Blogging Away

Today, there should be a post up at Unusual Historicals about Viking manliness and the Viking saga The List of Rig.

I have also done a post on a common aspirational author mistake -- Not Hearing Advice.

Here it continues to be the usual chaos and confusion that is the start of any novel.

The puppies are busy chasing hens and ducks (when they can) and the largest duckling went in the wrong house last night. It was retrieved. The puppies were interested...

Mole reaction

When informed of our velvet coated gentleman caller, my husband became absolutely delighted. He is hoping to see Mr Mole...In the meantime, we shall just be stamping down the molehills. As my husband pointed out, the lawn can never be called perfect... How long this state of affairs lasts, we shall have to see... there again can a mole do more damage than a flock of free range ducks and hens? As long as Mr Mole keeps out of the veg patch, I think he will be left in peace.
My youngest saw a barn owl on the way up from school. My fingers are firmly crossed that we have one in the village and I get to see it. We do get tawny owls, but barn owls are something special.

Ginger Simpson kindly included me on her I love the blog roll of 7 blogs.
7 blogs that I read every day include:
Unusual Historicals
Tote Bags
Pink Heart Society
Carrie Lofty
India Grey (who is currently trying to choose a new hero)
Donna Alward
Nell Dixon

I also read other blogs but these will do for the moment.

Blogging away etc

Today is my day for Tote Bags and I blogged about the Harlequin editorial podcasts as they are one of my procrastination tools.

Realms on Our Bookshelves tagged me and I responded with 8 facts about me. Realms as you may know is a European website that allows readers to discuss books in their own language, even though they may have read the books in English. The women who run the site are dedicated to the romance genre.

Currently the Aga is off as it is about to have its service. This makes the house colder.despite the recent decline in oil prices, it remains too expensive to run the central heating. The fire in my study is working well and the room becomes quite cosy. I have not succumbed to throwing the index cards into the fire and my board is looking quite pretty. My daughter thinks I should have photos but that is too much like hard work. The proof with the board will be when the revisions hit.

The code for the board is blue = hero, pink = heroine, yellow = relationship, green = anything else.

Blogging today at:

Today, I am guest blogging at Fresh Fiction.
The subject is the 4 D's and 1P. Hopefully it will inspire someone to finish their manuscript and submit it, or follow a dream. Anyway, all comments welcome.

I also have done a post on Unusual Historicals about Viking Inheritance laws. This is a subject close to my heart as I had to research it -- both for Viking Warrior, Unwilling Wife and for my current Viking.

Editing goes slowly but the current Viking is better than I first thought. It does need some opening of veins and bleeding though.

Blogging Away

Today, I have done several guest blogs. I don't know how it happened but I ended up on the same day for several places.
On the Pink Heart Society, I am talking about Elizabeth Cadell who is one of my favourite authors from when I first started reading romance. I have been very excited about doing this post as she is one of the authors whose work sticks in my mind. She also sold her first book to Robert Hale and that little connection made me smile.
On Love is An Exploding Cigar, I am talking about creating fictional worlds. As Elizabeth Cadell created such a fantastic fictional worlds, I suppose they are slightly linked. Anyway, I have never blogged there, so do come and drop by. Sam Hunter seems to be very welcoming.
Finally, on Unusual Historicals, I have done a Thursday 13 on causes of the Viking Age. This month the theme is social movements and the Viking phenomenon did give its name to an age. Viking is a verb and means to plunder. It comes from Vik or bay. Vikingr was a man from a bay.
Taken by the Viking is probably in the shops in the US now. Certainly it is in stock on Amazon.com. It went in and out of stock earlier this week, and now they are saying one copy remaining. Sometimes, I think Amazon have small quantities. Anyway, I am assured that plenty have been printed and you can find it at lots of places.

Blogging at Romance Vagabonds

Today is the Other Time Period day at Romance Vagabonds. On offer is a signed copy of Taken by the Viking...
Also I would be delighted to chat about other time periods, research...switching periods...anything really.
Then tomorrow, I am Tote Bags & Blogs. And on Sunday I am doing a launch for Taken by the Viking on Unusual Historicals. So there are lots of places to win a signed copy.
In between all this, I need to finish my latest Viking. I know I have been thinking this for several weeks and it is one of those things -- no two manuscripts are written the same. This one went quickly at the beginning but now feels like it is going slowly. And I suspect that it will need a lot of editing. Very curate's egg -- some parts very good, other parts not so good. But the polishing and editing comes later. When writing the first draft, you have to concentrate on getting the semblance of a story down. Things like repetition and circular dialogue can be fixed. And sometimes, it is a function of not knowing where it exactly goes. Also I am not one of those people who thinks that there should be little or no revision. Books are made in the revising process. It does not have to be perfect the first time. No book is ever stamped -- it took the writer 50 goes to get this sentence correct.
Duck update: they seem to be resigned to having their access to the neighbours' garden curtailed. I do not think any duck is sitting.The latest nest was discovered in the bee garden and done away with...The other good part is the sky rocketing price of grain seems to have stabilised and stopped. It remains 50% more than this time last year. I suspect most of the increase has yet to reach the UK supermarket shelves as most commercial farmers buy their grain forward...and the supermarkets also negotiate a fixed price. But it is coming. The increase in the grain price is due to the increase in bio fuels and poor harvest, but bio fuels are a major contributing factor...

Harlequin Historical at Romance Vagabonds

This week, the lovely ladies at Romance Vagabonds are hosting Harlequin Historical authors. Each day is devoted to a different time period. Today is the Medieval cum renaissance. Tomorrow is Georgian/Regency/Victorian. Wednesday is Western and Thursday is Hybrid where I am blogging. Hybrid is the term they are using for authors who write in more than one time period. It was going to be exotic but they settled on hybrid. I feel a bit like a plant species. LOL. But I can see the problems. All other time periods is a bit vague and the authors in question do write in a number of time periods.
Joanne Carr is rounding out the week on Friday and she will be blogging about recent happenings and trends at HH.
There will also be giveaways through out the week, including on Thursday a copy of Taken by the Viking.
The winner of my Kate Walker launch party prize has been drawn and it was Jane Cheung. She emailed back to say that she has never read a historical set in ancient Rome...I noticed on Amazon.co.uk that Sold & Seduced is no longer available as a new book. There are 13 copies left as used though. This is one of the Romans that has yet to appear in the North American market. I think it is going to appear at some point...
Kate hardy asked about how the ducks were settling. They are fine, but have developed a habit of going over into the neighbour's garden. One duck is especially fond of tapping on the lower windows and asking for bread and scraps...Unfortunately, between the stream and the water gate, it is probably impossible to keep them confined, particularly as they have found a food source...
I do need to get my Viking finished. Normal service was disrupted by my pulling a tendon in my right arm. Serves me right for trying a new exercise.

Decisions, Decisions

It has only been a few days since I turned in my latest and already I am starting to feel the tug of not writing. I am want to be immersed in a story again. I suspect this is because I hate housework, and now have no excuses. My dh has been making noises about the dust covering and the cobwebs...
I am thinking about my next two books. They are a duet. This means that there is a slight over arching story but that the books must be able to stand alone. It is a challenge. I enjoy challenges -- this is one of the reasons that I think my editors enjoys giving them to me. they are also going to be set in the early 1820's when locomotive fever was at its peak in the North East. It was a thoroughly exciting time and many of the advances paved the way for the age of steam.
The books will appear in the schedule -- one month apart. It means my delivery time has to be spot on as well.
At the moment, I have a number of ideas floating around in my brain. The fun part is that for the first time this year, I am not working with previosuly mentioned characters or worlds, so I get to create a new one.
I also need to sketch and make up worksheets for the workshop I will bew giving on Goal,Motivation and Conflict over on e-harlequin at the beginning of next month. I want it to be a really imformative, intersting workshop that other writers can get a lot out of.

I also have to write my blog for Kate Hardy's blog party. She and her fellow guests are giving away books and I have promised a copy of The Roman's Virgin Mistress. I just have to come up with a suitable topic.

Weatherwise -- today is a day more suited to ducks. They keep finding new pools to swim and dabble in. It is just disconcerting when they start swimming around the car!

On not starting

Today I supposed to start my next ms, but I didn't. Instead, I went shopping with my daughter.

Several things I discovered: Monsoon is a lovely shop with clothes that suit me as well as my daughter. John Lewis has good shoes -- shoes that matched the clothes we bought in Monsoon.
And I spent far too much on make up etc.

This is all in aid of the RNA Romance Prize. I am determined to look okay when I go down. Today on the e-harle blog Jessica Harte explained what it was like to win. But more importantly she gavea taste of the buzz -- what it is like to be there. It all sounds exciting. But I am going to have to rediscover my nearly non existent skill at make up. Luckily I ended up speaking to the regional manager at Clarins who appeared to know lots. She was also v excited to hear about my big occassion.

All in all this took longer than planned and I didn't get back. I will start writing tonight.

Sold and Seduced has been spotted in several WH Smiths -- the official publication date is Friday. It was not in my local one or in the one in Newcastle. The contest is still open, and I have been getting a number of entries -- thank you. To enter, you simply need to answer the question -- Which song is playing on my myspace page? (Hint you can find a link on the side of the blog) Then email me with answer before 14 April. I am giving away three copies of S&S as well as three copies of Kate Walker's The Antonakos Marriage. If you are not on my newsletter list, I will enail you an invite if you enter the contest.

Bees and editting

Yesterday's Telegraph had a very tiny article, so small I nearly missed it. Complete Colony Collapse has hit Europe. Spain, Poland, Greece and Croatia have been hit. This syndrome/disease has already wiped out 50% of bee colonies in the US. It has the potential to cause an enormous impact and only rates half an inch.
Right now, there is nothing I can do. My colonies appear to be healthy and I shall be giving them a Spring tonic when the weather next turns warm. But as far as I know -- no one knows what is causing this disease or how to prevent it. Or indeed what the long term consequences of it will be. The wild bee colonies have already suffered because of the varroa mite. Much of agriculture depends on bees as the chief pollinating insect. If this population suddenly decreases by 50% or more, what does that mean for the food supply?
It is not good. And perhaps I should be pleased there are not the panicked articles such as one might find for avian flu, but it is another worry. I don't want anything to happen to my colonies and I really don't want to think about the long term consequences. Hopefully they will figure out what to do BEFORE this syndrome reaches Northumberland.

Another worry is : are the ducks going to have ducklings this year? I don't want any more ducklings. They are cute but a pain. And ducklings grow into ducks. We already have more duck eggs than I know what to do with. Duck eggs are great for cooking btw. I am just hoping that we discover all nests and the ducks don't decide to build their nests in the neighbour's garden...

My wip is coming on. This is my favourite phase of novel writing.It is taking and shaping. It is in the shading that you can really start to do something. I am a great believer in bad pages can be fixed easier than blank ones. You have clay to work with. You start seeing connections.

I have discovered another how to promote your book blog -- Pump Up Your Online Book Promotion. It is worthy of looking at and does give some pointers about Technorati. However, the best reason I know to use Technorati was Isabel Swift's post from about a year ago. If you have not read the Long Tail article -- it is worth reading. I am well aware there is more I could do with my blog and that I basically use it to write whatever I am thinking about. Hence it tends to jump around -- possibly not ideal for promoting my books, but it makes more interesting for me! SO I am afraid you will have to suffer through it.

Sold and Seduced will be on sale in the UK in April. The cover is yummy, and well, I like the story.