in my quest to do something different - I didn't want to do that kind of story. What I wanted to write was about what would happen if an alpha male was given an alpha female for a heroine. A woman powerful in her own right. So I thought I'd make Mable (my heroine, and no, her name isn't really Mable) be an incredibly successful businesswoman. But not at something traditionally 'female' like interior design or whatever. I wanted her to be powerful in a man's world. So why not an oil baroness (my friend couldn't get his head around this either. No, I know there are no women oil barons and I know the oil industry doesn't work that way but, hello!, fantasy here!)?

Of course, what they do isn't really what's important. What's important is who they are as people and how they overcome their various issues in order to find happiness. The sheikh part of the equation is just window dressing.

I'm going to have fun with my window dressing though, that's for sure. So anyone else tackle a trope or a genre they've always sworn they'd never write??

More Novella Love

I am boring for New Zealand about writing something different on the Sisters' blog today. I'd like to say you might win something if you do. But sadly all you'll win is my excellent regard for your good taste. :-)

Novella Love

Okay, so things in Ashenden world aren't so great. On the up side, I have nearly finished my novella. And when I mean novella, I mean the-little-story-I-thought-would-be-20k-at-most-that-ended-up-being-47k novella. I have no idea why this story got so out of hand. I thought it would be a nice little friends-to-lovers story, where the heroine asks the hero for help and then they have some sexy times together, work out their tiny conflict and then The End.

But no. That's not what happened.

Layers happened. My characters ended up having more layers than a really layery onion and that's why my nice little 20k novella ended up being a 47k monster.

You see that's what happens when you dig deep. You kind of chip away at the surface conflict and suddenly you see, ooh, bright and shiny, MORE conflict. The REAL conflict. So you start digging away into that and then suddenly you realise that's NOT the real conflict. So you keep going. But wait, there's MORE! And then, another 20k later, you finally get to the real, ACTUAL conflict.

Stupid characters.

Anyway, I started out writing this for fun. As a way to do something different and because I wanted to write what I really love writing, which I guess you could say is short length Single Title. Short length cos I hate sub-plots and secondary characters (hence why I like writing category) but not category so I don't feel constrained by language/hawt stuff restrictions. I don't know what to call it really. Dark, angsty category? Dirty, dark, angsty category?? Whatever, the great thing about it is that I really, really liked writing it. Loved. And I hesitate to say it wrote itself but...well, it kind of did. It felt like finally all the stuff I've been learning about character and plot and conflict came together naturally and became part of my process without me having to worry about it. I didn't even really think too hard about the conflict, I just sat and wrote and it all came out.

So, I'm not quite sure what to do with it now. I do love my dyslexic, extreme sports loving hero and my rather buttoned up lawyer heroine so maybe I'll end up subbing them some place. But one thing's for sure, I like this story. I think it's good. I think it deserves to be read and I think people should pay me money to read it. ;-)

Have you written anything different lately? Have you written anything you really totally love that you want people to pay you to read?

Grim Determination

I was going to do a Valentine's Day post but...well...I didn't. I've been too busy hanging on to this writing gig by the skin of my teeth.

I think in my last post I questioned why we do this thing and y'know, for the past few days I've been thinking about it. The answer I always come up with is that I love to write. There really isn't anything I'd rather be doing. But I'm coming to the point where because it's no longer economically viable for me to write fulltime - hey, whaddya know, I haven't sold anything yet! - I'm going to have to do something else that actually earns me some cash.

You hear of people who take chances and quit their jobs to write fulltime who then, after years of toil, finally sell and go on to make pots o cash doing what they love. I would love to have been one of those success stories. But I am not. I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to spend 3 years writing fulltime but that time is now coming to an end. And it's a bummer because I haven't managed to do what I wanted in that time. My craft has improved out of sight and I am writing better than I've ever done. But I haven't got that all-important sale yet.

I guess no one said it would be easy (three years is NOTHING). My words of warning to aspiring writers everywhere was even in our national paper - here! (yes, fame at last, mwwwwahhhhahaa!). And just because I have to get a 'real' job doesn't mean I should give up - though I have to face facts that I won't have as much time to write as I used to. Maybe it would even be good for me since I tend to be very obsessive about things I like doing and need to break out of it occasionally.

I am sad it didn't work out the way I wanted it to though. But never say never. Sometimes even I underestimate my own grim determination to succeed. And that determination is still there. Hanging on by its fingernails, but definitely still there.

Anyone else feeling like they're hanging on by a thread? Or is that me being waaaaay too dramatic again? :-)

Hiding

I know, I've been gone for a wee while. Two weeks of mad writing, closely followed by a full-on doubt spiral and crash. No reason for it, just....Well, actually, I tell a lie. The trigger was a narrow miss on finalling in a contest. Which I should NOT have got so wound up about but did. Mainly because the margin was so narrow and it would have been another opportunity to get more than the first 3 chapters of a story before an editor... Sigh. One door closes and another shuts. Story of my life...

Anyway, laying low at the moment, trying to get some inspiration back again while I battle with non-writing stuff that's getting me down. Not to mention wrestling with the continual question:

Why, oh why, do I want to be a writer again???

To the Bat - ahem - Writing Cave!

Talk about timing. I go camping with the family (let us not mention tents and the dismantling of said edifices in the rain) and the next day find out that I have won a full request from a pitch competition! Argh!!!

Why the argh? Well, I'm camping for a week with patchy internet access and no access at all the manuscript I pitched! Cue more argh! The only thing I could do was sit in my tent and think fiercely about all the tweaking I needed to do for it. Sigh...

Anyway, this is all to say that having just returned from my trip, I am now heading in to the writing cave to polish up my ms and make sacrifices to the gods of publication for a little bit of success. Wish me luck!

PS. Many thanks to Jami Gold for running the competition and also to the editors at Entangled for providing such a great opportunity!

PPS. Congrats also to Jo P for her successful pitch too!

The Big Seckrit

You know the big secret? The one that our hero hides because he doesn't want anyone else to know? Or the one that the heroine never talks about and is afraid someone will find out? Like, the hero used to steal cars and one time, when he was chased by the cops, he hit someone and then ran away because he was afraid of getting caught. Or the time the heroine stole something from a shop because she was poor and needed to eat, and then kept doing it because of the rush?

They're usually BIG SECRETS. And the characters think they can NEVER TELL anyone about them because then...I don't know, the world would explode or something. You get the idea.

Secrets are cool and neat and can drive conflict really well. And it's tempting to keep them until the very end of the book so you can have the BIG REVEAL, where the character will finally TELL ALL and the reader will go 'ah ha! So that was the problem all along!'.

The problem with secrets is that although they are cool and neat and drive the conflict, they can also hide the conflict as well. The true conflict. Because it's not so much the hero's hit and run that's the issue as why he ran away after he hit someone. Same with the heroine and her shoplifting. Why did she need the rush? It's what they DO in response that's the important bit, not the secret itself.

But so often the secret becomes the whole of the story and the more interesting questions like why did the hero run or why did the heroine keept stealing, get lost under the big reveal. Sometimes it's the secret driving the story, not the characters themselves. Which is easy to do because it's fun to keep it from the reader. And it's fun to keep it from the other characters. Makes creating tension really a piece of cake too because all you have to do is threaten the BIG SECRET and hey presto, instant tension.

It's really easy for the big secret to become a crutch for conflict. If you have your characters going to extraordinary lengths to hide their secrets, if you have to manipulate the plot in order to do the same then you really have to ask yourself why. What would happen if the big secret was discovered halfway in? Would the book end? If so, then either you're not going deep enough into the conflict, or the book itself relies totally on the big secret which can also be not so good.

I guess it depends on what type of book you're writing, but for character driven stories I'm a big fan of getting that big secret out in the open when it's appropriate (not manipulating plot and characters to hide it). Because when the big secret is finally out, then you can start dealing with the real meat of the conflict - why did you run away after you hit that person? What were you scared of? Why did you like the rush of shoplifting? What did it give you that the rest of your life didn't?

My chess ms was a book with a character with a big secret. The hero did something bad in his past and he didn't even tell me what it was until the end. So I had to go back and rewrite it so he told it earlier, beacause the bad thing he did was the symptom of a deeper issue he had. A deeper fear. Even now I'm not sure I got it out early enough - but then again, he was a reticent kind of guy and it wouldn't have been something he would have told just anyone. I guess only time will tell with that one.

Anyway, I suppose the real thing to watch for is to make sure that when one of your characters is nursing a secret, you don't have that as the entire conflict (unless you're writing a murder mystery and they're the murderer). Ask yourself why the character is keeping it a secret in the first place? Do they even care what people think of them? What would happen if everyone knew? And if the answer is 'my book would end' then you know you're in trouble. :-)

Do you have a favourite big secret book? When was it revealed? And if you say right at the end and it was still cool then I'm sorry but I'm going to have to kill you. :-)

Rethinking The 10%

Last year I posted a somewhat gloomy post about how getting published was 30% talent, 30% hard work, 30% persistence, and 10% of luck (or something like that - don't ask me to check). And that the problem I had with that equation was that the 10% was something you had no control over. It might happen. Or it could never happen. It all depends on a combination of the right manuscript, the right publisher, the right editor, at the right time.

Or, in another analogy, a combination of wind speed, trajectory, and the weight of the pig.

Yeah, gloomy, depressing. And I am a great one for looking on the depressing side because sometimes you just don't want to hope.

Luckily I have a mother who is the most incredibly supportive person you could ever want to meet (hi Mum!) and something she said to me last night got me thinking about that old 10%. She reckoned that if luck is involved, all it means is that you have to spread your net wider until you eventually catch something. The wider the net, the greater the chance.

I know, people have been saying this to me for a while now and I have been listening. It's just that I'm a person who gets very focussed on one thing and shifting that focus can be difficult. But this year I'm going to give it a go. This year I'm going to try something a little different.

And starting it off is going to be my first attempt at a novella. I've never really liked short stories to be honest (except for Roald Dahl) - I like my stories long. And as far as writing one...I have difficulty with keeping under 50k let alone writing reeeeeaaaallly short. But I had an idea for a shorter story a couple of weeks ago and...well...gotta widen that net, right? Besides, as my six year old keeps telling me, 'only try, Mummy. You have to try'. :-)

So, anyone else widening their net and trying something different? If so, what is it? Share!

A Romantic Start to 2012

So, this is what 2012 is like... *walks around* *sniffs the air*

Okay, not too bad so far. No rejections at least so that's something. Still, the year is but a nipper which means there's plenty of time for Rs to come rolling in... Sigh. Positive much?

On the up side, my New Year started beautifully and romantically with the wedding of very dear and close friends of mine. It was organised in a week, the bride made her own bouquet out of felt and wire, drove herself to the wedding, and cleaned up afterwards (along with her new husband and guests!). Even though there was no notice to speak of and it was in the middle of the summer holidays, 65 people still turned up, all bringing a plate of nibbles to share! It was about 3 hours from start to finish and although my friends would shudder with horror at the very mention of them being romantic (they're far too practical) I actually secretly thought they were. Very romantic. :-) It quite inspired me to write. 


I was also pleasantly surprised a couple of days later to meet someone who, when they asked me what I did, burst into a happy shriek and confessed that she was a romance reader and had just bought herself a whole stack of Mills and Boon to read over the holidays. Now since confessing to reading romance in NZ is somewhat akin to confessing you like torturing small animals in your spare time, it was really great to meet another like-minded individual and have a chat about how there was nothing wrong with it! The reading romance, not the torturing of small animals.... Ahem. Of course my unromantic friend (whom we were staying with) then told the romance reader she should read my writing. And you know what? I said no. Because I found out I'm actually quite sensitive about people reading my stuff when it's not really ready. And the story I was working on wasn't ready. Plus it had a billionaire in it and this lady didn't like alpha billionaires (though I mean really, come on, what's wrong with an alpha billionaire I ask you??). 

Still, I was moderately tempted to show her because it has been a story I've been enjoying writing. Quite a bit actually. And the billionaire isn't really a billionaire, he's a prince. And the heroine is a bodyguard who's one tough chick. It's the kind of story that makes you feel quite pleased with yourself for like....oh, at least the next five minutes. ;-) Or until the R rolls in. But it would have been quite interesting for someone I don't know that well to have a look at it and see what she thought. Then again, she might have hated it because it does require some buy-in from the reader to make the fantasy work...

I guess that's a whole other post though.

Still, a wedding and a nice chat about romance were perfect starts to my year. What about yours?

Happy Christmas and Good Riddance 2011

Haven't posted much recently - still suffering the post-Chessman slump. Which then morphed into another 'all my writing sucks' slump. Which morphed further into a 'everything sucks' slump. Cue endless rounds of Angry Birds and Pocket Frogs on Brad the iPad.

Anyway, this is wishing everyone a happy Christmas and New Year from me here in slump city. We are going up to Dr Jax's family's holiday home for Christmas - yeah, Christmas in NZ is lots of sun and sand and BBQs. Hehe - so I won't be around much for the next couple of weeks.

Hoping your holiday is happy and your New Year full of writing.

Me, I'm just hoping for a better year next year. Roll on 2012.

One Perfect Night - Happy Release Day!

Big day today folks! Time wish my awesome CP and fellow Sister, Rachel Johns a happy release day for her debut book, One Perfect Night, available from Carina Press.

It's a wonderful book so if you need a bit of Xmas cheer this season, or just need a fabulous, fun and romantic read, head over to Carina Press and buy this one!

 See below for an excerpt and links!

Excerpt from One Perfect Night

“Don’t look now, but Mr. McSexy just entered the building.”

“Blast.” Peppa Grant spun round and did exactly what her best friend and colleague Izzy had ordered her not to. Her breathing faltered at the sight of six foot plus of unadulterated male who now towered at the entrance to the company’s function room. An anxious hush fell over the previously buzzing room. As all eyes snapped to him, she tried not to quake in her costume’s fairy shoes.

Until half an hour ago, Cameron McCormac had meant nothing more to Peppa than the new name at the very top of the office food chain. Now he was the man who owned the car she’d sideswiped in the car park tonight.

The dangerously handsome man who was making her pulse spike simply by standing in the doorway. “Oh, God.”

As Peppa pushed her barely touched glass out of reach and let her head fall onto the table in front of her, Izzy giggled.

“It’s. Not. Funny,” Peppa declared when she finally looked up. Her eyes sought the company’s new CEO again and she felt her heart collapse into her stomach.

“You’re right,” Izzy said, reaching out and stroking Peppa’s hair like a mother over a sick child. “If I’d just put a prize-winning dent in the big boss’s red, convertible pride and joy, I’d probably be at Sydney airport boarding a plane or planning to hitch a ride with Santa back to the North Pole.”

“Hilarious.” Peppa shot her friend a sarcastic smile. “Please tell me McSexy has just vanished up a chimney?”

Izzy took a sip of her chocolate mocktail, her sea-blue eyes sparking with laughter as she peered theatrically over Peppa’s head. “No can do. Looks like he’s doing the rounds, handing out candy canes or something to all the children. Molly must have put him up to it.”

Molly, although old enough to be his mother, was Mr. McCormac’s personal assistant. Rumor had it when he did anything remotely human, she’d put him up to it. She’d been with the company longer than anyone and was the brains behind this event, the annual Christmas party for children of Lyrique Recordings’ employees. Peppa had a fleeting fantasy of leaving a message with Molly about her little misdemeanor in the car park but that wouldn’t be right. And she hadn’t been brought up to take the easy option.

“I’ll do it now,” she said, resting a hand on her queasy belly as she pushed herself off the stool and onto quaky feet. Although whether her shakiness was from trepidation or her gorgeous boss’s sexy gait and air-of-confidence, she couldn’t be sure. “Confess before I’m due on stage and then, if he has any sympathetic bones in his body, he’ll let me entertain the kids before the crucifixion.”

“You’re such a drama queen,” sighed Izzy. “The top job pays well. He has enough money to line his undies drawer in gold. You apologize. You give him the details of your insurance company. You get on with your life. Simple.”

Simple. Right. But Izzy didn’t know that Peppa had just switched to a budget insurance provider. As she had never needed to claim in seven years of driving, the switch had seemed a good decision at the time. The upside was low monthly rates. The downside? A mammoth deductible on claims.

Well, that faux-pas may not only have cost Peppa her car and her job, but paying back the damage to the boss’s vintage Lamborghini would seriously endanger her ability to pay her mortgage. Not to mention she’d have to put her plans for an overseas holiday on hold—a holiday that had been all about helping her mind and emotions recover from the battering of the past few months.

“I think he’s looking at you.”

Izzy’s words broke Peppa’s reverie. And of course she looked up, across the room, only to find her gaze colliding with the Head Honcho himself. Her heart hitched a beat. Despite the distance she could see the roguish tilt of his lips, the slight frown of his distinguished black brows and that his devilish licorice eyes were trained on her. Dark-chocolate hair, speckled with naturally sun-kissed spikes, framed a face so chiseled it could have been carved from stone. A man so in-control of his world he had no reason to question it. Heat flooded her cheeks and, not wanting to draw unnecessary attention, Peppa forced herself to break her gaze.

If you’ve enjoyed this excerpt, you can read the first chapter of ONE PERFECT NIGHT at Rachael’s website: http://www.rachaeljohns.com/pages/bookshelf.html

Or, you can buy the book at Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/One-Perfect-Night-ebook/dp/B005Z1CF2A/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1321790650&sr=1-1) or Carina Press (http://ebooks.carinapress.com/262D0727-23A2-4E9D-B75E-249FF29C76DF/10/134/en/ContentDetails.htm?ID=5BB8BC4C-4898-4073-8306-FECF92B5DC5B)

And to celebrate her debut release, Rachael is blogging today at the following places, giving away a copy of ONE PERFECT NIGHT at each spot:

·         Get Lost in a Story (http://getlostinastory.blogspot.com/_

·         Chick-lit Central (http://chicklitcentraltheblog.blogspot.com/)

·         Novel Thoughts (http://novelthoughts.wordpress.com/)

AUTHOR BIO:

Rachael Johns is an English teacher by trade, a mum 24/7, a chronic arachnophobic, a supermarket owner by day and a writer by night. She rarely sleeps. Rachael received The Call from Angela James telling her Carina wanted to publish her book on April Fools Day and, when she told her friends, half of them wondered if it was a big joke. Luckily it wasn’t. As an active member of Romance Writers of Australia, Rachael has finaled and placed in a number of romance writing contests. Each success is uplifting and publication is her dream but even if none of this happened, she’d still write. It’s a much better option than ironing, which she refuses to partake in. Ever.

The Magic Moment

It's a magic moment really. The moment when the manuscript you wrote with such excitement, the characters you thought were so fabulous, the conflict you just knew was SO different, the story you lovingly crafted into a work of art, suddenly turns to crap in the space of a second.

Something silly might have triggered it off. A sudden doubt about the reaction of your heroine. Or maybe the feeling that your hero's Big Secret is too big secrety.  Or even the fact that you've never really got that ending parargraph just the way you like it. But whatever it is, something somewhere has abruptly rendered your story into a heap of steaming ordure.

If you think I'm going to tell you wonderful things about how to overcome that moment then you're sadly mistaken. I just wanted to complain about it. Mainly because my lovely chess ms, that I loved when I wrote my black moment, suddenly became The Worst Story in the History of the World. I don't know why. I suddenly thought that my hero was too dark. Too much of a b*stard. Too unsympathetic. There wasn't enough glamour in it to make it Presents. My heroine's conflict was waaaaay too light and unexplored, and she was also too shouty. The plot just dumb.

The crazy thing is that this all this could be true. I just don't know. All I know is that there came a moment where I fell out of love with it and wanted to rewrite the whole damn thing.

But I guess that's the moment where you either stop working on it and send it off. Or you put it away.  Either action determines the worth of the story. Sending it away magically makes the story even worse than you thought it was. Putting it in the drawer somehow makes it fabulous again. Because when you take that story out and read it again after a week or four, it's amazing how amazing it turns out to be. And you wonder how you ever doubted it.

Then you send it off and it magically becomes crap again.

Writers are magicians.

So do you work your magic on your mss too? Or is it just me?

Checkmate

Yep, my chess player has finally been checkmated. Thank God. Here's a snapshot of some ms stats:

*Number of times entire ms rewritten - 3
*Number of times beginning rewritten - 6
*Size of 'deleted scenes' folder - 227k
*Number of times hero/heroine conflict changed - 3
*Number of times I wanted to kill hero/heroine - 20
*Number of tantrums pulled while writing - 50
*Number of times I wanted to give up in disgust - 100
*Number of times I DID give up in disgust - 100
*Number of times cried while writing - 5
*Number of working versions of present ms - 8
*Number of titles decided on - 0

So there we go. That's my chess player in a nutshell.

I know, some people are probably going to think I'm out of my tree for writing a chess playing hero. Probably some editors are going to think I'm out of my tree too. Perhaps I am. But one thing's for sure, I've learned a hell of a lot writing this monster, about conflict, about pacing, about tension, about character. And most especially, I've learned to be able to tell when I'm holding my characters back and not letting them do what they want to do.

Who knows if anyone bar the CPs will ever get to read it? I hope it gets somewhere. If not in print, then on screen. I really do. But at this point in time, I'm simply not able to assess anything about this story. 

I don't know if it's good. I don't know if it's bad. I know I like it. I know I like my cold bastard hero and my stroppy, explosive heroine. 

Perhaps at the moment that's enough.