It’s a busy week, so I’m just dropping in for a brief hello.  All of a sudden life seems out of control again, but I am coming to the belated realisation that this is the norm for most of us nowadays.  My new resolution is to breathe deeply and remind myself that this is a pattern and that things do somehow, often inexplicably, get done in the end.  Am not, however, taking any bets on how long this serene resolve will last!

I’ve only managed about five pages of my rough draft since I last checked in, so pitiful progress to report on the writing front.  But elsewhere on the website, things seem to be happening without me, which is just as well. I was very excited to see that there are now 48 flags alight on the Where ...

Well, I’m glad I made the most of my two lovely, drifty weeks without a deadline glowering on the horizon.  On Saturday I made the foolish mistake (or possibly extremely sensible decision) of sitting down and typing out a timetable for the next book (the one inspired by the story not told in Made of Honour)  I took out nine days when I’ll be walking round the Isle of Wight in June, and another four next week when my mother, aunt and cousin are visiting  for a major birthday celebration, and then was aghast to find out that I was left with precisely 33 (now 32) days in which to write an entire book from scratch.  This includes time when I also have to finish a separate major editing project, and prepare a workshop for the RWA conference in San Francisco.  Saturday saw a lot of gulping going on, I can tell ...

No moaning from me this week.  This is the time when I really enjoy being a writer … i.e. when I’m not actually writing at all!  I finished the book this time last week, and I have already heard back from my editor and done the couple of minor revisions.  I had originally made my hero very fastidious about his clothes, which I saw as an endearing flaw, but which was deemed in the end too unheroic, so all references to that had to come out, but otherwise it was pretty straightforward – cue one very big PHEW!

Now I just need to do it all over again before the middle of July.  Fortunately, I already have an id ...

It’s a huge pleasure to welcome this week Natasha Oakley.  Natasha  is one of my very favourite Harlequin authors, and she’s certainly on a winning streak this year!  She’s nominated for a RITA, is shortlisted for the National Readers’ Choice Award and has already won the Romantic Times award for 'Best Presents of 2007' with her book, The Tycoon's Princess Bride (although actually, we like to think of her as a Harlequin Romance author really).  So I’m thrilled that she has found the time to come along as my guest blogger this week.  I’ve had a sneak preview of her wonderful book,

As if I wasn’t eating enough at the moment, I have had to humble pie this week as well.  Remember how I was moaning about the cover of my July book?  I’d gone to all the trouble of sending them a photo of a lovely Scottish castle, and what did I get?  A wedding cake!  That was the last time I was going to have anything to do with the artwork, and so on and so forth.  Then I came home the other day to find a box of books under the bush in my front garden, and lo and behold! there was the North American edition of Newlyweds of Convenience, which, as you can see, has a completely different cover.  

So I had to take it ...

My April 30th deadline has galvanized me into action at last, and I have been lashed to my computer for the past week.  So far I am on schedule (just).  I’m due to finish Chapter 5 tonight, which will leave me nine days to do the other five chapters, so I must keep my head down and not get distracted.  Unfortunately, the 130 pages I laboured through in March have turned out to be pretty useless.  I made a mistake this time in skipping the rough draft stage.  Usually, I do a rough draft of about four or five pages a chapter, just to sketch out what’s going to happen and then do a proper draft of 14 or 15 pages (my final version is usually 17 or 18 pages a chapter). Then, when I come to rewrite it, I find I can use a lot of the draft, which just needs to be expanded a little.  But this time I pani ...

Now, here’s a surprise treat … hot on the heels of Liz Fielding, I’m delighted to welcome Kate Walker, who has popped by to talk about the new edition of her 12 Point Guide to Writing Romance.  If you’re interested in writing romance and haven’t yet come across it, I urge you to get yourself a copy.  It’s a wonderfully clear and helpful guide, and whenever anyone writes to me asking for advice on writing, Kate’s book is what I recommend - she says it better than I ever could!   

It sounds as if it’s al ...

The beginning of the month means that it’s time for another guest blogger, and I’m really thrilled to welcome the ever-popular Liz Fielding, in whose shadow I have been trailing for many years now.  A wonderful writer, Liz was winning a RITA® before I even knew what it meant, and her name was above mine on the silver rose bowl awarded to the winner of the RNA’s Romance Prize each year.  And although Liz has very kindly congratulated me on my 50 books below, in fact, she has reached that landmark ahead of me yet again!  In spite of all the fuss, mine won’t be out until October, but Liz not only hit the 50 book mark in January, but is now celebrating a double achievement with the publication of her 50th Harlequin Romance,® The ...

I’ve been wondering if one of the problems I’m having writing this current book is my hero, Rafe.  Not because he’s not everything you’d ever want in a man – intelligent, funny, kind, deeply attractive and, oh yes, he just happens to be very wealthy, too – but because he’s just too gorgeous.  There’s something overwhelming about him, and I know Miranda (the heroine) feels that as well. 

Every time I have a hero who is good-looking and/or very nice, I run into strife.  The old clichés of tall, dark and handsome don’t really do it for me.&a ...

For my birthday in 1987, I asked a friend for a copy of Roget’s Thesaurus, as I’d heard it was the kind of book writers had on their shelves, and I was at the time working diligently every evening (how times have changed!) on the manuscript which finally got me out of the slush pile.  That story wasn’t accepted, in fact, but it did get a very positive response and a recommendation that I start afresh with a new story, which I did.  On 23rd December 1989 I came home from work at The Observer to find a letter (remember letters?) accepting my first book.  As you can imagine, it was a very jolly Christmas.  (That original manuscript eventually became Oasis of the Heart, in case you’re interested.)