ARC Love!!

I haven't posted for ages because I wanted to wait until I got my ARC! And now I have! Yay! It looks like an actual booky book thingy that actual people might (will!) buy! It's got copyright info and an ISBN and a dedication and everything! *falls over with excitement*

My mission with my ARC is to read over and make sure the formatting is okay and there are no serious typos.

The problem with this mission is that I've already read the story fifty million times in the process of editing and line editing. And I'm pretty sure my eyes are now burned out of their sockets with it. Sigh.

I've also noticed that I now want to rewrite portions of it. Have cringed at repetitions I didn't notice, cliches I should have taken out...you know what I mean right?  I'm consoling myself with the thought that I always get like this after I've read an ms far too many times and that it's not as bad as I think. Anyway, it's too late now. The die is cast, etc. 

Reading my ARC on my iPad. Like an actual book!

So...uh....yeah. That's my excitement for the week and I'm basking like a basking shark.

What about you? Anything exciting happened for you this week so far?

The Story of a Story

I'm on the Entangled Authors blog talking about the looooong four year journey my story went on before it was accepted by them for publication. So if you fancy reading a novel length post about what happened, pop over to say hello. :-)

Dealing with Disappointment

Post SYTYCW I thought I might put up a little post about disappointment. Because I KNOW what disappointment tastes like and it's not bitter aloes. It's dog meat. Or cat's breath. Or dinosaur turds. Or like your most hated food doubled. Crap in other words.

Anyway, I know I didn't enter but I do feel the pain of everyone who didn't make it into the top 28. Believe me, I've been there. I entered SYTYCW and New Voices twice. Both times with both comps I got precisely nowhere. Not even a callback. And that's not even counting all the rejections and knockbacks I've had both before and since.

And you know what? It doesn't matter how many times someone says, 'competitions are so subjective'. Or 'it doesn't meant your story is crap'. Or 'it was just a popularity contest'. Or 'hey, I didn't get anywhere and look, I've sold fifty bajillion books'. Not getting anywhere STILL SUCKS!  And you're allowed to feel bad about it, just like you're allowed to moan about it to trusted friends and family and like-minded CPs.

But the one thing you must NOT do is give up. What you have to do is figure out a way to deal with the disappointment and carry on.

Because being disappointed doesn't stop with getting a rejection or not placing in a contest. It follows you through once you've been published too. You might not get the sales you wanted. You don't like your cover. You don't want to have to do the heinous revisions that have just landed. Your next story idea has been nixed by your editor. You didn't get the agent you've been hanging out for. You didn't win the Rita or get the Nobel Prize for Fiction.There's a whole host of disappointments just waiting around the corner in other words. So you kind of have to accept that if you want to be a writer, disappointment is something you'll have to live with.   

My method, at first, was chocolate. Then shopping. Then alcohol. Then crying on the couch. Then more alcohol. Then weeping over my computer to my CPs. Then more alcohol. You get the idea...But despite all that, the best way of dealing with disappointment for me was writing.  Getting excited about a new story, immersing myself in that instead of thinking about what I hadn't achieved. And then sending out another submission because while a submission was out there, I had hope. Pathetic maybe, but true.

It was about this time last year that I'd just about had enough. I'd had a few contest successes locally but only one partial request - that I angsted about so much the writing of it became terrifying rather than exciting. Then came nothing with New Voices and along with it another rejection. I'd just about had it with writing. It wasn't fun anymore, it was a chore. I was so scared to write anything because I found myself second guessing EVERYTHING I wrote. Did I have conflict? Were my characters acting consistently? Was it just about sex again??? My passion in life had become an unpleasant task and it was awful. I hated it.

If you've been following my blog, you'll know what I did after that. But I'm going to say it again because it bears reminding. What I thought  was 'bugger this' and flung all my craft out the window and wrote something that I didn't think I'd ever submit anywhere. It was for me and me alone. No one was going to read it so I could write whatever the hell I wanted. If I wanted lots of angst? Go for it! If I wanted lots of sex? Go for that too! Tough alpha male? Yep. Sweet. Friends to lovers? Do it. So I did. I wrote my story and completely broke out of the fear trap I'd got myself into. And the key to it was that NO ONE was going to see this so it didn't matter what I wrote.

And it became my first sale.

So that's why I say don't give up. Do whatever you have to do to deal with your disappointment. Then get back in the saddle and keep going. It's the ONLY way it's going to happen.

Awesome Book Cake!

I wanted to post this awesome photo because I have had some good news over the weekend which I can't tell anyone about yet but shall taunt you with mercilessly (and no, it's NOT another sale).  Anyway, the kids decided a celebration was in order and so - as a surprise - made me a book cake.  They got NO help. This was all their own work. My oldest daughter's idea, ably assisted by her younger sister and a friend.

Yes, it's a Falling for Finn cake. I've already shared this on Facebook and it was so good that I had to share it here too. As you can see, there wasn't enough room for 'Ashenden' so I'm just Jackie. The brown thing off to the left is a 'chocolate fish award' so as you can see, I am an award winner already.  Aren't they fabulous children??

Jackie Ashenden, Chocolate Fish Award Winning Author! 

Definitely has a certain ring to it.:-)

Anyway, while you help yourself to some virtual Finn cake, may I also bring to your attention a fabulous post on writing emotion by Maisey. It's a must read, no matter what type of romance you're writing.

PS. If you're desperate to know my news, you can DM me on twitter. Bribes of chocolate, expensive champagne, and diamonds gratefully accepted. ;-)

Putting the A in A-Hole

I've been writing more of my dirty virgin hero and pondering the mysteries of what makes a hero an a-hole for some readers and yet not for others. It's an interesting question. I've read books where the readers hated the hero and I haven't really been able to understand why because he seems fine to me. And yet I've also read others where I think the hero is a douche and yet readers rave about his dreaminess (not looking at anyone in particular FSOG).

I guess I'm pondering this more as I'm doing final edits for Finn and knowing that after these are done, he'll be going out to reviewers and OTHER PEOPLE will be reading my book!! People who might think he's a total douche and don't get why he should be with my heroine.

As well as being totally freaked out by this, I'm also kind of sanguine because hey, not everyone is going to like your books or your characters. But that being said, I'm interested to know what pushes people's buttons when it comes to a hero.

Myself, I'm very forgiving of heroes.  If the motivation is there, he can get away with anything basically and I hate it when writers water their heroes down in the name of political correctness or because they're trying to make him overly sympathetic. If he's angry, I want to be shown his anger and if he's angry with the heroine then so be it. Because why should heroines be the only ones who are allowed to get angry? Male anger is just as valid as female anger. Emotions like that, the 'flawed' emotions, also make them more real. Because I don't want to read a book about perfect people. Perfect people are boring. Political correctness is boring. Too sympathetic is boring.

I read a Presents a week or so ago and some of the reviews on the M&B site said that the hero was awful and some said the hero was awesome. So I bought the book to see what it was about the hero that polarised people, and well, now having read it, I can see why. He was wonderfully, gloriously arrogant and selfish and some of the things he said made me laugh because they were SO outrageous. I thought he was adorable because he'd totally embraced his selfishness and was out and proud about it. I loved it from a writer's perspective because the author did not pull back on him and I loved it from a reader's perspective because I could see how completely he was deluding himself.. You know he's going to fall HARD. In fact, for me, the more arrogant and jerky the hero, the more I love it simply because of that payoff.

And I suppose that's the rub for me. If there is no payoff, if he doesn't fall hard, if he doesn't grovel, then that's where he crosses my line into douche-land.

So, I guess that's what I'd like to know - what puts the a in a-hole for you when it comes to heroes?

Um....Another Sale

I am starting to feel a bit weird now. Like it's a dream and someone's going to rudely shake me away and tell me it's not real. That I didn't just sell six books in one year. Yes, that's right. Six.

Because I sent in my proposal (three chapters and a synopsis) of my Dirty Virgin Hero ms to my Samhain editor and the next day - along with my Finn edits - she says she loves it and also the idea for the linked book that I included. Oh and also she'd like it for print so make sure it's over 50k.

AAAAARRRRGHHH!!!!

I do not know how this has happened. I'm sure the ride is going to stop soon because it HAS to.

I do know that I am extremely pleased that my Russian chess player hero - whose story I wrote and rewrote so many times because I'm a stubborn bitch and I WANTED it out there because he's cool, and how can you not love a chess playing dude?? - is sold. Black Knight, White Queen is currently slated for release in July next year.

And now my tattooed virgin bad boy - tentatively titled Take Him - also has a contract. Plus the possibility of print which I NEVER expected at all.

I am...well....rather gobsmacked.

Even with all this, I'm still hoping the ride will contine because I'd love my sheikh to be released into the world. But I'm not sure real life happens that way. Right???

Anyway, I also just want to reassure those of you entering SYTYCW that if you don't get through to the next round, it's NOT the end. All of you who read this blog know I entered both New Voices and SYTYCW, and I got nowhere. However, my first New Voices entry now has a three book deal with Entangled and The Chessman - which was an SYTYCW entry last year - sold to Samhain (admittedly, as a very different story but same concept).  I also know of several people who also didn't get anywhere with their contest entries and yet sold the same book to M&B later.

The main thing really is to believe in your story.  Believe it deserves to be read.  And if you can't do either of those things then just being as stubborn as hell does the trick too. :-)

Right....*delivers chocolate martinis* *raises glass* A toast to my virgin hero! Who's with me?

Writing A Virgin (Hero)

I didn't enter SYTYCW this year and now I am suffering from a severe case of FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out). To distract myself from possibly slipping up and quickly whipping in a last minute entry (I think the deadline is up anyway) I thought I'd do a post on.....

dun dun dunnnn....

THE VIRGIN HERO!

Yes folks, it's true. My current WIP contains a virgin hero. A tattooed, bad boy virgin hero to be exact and no, that is not a contradiction in terms. Now, I know some people will shriek that it's not possible to do a sexy virgin of the male persuasion but those that do so have obviously never read A Royal World Apart by the inimitable Maisey Yates (yes, spoiler, sorry).  It is possible for a man to be a virgin and be sexy. Oh, yes it is. It is all, as they say, in the execution.

However. Writing a female virgin in this day and age is difficult enough, let alone an alpha male in his early thirties. I mean, are there even men like that around who aren't geeks, weirdoes or still living with their mothers? And why would you even want to write about that kind of guy?

Well, for me it came about because my Samhain editor said on Twitter she was looking for more stories that contain virgin heroes. And of course Maisey was listening and told me about it, and naturally - because I ALWAYS want to tackle the hard subjects -  I thought excellent, there's my next Samhain story. Easy.

Not. Because it's fine to think 'I know, I'll write a virgin hero'. It's not fine when the time comes and you actually have to think up a reason for why a tattooed bad boy would be a freaking virgin. I know, I know, I could have made him a priest. Or a sexy geek who's never really been interested in women before because he likes science too. But oh no. I like to do difficult (yes, I am stupid) so I wanted him to be a bad boy. With tattoos. And a dirty mouth. Because the contrast between that and his virginity was just too, too delicious to resist.

But then, naturally, I had to think up a reason for his holding out. A reason that would encompass his bad dude appearance too, because that's a part of his conflict as well. This, gentle readers, was not easy and has resulted in a seriously screwed up individual. It's kind of scary how messed up he is. And yet really interesting at the same time. Role reversal has always been a particular interest of mine and I'm intrigued by how my non-virgin heroine will deal with this guy and what she'll say when his virginity is revealed. Already I'm feeling very protective of him and my heroine (who has loved him for a long time) is getting kind of pushy and I want to tell her to back off and leave him alone. He has issues, man. :-)

Anyway, the point I wanted to make is that his virginity is NOT his conflict. It is a consequence of his conflict. And it is his conflict that is the important bit. Because when you have a consequence like this - and let's face it, it's an unusual one in this era for men - if the conflict doesn't make sense or is not deep enough, then the reasons for his virginity won't be convincing. He'll come across as either being a martyr or a cry-baby or a whiner. None of which you want for your hero (and I'm hoping to God that my poor hero won't be any of these.

So maybe there is a lesson here for SYTYCW. Make your conflict simple. Make your conflict deep. Make it about your character. Once you have those things, the story will follow.

Alrighty so who is intrigued by the thought of a virgin hero? Who is crazy pants like me and wants to write one??  (oh and who entered SYTYCW??)

Fear - If You Can't Handle It Then Writing Isn't the Job for You

Here's a few things I've learned about fear after I sold:

It never goes away - I used to think that once I sold my first book, I'd never feel afraid of sending my writing out again. Wrong. Somehow the thought that the editor loved the last book makes sending in the next book harder. Because what if you've somehow stuffed up the next book?  It was diffcult to write - does that mean it's worse? What if the editor hates the story? What if she hates everything else I send in to her ever???

Sending stuff out to other publishers after you've been accepted by one is STILL scary - I'm waiting on a couple of other things and even though I've sold a couple of stories, I'm still as anxious and neurotic as I was before I sold those other ones. In fact, in many ways, fear of rejection was easier when I was unpublished because I kind of had nothing to lose. Now, I've sold a couple of times which means that theoretically it should be easier to sell again. Right? Right??? And if I don't sell, does this mean I suck? That the other publishers were wrong to accept me??

People will read my books - some people will love them. Some people will hate them. Some people will be disappointed because the books weren't as good as they assumed they would be. Some people will be pleasantly surprised because they were better than expected.  Some people will love the first one and yet hate the second. And vice versa. Some people will form opinions about me as a writer and some people will not hesitate to let me know what those opinions are. Which is scary.

Or what if no one reads my books? What if I don't sell and disappear into oblivion? There are thousands and thousands of writers out there - what makes my book any more special?
 

Skiing downhill really fast....

This whole year has been like skiing downhill very fast and knowing there's a turn coming up - you'll either fly off the edge of the mountain and crash spectacularly with lots of broken bones. Or you'll do a magnificent parallel turn in a shower of snow. One thing's for sure though, the turn is coming up and you don't know how it's going to go until you get there. And that's kind of scary.

With all this fear stuff, maybe I'm just neurotic and need to chill. Maybe no one else worries about these kinds of things and I'm being over-dramatic. Whatever the case, just know that if fear is something you don't want to have to deal with or is something that paralyses you then writing isn't the job for you. Because it doesn't go away once you've sold. It just changes. The stakes become higher. The further up the mountain you get, the further you have to fall.

After five years of this, I thought I'd become pretty good at handling all the worry and the fear. But nope. I think I've just got better at drinking wine. :-)

Anyone else find the fear difficult to deal with? What do you do in the face of it?

   

Wot I have Been Doing

Chocolate! From the Armani shop! Armani chocolate!

Haven't been blogging much these past couple of months. Mainly because I've been up to my neck in conferences, rewrites, submissions, edits, Dr Jax going to Milan and me being a solo mum, and deadlines. It's been a thing.

Anyway, I thought I'd give you an update on where I'm at so people don't think I've dropped off the earth or have stopped blogging or anything completely INSANE like that.

So here's what I've been doing:

I rewrote the Chessman. Took out the stuff I put in to make it more category. Darkened the conflict, hotted up the sexy-times, put in lots of angst, and then sent it to my editor at Samhain.
 
Then I rewrote most of the sheikh and included a couple of scenes that freaked me out to write and made wonder whether I am actually insane to put them in a M&B manuscript. Possibly I am. Anyway, only time will tell about that because I send it off.

Then turned my attention to my second Entangled book - working title The Player. I finished this before I left for Australia but I knew I'd done a completely pants job of it so had to rewrite most of it. Sigh. Sent the partial to my Entangled editor and got her thoughts and yes, I did have to rewrite the last half. Double sigh. Have just finished the rewrite today and will send that off tomorrow.

Next up is my third Samhain project - which is affectionately known as DVH AKA Dirty Virgin Hero. Yep, he's a hero! He's a virgin! And yet he's also dirty!  Have no idea how that's going to work out and I may yet be off my tree in thinking it will but I'm going to give it a go anyway. Got to keep yourself challenged.

THEN, once I've finished the partial of the DVH, I am going to look at starting my third Entangled book - working title The Boss.  Uptight, OCD hero. Naughty heroine. Am hoping it's going to be fun.

So there you have it. Wot I have been doing. And in there somewhere will be Falling for Finn edits and maybe paying more attention to The Gambler, another Presents ms that I had to put aside for all the other stuff.

Phew.

Oh and one other thing, just quietly because I'm not sure I can announce yet. So just pretend you didn't hear this. I sold the Chessman. :-)

Finn Blurb!

I have a tagline and blurb!  I am excited! And here's some more exclamation marks to show just how excited I am!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ahem. Okay, so here we go...

Falling For Finn

When you’ve been burned, the heat of the moment is the scariest place to be.

Six months after a sexual assault, Anna Jameson has decided enough is enough. She’s sick of being a victim, of letting the experience have power over her. She wants her fear of physical intimacy gone, as in now. 

In the quest to reclaim her sexuality, she needs a man. A man she trusts absolutely. A man like her best friend, Finn.

Finn Shaw is all about taking risks. He does it every week on his extreme sports TV show. But there’s one boundary he’s never pushed, and that’s his friendship with Anna. When his hyper-intellectual family kicked him to the curb over his dyslexia, Anna stuck by him. 

Her request to become friends with benefits throws him for a loop. He can’t deny her anything, but this is a whole different ball game. Once they’re skin to skin, there will be no hiding the fact that he’s loved her for years.

When their chemistry burns out of control, Finn decides he’s the one who’s had enough. It’s time to break out of the friend box—and show Anna that risking her heart is a risk well worth taking. Even if it costs him her friendship. 

Warning: This book contains a strong-willed heroine who knows what she wants, a daredevil hero intent on showing her how much more she could have, sexy love scenes that’ll melt your heart, and a grand gesture you’ll need a tissue for.

This story has all my favourite things in it: friends-to-lovers, angst, sexy times, angst, an extreme sports, alpha hero, angst, single malt whiskey, oh yes and some more angst. :-)

I await February (19th everybody, mark it in your calendars! This instant, I tell you!) with trepidation and excitement...

Blogs: Are They Dead?

Okay so I'm bad. I haven't done a post for a while but that's because all my social media falls off my list of things to do when I have writing that needs doing. So really, I'm not bad. I'm good. :-) For those interested, I'm now working on edits for the next in my series for Entangled and will hopefully get that away in the next couple weeks.

But that's not what I wanted to talk about. What I wanted to talk about was blogs.

Now, I love blogging. And I've been doing so for the past four years, sharing my whines and my angsts and the roller-coaster that is pre-publication with all of you kind enough to read this blog. But in these days of Twitter and Facebook and Pinterest and stuff, are blogs still relevant? I'm only wondering because apparently my blog should be on my website, which got me thinking about moving it. And that got me thinking about blogs in general and whether they're still of any interest to people.

My blog has always been geared towards writing and other writers but when my first book comes out, I'd like to think that maybe the ten or so people who buy my book who don't know me, might come along and have a look at the blog. And perhaps what they see won't interest them because, if they're not writers, why would they be interested in reading about the writing process? About craft and whatnot? Which means I probably should do posts about other stuff. *cue panic*

So what I want to know is this - is it worth it? Will people still want to read blog posts when everything is on Twitter or Facebook? 

I happened to be sitting with Randy Ingermanson, the snowflake guy, at the RWNZ conference during lunch one day (namedrop, namedrop), and I asked him what he thought about blogs since he'd just done a great presentation about online marketing. He thought blogs were better than Twitter, mainly because a blog post stays here online forever, whereas a tweet is gone in an instant. Blog posts do your marketing for you in other words. But this only works if you enjoy blogging and if you're good at it.

So anyway, I'm still thinking about this. I probably should move my blog off Blogger and put it onto my website whatever I decide, but I don't want to go through all the hassle if blogs are indeed dead.

What does anyone else think? Do you still look at blogs? Or do you prefer other media?

When Your Characters Scare the Pants Off You

Screamy is scared

I really love my sheikh but honestly, in the process of rewriting Mr Sheikhypants, he and the wretched heroine decided to go to a place I was NOT comfortable with. And no, it wasn't Huntly (though they do go into the desert, which is also not comfortable). It skated close to a line that pushes all sorts of hot buttons and to be honest, I REALLY didn't want to write it.

Which meant, of course, that I HAD to.

I'm always of the opinion that if it's scary to write and you don't want to go there, then you have to write it.  Believe me, the times I haven't gone there and pulled the characters back, have been the times when the story gets derailed. It becomes mediocre and flat. Because you can't trick your characters. They want what they want and if they don't get it, they get pissy with you and just lay there like cardboard cutouts.

So, I anyway, I wrote the scene they wanted. And it was intense. And I'm scared to death of keeping it in because it could be a rejectionable offence. But it could also be the scene that sells the book. Oh and also, if I take it out, their whole relationship falls apart since they needed that scene to happen in order to fall in love.

This is why pushing those boundaries they're always talking about is hard. Because you don't know which side of the boundary you're standing on and it could be the wrong one. But it's also why you have to write those kinds of scenes and not pull back. Those scenes are the ones that can be the most emotional, the most wrenching, the ones that take your book from being 'okay' to 'unputdownable'. They're not easy scenes to write and they shouldn't be. The best ones never are.

Of course, I don't know what side of the boundary I'm on but I do know that the scene was intensely emotional and I cried  while writing it so at least that's one person who likes it. :-)

So I'm going to advise you to write the uncomfortable scene. If your characters want to go where you're afraid to take them, take them anyway and don't pull back. Ignore the voices that are telling you the hero/heroine can't do that, that it's not PC, that it's not sympathetic. Just write it, push it as far as you can. Then see what you have. Pulling back is easier than ramping up and if you don't go as far as you can, then you don't know how far it actually needs to go.

It's scary but it's worth it.

So have you ever had characters do something that scares you? Did you let them do it?

Ten Things I learned at the RWNZ Writers Conference

1. The sky is NOT falling. The future for authors is bright because the world will always need stories and stories never die (Randy Ingermanson).

Carol Marinelli, Frances Housden, and Amanda Antonio at the dinner

2. Eloisa James is who I'd like to be when I grow up. Inspirational and funny and shared hot NYT author bestselling tips. The most important of all being: the bigger you are the harder it gets and the harder you have to work.

3. There must be something in the water in London because every single M&B ed that I've met is drop-dead gorgeous. And also extremely, extremely nice.

4. Sophia James must be a long-lost writing sister because her pantsing method is exactly the same as mine! Hot tip for layering your story - make sure you have questions in the first five chapters of your book. Questions that jolt the reader with surprise, that make them curious, intrigued and want to know more about your characters.

5. That I am crap at talking myself up and telling people what I'm good at. I totally blame the fact that I'm Kiwi.

My third place certificate!

6. That no one cares about you or your book. You have to make them care. And that like it or not, you have to sell yourself because your publisher won't do it for you these days. (Randy Ingermanson).

7. Over analysing your five minute pitch to DEATH afterwards is not helpful.

Jilted!! At the RWNZ Conference!!

8. Hotel staff blush very easily when they walk into a room to change the water just in time to hear about an  intimate sexual encounter being read aloud. Note to hotel staff - don't run out of the room because you will be laughed at.

9. It is possible to get a coffee stain on your name badge EVEN when it is totally encased in plastic.


10. That your writer friends are awesome and belonging to your national writing organisation who puts on conferences like these is a very, very good thing indeed.

And because everything ALWAYS goes up to 11... (hands up if you're a Spinal Tap fan?)

11. That my mother is the greatest for looking after my kids while I was at conference (in the absence of the good doctor), for putting on my electric blanket when I came home exhausted, and for making me soup so I didn't have to cook.

RWAus12 - The Pantomime

I think I said 'the musical' last year so this year it's a pantomime. Sorry, I'm not going to sing or dance. That would be far too much. But I shall post photos instead. Had the bestest time evah on the Gold Coast for the Romance Writers of Australia conference. My third year and this time I had a bright shiny (okay so it was blue and not shiny) first sale ribbon to stick on my conference badge!  As you can see I look rather tired - I blame Rachel Johns and Pink Ladies at the cocktail party the night before... Anyway, the conference was fabulous. Had a great time catching up with the lovely Rach and Bec, meeting again fabulous Madeline Ash, Helen Lacey, and Leah Ashton. Saying hi to fellow Entangled peep, Annie Seaton. Also meeting for the first time Fiona Marsden (sharing our love for Maisey Yates' tortured heroes) and Melissa Smith.

The workshops too were interesting, with Eloisa James giving a very inspiring keynote speech about putting your emotion in your writing.

One thing especially stood out this year and that was the sense that there were a lot more options for unpublished authors than there ever has been. Editors were actively selling their publishing houses to authors in a way I haven't seen before which was actually very exciting and I think contributed a lot to the positive feeling of the conference.

What else happened? Well lots. I lost my phone twice. Yes, twice. I know, to paraphrase Oscar Wilde, once is a tragedy, twice starts to look like carelessness (or stupidity depending on your pick).  I went to the theme parks and screamed on the rollercoaster (it was a very small rollercoaster and my six year old did not scream). Dr Jax dragged me along to a timeshare presentation purely so he could get cheap tickets to Seaworld which meant I was almost late to my agent pitch appointment. Luckily I made it on time and got a full request for Mr Sheikypants from said agent. Dr Jax was forgiven...

And now I have to gear up for the RWNZ conference this weekend, where I get to pitch to an M&B editor but since they already have Monseiur Sheikh, I have no idea what I'm going to say. I guess 'hi' would be a good start. :-)

Sorry if I've left anyone out of my shoutouts. Suffice to say that I really enjoyed meeting and talking to everyone at the conference and can't wait till Perth next year!!

It's Conference Time

Well, I've been a bad blogger. Haven't been posting much but in my defense, have had lots on with getting Mr Sheikhypants into a fit state for sending, while angsting about my next Samhain submission and also the editing of the next Indulgence that I'm planning to send off soonish.

Oh and in the middle of that there's the Romance Writers of Australia conference that I'm going to and then the week after that the New Zealand Romance Writer's conference. Not to mention Dr Jax being an international jetsetter and flying off to Milan in a week or two - without me, I may add.

It's all very busy. 

Hopefully when I get back from the Gold Coast I'll have some good goss to relate and blackmail pics to post. I'm pitching to an agent there - first time evah! - so wish me luck.

In the meantime I'll leave you with a link or two:

This is to the Hot Pink Typewriter where fellow Indulgence author Victoria James is talking about torturing your characters. Okay, so she doesn't put it quite like that, but that's the essence of it. And since she posted this the same time I was putting my sheikh through the emotional wringer, I thought it was very appropriate.

Also see here, where the fabulous and talented Maisey Yates has her story of selling to Berkley with a cowboy story! So proud of you girl!

Ummm...and that's about it. Might do a post later about what to do when your characters take you places you really don't want to go (not looking at anyone in particular Mr Sheikhypants!). Should you go there or rein them back??  (I let him go there and still can't work out whether that was a bad thing or not).

 Have a good week, y'all.

Oh, I'm on Fire

A few people have said that I'm on fire recently and I graciously took the compliment, feeling pleased with myself. Little did I realise that that my hotness would soon spread to other areas - namely Dr Jax's man-shed. In other words, we had a fire last week and poor Dr Jax lost his shed.

 I'd come home late from seeing a friend and the hubs and I were cursing the neighbours party because it was loud and we wanted to sleep. Then there came a hammering on our back door. Thinking it was the neighbours being drunk and obnoxious, Dr Jax sallied forth to tell them to get lost. When he didn't come back inside I thought it was odd. Then I heard crackling. I went to the back door and well....there was his shed down the back of the garden, flames shooting out of the roof!

The neighbours far from being drunkenly obnoxious were hammering on our door to tell us the shed was burning down and they'd called the fire bridgade.

It was actually pretty bloody scary. The firemen seemed to take forever to get to our house and in the meantime Dr Jax had got out the garden hose and was waving it futilely at the flames. But by this stage the trees were alight and we needed some big blokes in firemens outfits with big hoses (no double entendre intended hehe).

Eventually the firemen came but it took them a good 30 minutes to get the fire under control and then another couple of hours to make sure it was fully out. The neighbours hung around and took videos on their phones (as you do) while I angsted about the huge wooden chest of photos - 20 years of them - that was on the mezzanine floor of the shed. No doubt lost, I thought. Until the firemen hauled the chest out, charred and burned, and opened it up to find all the photos completely perfect (except a little water damanged).

Anyway, the fire inspector seemed to think that the fire had started with a laptop that had been left on. Not quite sure how it had spread, whether it had sparked or burned the desk underneath where it was sitting, but I guess that's something we may never know. But you know the first thing I did while the firemen were putting out that fire? After thanking God that no one was in the shed and that our kids were safe (they slept through the entire thing) I ran up into our house and quickly emailed the WIPs I'd been working on to my Gmail account! You can tell where my priorities lie right?

Did get me thinking though. Dr Jax lost his computers - this photo to your right is the remains of one. The charred stuff on the top is the keyboard. But the majority of the important documents on them had been backed up to our home server. But then, what if it hadn't been our shed that burned down? What if it had been our house and the home server with it? That would have been a whole other story but it just goes to show that sometimes even backups to home servers or to memory sticks or discs can be lost just as easily as if your work was on your computer.

I think the best answer to this is cloud storage. Which is why I now make sure to back up my files to Dropbox - also very handy when swapping files between computers. Backing up is very easy, especially when the alternative is losing all your writing... The trick is remembering to do it.

Anyway, that's my excitement for the week. Time for a beer! (yes, those are beer bottles that somehow survived). Anyone had a similiar experience?

Giveaway winner - The Boss and Her Billionaire

And the winner of Michele's book is Jess A!!  Jess, can you either contact me with your details via the 'contact' form on the blog. Or leave a comment below.  Congrats!

Mr Sheikhypants Goes Through to the Semi-Finals!

In keeping with the Olympic theme of the post before, before last, I'm delighted to announce that Mr Sheikypants, the Presents ms that I won a pitch with on eHarlequin, has had a full request! *happy dances*

Needless to say I am thrilled. It's been a while since M&B have asked for a full from me so I'm feeling extremely pleased with myself. There are still a few issues with the partial which I'll have to address but since the ed was absolutely clear about what they were, I'm hoping fixing the problem won't be too much of a mission.

But I'm feeling just a tad overwhelmed since the ms requires quite a bit of rewriting - which I will have to fit in with my contracted stuff for Entangled and my next Samhain submission.

Never rains but it pours eh? So let that be a lesson to you all, you have to be ready whatever happens because when it happens, it HAPPENS!

PS: will be announcing the winner of Michele's book soon - leave a comment on the previous post to be in with a chance. Will draw names on Saturday!

Giveaway - Michele de Winton and The Boss and Her Billionaire

Doing another giveaway today - for a fellow Kiwi and Entangled author Michele De Winton.  She's talking about receiving the magic Call. Leave a comment for a chance to win her fabulous book, The Boss and Her Billionaire. This is currently burning up the Barnes and Noble charts so get in quick before they're all gone! Ahem...no, they won't be all gone of course but you know what I mean. ;-)

It’s what we all want isn’t it? The trilling of the telephone, probably at night, when we’ve settled in with a glass of wine (or one of Jackie’s magnificent cocktails) and that nice warm glow is starting to coat our skin.
You pick up the phone, expecting the neighbour to be complaining about how your dog ate their rubbish again and instead you get:
“Hello? Is that my all time favourite debut author? I just loved your submission and I can’t wait to make you so famous you’ll have to hire an assistant to keep track of all your fan mail. Oh, and when you’re ready I think we should talk about film rights.”
Dream.
Okay, so I don’t know any publisher that would start a conversation like that. No one knows what is going to make a best seller. If they did publishing would be a lot less challenging (and probably slightly boring) and there wouldn’t be so many self help books on how to write a best seller. Doesn’t stop us all dreaming though ;-)
There have been three memorable ‘calls’ for me. My very first publication call was for a short story. It was a finalist in a competition, along with the stories of EVERYONE in my writing group and came out in a neat compilation book. Rather than making it less special though, the shared glory was, well, glorious. And it was the first step in me believing that writing really was something I could do.
The second call was for my first novel. The managing editor from my mainstream publisher called me himself and I could tell he loved making these calls. Unfortunately for him I was in a meeting and had to hold back my excited yelping until after I left the building. I called him back and we had a little on-the-phone happy dance together in a stairwell. Well I happy danced. He probably chuckled.
And when I finally ventured into romance and signed with Entangled Publishing for The Boss and Her Billionaire I didn’t even get a call. I got an email. A shiny, happy dance email. That one was a bit of a dream. And a bit of right time, right place. I submitted. An editor came back to me within a week asking for the whole MS and then they accepted it really quickly. As it was the first romance I’d ever written I was over the moon. It had a few holes in it (no doubt because of my lack of experience in the genre.) But they have worked with me to hone it to its shiny steamy self. Now I’m doing quite a lot of happy dancing as I watch the rise and rise of the Entangled Publishing catalogue – and my book with it.
I guess that’s the thing about doing what you love. When you put yourself out there and someone comes back confirming that the thing that you love is something they love too, it’s magic. But even a small confirmation is enough sometimes. If you’ve been writing for years and feel like you’re never going to get anywhere maybe it would be helpful to stop a moment and check out just how far you’ve already come. Because if you keep writing, keep honing your craft, you can’t help but improve. And maybe with your newly trained eyes you might see the holes in something you wrote years ago. Take it out. Shake off the dust. Fill in the holes. And submit it. Getting a short story published was enough to make me keep going. And going.
For you it might be something different. But I think the call is waiting out there for most of us. What do you think? Would publishing a short story be enough to make sure you didn’t down your pen again? Or will nothing less than selling a novel suffice?
Thanks for stopping by
X Michele


 
Cruise director Michaela Western has everything she wants—everything except a sex life. But there are no secrets on cruise ships. She risked her job once for a dalliance with the Captain, and won’t do it again for a few minutes of toe-curling pleasure. Until a devilishly handsome new staffer with a body made for sin tempts her to walk on the wild side...

Investment billionaire Dylan Johns always gets what he wants. He is used to giving orders—not taking them—until he’s forced to go on hiatus from his investment company. To bide his time and carry out an old dream, he takes a job on a cruise ship—and ends up taking orders from his gorgeous, but uptight, new boss. He is determined to loosen her up with a fun onboard romance, but their no-strings fling turns serious and Dylan is forced to confess his lies.

When the affair threatens to shatter Michaela’s own career dreams, she finds herself caught between the devil and the deep blue sea.

Buy Michele's book here:

Amazon
Barnes and Noble 

Contact Michele here:

 www.micheledewinton.com
http://micheledewinton.blogspot.co.nz/
https://twitter.com/MicheledeWinton
http://www.facebook.com/michele.dewinton

Cover Squee!

Okay, I can finally post my Samhain cover! Woots all round!!  I can't tell you how exciting this is and I just love it. LOVE IT!!

Is it not gorgeous?? It's got my name on it and everything!