You wouldn’t think it from this blog, but I have been hard at work over the last few weeks.  I’m taking a break from romance and writing a ‘time slip’ novel this summer, and I have to say that I’m finding it challenging, but generally in a good way.  I have been playing all sorts of psychological tricks on myself to write something different, and have a whole new routine which involves getting up at 6.00 am every morning and writing 500 words before I’m allowed to start the day.  I have always been an evening person, and usually do most of my writing after 9.00 pm, so it’s a big change for me, and so far it seems to be working.  I suspect it’s only because it’s summer and so light in the mornings.  I can’t see me doing this in the winter, but for now it’s quite nice to have guilt-free evenings for a change. 

Other tricks have involved changing the font and paragraph format, and instead of having a set number of pages written as a target, as I do when I’m writing romance, I have given myself a target of 2000 words a day (it works for Stephen King, so I figured it was worth a shot!)  This story does have a very complicated plot, and I’ll admit I’m struggling with that and there’s a certain irony in the fact that I’ll be talking about plotting at the RNA’s conference in Penrith on 10th July and making it sound easy (I hope!)  Actually, the workshop is about emotional tension, but that’s so closely bound up with plot and character in a romance that you can’t deal with one without the other two, I don’t think.  I’m basing the workshop on the one I gave at the RWA conference in San Francisco last year with Barbara Hannay and Barbara McMahon, so will miss them in Penrith – a very different place from San Francisco, it has to be said!  It’ll be a rather condensed version, too, as I only have an hour, but I hope it will be useful all the same.

Hot on the heels of Penrith comes the RWA’s conference in Washington. I won’t be going, which is sad as I’ll miss out on the excitement of the RITA awards ceremony, but the lovely Donna Alward has kindly agreed to stand in on my behalf so I’ll be on tenterhooks waiting to hear from her, in spite of convincing myself that I won’t win.  Last-Minute Proposal was my 50th, and for it to win a RITA would be just TOO perfect, somehow.  In my experience life is a lot of fun, but it never does perfect - but hey, you never know …  Come back after Saturday 18th July and see if I’m right or wrong!  

(ps: the picture above has absolutely nothing to do with this post but the webmistress decided to use it again since Jessica kept using the "I like the photo there" excuse not to update the blog!)