On being sick

First things first My good writing friend Michelle Willingham has finally sold her first book to M&B historicals.It is an Irish Medieval, andfull of hunky warriors. It is wonderful news and I am sure she will be a great addition to the M&B stable.

This weekend, it finally hit -- I am sick. My children have been sick, my dh has been sick, and then it was my turn. Yesterday, I went to bed at 5pm without supper with a headache that would not quit. My middle made me a hot water bottle, and I woke up an hour later --drenched as the hot water bottle had leaked everywhere and being out of it , I hadn't noticed! I still have a bit of temperature, but feel much better.

I was able to work on my wip and I am not so depressed about its progress as when my headache was nearly blinding me. It is getting there. Over 50k now and the deadline a little less than four weeks away. If I keep going at my current rate I WILL make it. I know what is happening next and have really looking forward to writng this part. It is basically five to six more chapters. Or about a hundred to a hundred and twenty more pages, then editting which always adds because I have a tendency to need to layer.

Oh and I have finally got ALL the honey in. Something else I don't reccomend doing with a fever but it had to be done. My eldest and I went out and brought the last three supers in yesterday. Because the Porter bee escape had been on, and the bees could not get to the honey, once we had taken the first super off, the bees rose up -- stinging mad. In the end , I had about five stings and my son about three. The honey was easy to spin off. And we ended up with 18 lbs.
So that is a grand total of 206 pounds off two hives. Which I think will take some beating.

My cave

Cheryl St John had a blog yesterday about her cave, her inner sanctum and I was impressed. This is what my writing space currently looks like. I stitched the unicorn picture when I was sixteen. Underneath are my covers such as I have them. On the top of the bookcase, you can see the champagne bottles from my celebrations of my first two M&B contracts. The red heart shaped box next to them is where I keep my reader letters. It was originally a box of chocolates from my dh, but I loved the shape and thought it the perfect place to keep reader's letters. And you can see my mug. There is generally a mug of something on my desk and I tend to drink it either lukewarm or cold as I go into the kitchen to have a break, wander back, start writing again and then remember...
And also in the room, but in the picture was my yellow labrador who was lying alseep, and whom I nearly tripped over as I triedto take the picture.
And I am in mid-book. I thought it was in a mess , until Cheryl point me in the direction of Writer's Caves and I saw Jennifer Cruisie's. Then I realized what mess could really be like!
So go on tell me what is YOUR cave like or better yet post a photo on your blog so the world can see!

Gladiator's Honor's cover

I adore the cover of Gladiator's Honor but had no idea which artist had done the illustration. I know it was commissioned as HM&B do not have any ancient Roman set artwork.
But I had no idea about who the artist.

Thanks to Victoria Bylin who was searching for the artist who did the artwork for the UK cover of Abbie's Outlaw. I now know -- James Griffin. You can take a look at his gallery here and if you scroll down a bit you will see the orginal picture of Gladiator's Honor. He also did the artwork for Juliet Langton's The Warlord's Mistress. Anyway, I thought it rather exciting.

In other news: After I got my first reader letter, I made a decision that I would write to those authors whose books I really liked and thank them. It is something I had never thought of doing before. Anyway, I was very impressed with Loretta Chase and in particular Mr Impossible. So I emailed her and recieved a nice email back. She was in deadline frenzy and apparently my letter helped give her the impetus to finish. Always a nice thought. Her next book, the final book in the series Darius's story -- Not Quite A Lady will be published by Avon in May 2007. So there is some of my May reading sorted then. And if you have not yet read Loretta Chase and like Regency, do -- you are in for a treat.

Part of the Hugh Jackman Tour

The Pink Heart Society has declared it a Hugh Jackman day and has invited members to post pictures as part of a tour and I am doing my bit. Personally I think this one is fairly good... I found it at Jackman's Landing which has a marvellous compendium of photos...

The Romance Reader Connection Review of GH

I woke up this morning to another review -- this time from The Romance Reader Connection. Melissa Fowler rated it a 4 1/2 stars. As she is a dedicated reader of Harlequin Historicals, it was a real thrill to get the rating.

She said: THE GLADIATOR'S HONOR is an enticing combination of passion andromance, adventure, suspense and political intrigue. Ms. Styles captivating narrative brings ancient Rome to life in amazing detail.Valens and Julia are well suited as hero and heroine, the type of characters who, despite being knocked around a bit in the past, aredetermined to live as they wish—even if it is outside of polite society. The supporting cast of characters was also quite engaging, especially the more villainous elements.

The Romance Reader Connection is lovely, well thought out site btw and well worth a visit.

I do so love getting feedback from readers whether it is in the form of reviews or letters from readers!

Gladaitor's Honor a B+ at All About Romance

All About Romance has reviewed Gladiator's Honor and given it a B+. It was a thorough review and certainly has given me things to think about. They are notoriously difficult reviewers and so I can take a certain amount of satisfaction from the review.
And even though it did not have that certain something to make a Desert island Keeper for that particular reviewer, she still is looking forward to my next book. Always a bonus.

Yet more honey

I got three more full supers off one of the hives -- this makes 5 full supers thus far from this one hive. It stil has 3 incomplete supers on and so potentially more honey.
It looks like it will be about 100 pounds more of honey. This is to go with the other 100 pounds of honey I have already got off....
At the moment I am heartly sick of honey. There are 6 more supers frames to spin, but the honey tank is at the bottom of the spinner is full as is the filter tank.I have to wait for the honey to drain through into the collection tank before I can complete the job. Luckily the 144 jars and lids arrived yesterday. And I am not going to even begin to think about candles. As the other byproduct of keeping bees is beeswax. Neither am I tempted to make mead -- a fermented and therefore highly alcoholic honey drink popular during the AngloSaxon/Viking period. Lots of beekeepers do make the drink.
But it goes to show what my hives are capable of producing in a good year. But God, it is hard and at times very scary work with the bees pinging all about you. It is good to get the blood flowing though and there is a certain amount of satisfaction, once the supers are in the house and the bees are humming outside.

In other news: My partial was okayed by my editor -- so it is full steam ahead and I no longer have an excuse. My fingers are crossed for an excellent manuscript.

A Noble Captive Hardbacks arrive

My hardback copies for A Noble captive have arrived! I love and adore the cover. It just is. My editors who comissioned the cover picked up the elements of the story in far better way than I could.
And it is just as exciting to get the copies for your second book as your first.
Okay, maybe a bit less...
Ironically it was just about a year that the full was requested, and what a year it has been!

The last day before school starts

Today is the last day before school starts for my younger two. It is bound to be a day of searching for lost items, and checking one last time to make sure that everything is there.
The weeks have flown by and it hardly seems anytime since we were getting ready to go to Iceland!
What is worse, the years have flown. Eighteen years ago, I was busy getting ready to go to the UK. Sixteen years ago, I had a really bad night and then my eldest was born the next day by c-section.
Hence the only reason why I know the date I landed in the UK to start my new life -- I had to show my passport when I was registering my eldest's birth and one of the midwifes commented.

At that time I thought I had all the time in the world -- every day seemed to take a year. My life revolved around this newborn. getting ready to go anywhere took hours because no sooner was I dressed and ready, then he had to changed or fed and then ... you get the picture. Then suddenly he was five and starting school, and now he will be sixteen. And in theory next June, he could leave school, and leave home...A Very Scary Thought.

Luckily he is intent on university, so he will belong to me for a few more years yet.

I still remember the crewel work picture I did for a very good friend of mine when I was 16 and she was expecting her first child. It had the words the effect -- Hush to the washing, and ironing go to sleep, I am rocking my baby and babies don't keep.

And they really don't... time is a funny thing and it does slip through your fingers. Even when you think you have all the time in the world.

The Roman's Virgin Mistress

The Roman's Virgin Mistress will be publish in the UK in May 07 in hardback and July 07 in paperback.
I love the title as it really says everything about the book. My editors have decided to go with more Presents type titles for my Roman books, which is fine by me. I will admit to picking books off the shelves with the word Virgin or Mistress in them in the past....

I have been offered a new three book contract. The other books in the contract are my Viking one and one set in the Victorian era at Christmas. I am looking forward to finishing them both!

Ducks and rows

Anne McAllister has a post about getting all her doucks in a row and getting her book finished.

I had to laugh as my ducks are seldom in a row. they tend move far more as a phalanx. Last night, it was total confusion. The ducklings had decided to stay up late, and then panicked as I went to put htem away. They ended up getting mixed up with the older ducks. Eventually, I shut the duck pen and left them to it as I fed the dogs. Ducklings are unreliable and apt to panic, forgetting where their duck house is and rushing from one place to another, totally ignoring the duck house.
When I came back, the last of the ducklings were disappearing into their duck house, having eventually calmed down... and I was able to shut their door. But because I had not brought the dogs out, the big ducks refused to go to bed. they went into the house, and came out again, round and round the duck house we went until one decided that flying through the netting and going into the Dene was a good idea. I retreated, got the dogs, and then they were perfectly behaved.

My advice therefore is if you want to get your ducks in a row -- use older ducks and make sure you have a dog stationed near by.

In other news: my wip is going slowly, but it is moving ahead. I did some plotting yesterday and now know far more what happens in the middle bit. This in theory should make everything go faster. For the moment, my ducks are scattered and not in a row or even a phalanx.

August Bank Holiday Monday

It is the AUgust Bank Holiday here in Britain. This means grey skies and possibility of drizzle later.
My dh has started to put the garden to rights. This will involve a trip to the dump as the garden is looking rather like a jungle at the moment.

The ducklings are growing. It is very interesting to watch the social interaction. Lots of head bobbing before a young duckling join a group of ducks. There is a certain order to the way they do things. Everything regimented with lots of load quacking if it does not go as planned.

I discovered two books -- Consuming Passions about the growth of the consumer during Victorian times, apparently there is a chapter on Christmas. And also the Victorian House:Childbirth through death. Both by Judith Flanders. I am justifying the purchase as research for the Victorian Christmas one I am writing after this one.

Speaking of which, I saent the partial for HVC off to my editor who will be returning from holiday tomorrow. Even though, in theory I don't need to send in partials anymore. I like to do it. It makes for a certain discipline.

Also:
The marketing team for Harlequin Mills and Boon are busy gathering data for the 2007 Romance Report. In particular they are doing a survey about how romantic are you?If you would like to help, please fill in the following survey. Your answers are totally confidential and can not be traced back to you.Obviously the more people who fill out the survey, the more information Harlequin Mills and Boon will have about the currnet state of romance.The survey does need to be filled in by 30 September for your answers to be included in the 2007 Romance Report that is sent out to media worldwide. Thank you in advance for helping.

A better day, a hero prototype found.

Margaret Moore wrote a very good article on the Harlequin Historical Authors' blog in which she had uploaded a picture of Gerald Butler. Before this, I had not encountered him, and had not seriously considered him as an image model for Haakon, my hero. But when I saw the photo, I realized -- this was nearly a perfect match.
It is the dark hair and blue eyes. I understand from Patrica Frances Rowell he has been used as an image model for a number of Harlequin Mills and Boon Historical heroes including her own A Fortuitous Abduction. Terri Brisbin informs that she has over three hundred photos of this man. I think I have been missing something here.... I am not worried that our characters will alike, the deep character that each writer creates brings something new to the table. It is just that the image sometimes helps.


And here he is in a more modern pose. He will be appearing as King Leonidas in the 300 -- wearing Spartan Gear. Thermoplyae and all that. I hope it is a well told tale, although I suspect there will be a large group of women going for the pleasure of watching GB...and his loincloth. And what is wrong with that? A healthy hetrosexual appreciation of a good looking man is nothing to be sniffed at.
Anyway, once I had seen the picture, many thigns feel into place and where I had been a bit stuck, things appeared to flow better...
Did I need a face to put to an idea? I am not sure, but thus far it seems to have worked. I sent my first three chapters off to one of my critque partners and they came flying back with a few minor tweaks. These I will do and then send it off to my other critque partner, before sending it to my editor for Tuesday.

The bee stings are healing. And the honey has been bottled. I am currently melting the wax to separte if from any remaining honey and then I will make a few candles. The windows have to be closed while I do this as the bees can smell the honey and try to get in.

But the wip is moving forward again.

Harvesting honey and mistakes made

On Sunday, my dh decided we had had enough of the honey drought. For the first since August 2001, we had been without our own honey. I was supposed to go down and put the porter bee escapes in below one super.
Porter bee escapes allow bees to leave but not return. The theory being that you then go and pick up the honey in the early morning, and there is no need to shake the bees off the individual frames. This is the THEORY. It is not always true in practice as I have discovered in previous years.

However, I wanted honey sooner than four days time, and so I decided to forego the porter bee escapes for the shake the damned bees off the comb method.

I went into the first hive and was astonished to see how much honey -- the top super was overflowing with sealed honey. We had no more supers to put on. There were very few bees in the top layer.
MISTAKE Number 1 I should have just taken the top super away and worried about shaking the bees off, so distance from the hive. In stead I thought to follow my original plan and transfer the super frames to a brood box. Result: bees tried to sting my arms. One or two succeeded. Bees dislike honey robbers.

I got the honey up and in with no more mishaps. It was Rosebay willow herb -- a lovely light straw colour, and wonderfully runny. There were 26 jars worth on the one super. When you consider for the last few years following the 2 brood box method, we have had a total each year of about 50 jars, I was very pleased. There are 9 other super boxes potentially as full of honey.

MISTAKE number 2 Do not attempt to reopen a colony just after you have taken honey off. The bees tend to be a bit aggressive. Particularly do not try this when your smoker has gone out. RESULT: 15 bee stings to my legs. And one hive of v angry bees, rising in a black cloud.

Luckily I am not allergic.

Now all I have to do is check the other bee hive and plot how I am going to get porter bee escapes on.

In other news HVC goes slowly. I have figured out where I made a mistake and more importantly why it is a mistake. It should read better.

If you feel in need of motivation about writing, you should check out margaret Moore's blog. She offers some wonderful pearls of wisdom. With me it is not worrying so much the other writer is writing 15 pages per day, but rather that I am going too quickly, if this makes sense. And yes I know,I would be the one standing, burbling in the corner, if I couldn't write as much as I do.

Gladiator's Honour on radio

The audio cd of Gladiator's Honour will be broadcast on One Word Radio, starting on 27 August.

It is your chance to hear the wonderful voice of Simon Poland. It is abridged, but I thought when I heard it that it was done very well.

Can you tell that I am very excited about this development?

My good friend Brigid Coady is the announcer.

And the winner is...

Gladiator's Honour is the winner of the 2006 Cataromance Reviewers' Choice Award for Mills and Boon Historicals.

I am very pleased as I did not expect to win.


Elizabeth Lane won the Harlequin Historicals award.

You can see the winners here:

The RNA lunch was lovely, despite the rain. It was thrilling to actually get to see Rosamunde Pilcher. LadyMary Stewart was too ill attend and Lucilla Andrews was in hospital. Lucilla ANdrews was apaprently spitting mad that she couldn't be there. For those who don't know, Lucilla Andrews was one of the big names in medical romance.

Lunch, interview and a new blog in town

Today I am going to the RNA Lifetime Achievement Luncheon for Rosumunde Pilcher, Lucilla Andrews and Lady Mary Stewart. I will confess to not having read Lucilla Andrews. She wrote mainly medical romances which are not my favourites. BUT I spent very many hours reading RP and MS. Mary Stewart's Touch Not the Cat was one of the first main stream romances that I read and hooked me. I discovered RP before she wrote The Shell Seekers and always really enjoyed her books. I shall be doing the fan girl thing even though I believe Lady Mary is not well enough to attend.

I did a small Harlequin Historical Authors blog. It is a group blog, and we plan to feature all your favourite HH authors with interesting articles, news and comment. So please stop by.

Gladiator's Honour is a 2006 Cataromance Reviewer's Choice nominee

I was very thrilled and delighted to learn that Gladiator's Honour is one of the nominees for this year's Cataromance Reviewer's Choice Awards. As many other wonderful writers (Kate Hardy, Kate Walker, Anne McAllister, Julie Cohen, Trish Wylie, Liz Fielding, Ally Blake, Jenna Bayley-Burke to name but a few) and books are on the list, I doubt I will win, but it is very nice to be nominated and to think Gladiator's Honour was thought highly of. You can view the full list here.

The awards are announced on Friday 18 August. It is an all day event. There will be interviews with the nominees, goodie bags and much much more. You can find out more by going to the Cataromance site. Cataromance is a website dedicated to Catagory Romance.

One Book

I have just realised that Kate Hardy tagged me with this. Put it done to jet lag.
And as two plumbers are busy wrestlingwith the Aga, now seems to be the right time. As you will see, I did have probelms with one or two answers.And I want it said that it is practically impossible to choose just one book.

1. One book that changed my life: The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale. I read this as a teenager and it made a great impression on me.
2. One book that I have read more than once: Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes – This is the book that I adored when I was about 12. Total literary crush on Rab.
3. One book I would want on a deserted island: One book? One measly book? It would have to be the Bible or possibly the Collected Works of Shakespeare or possibly the Icelandic Sagas. Something very long and with lots of stories in it.
4. One book that made me laugh: Regency Buck by Georgette Heyer
5. One book that made me cry: The Marriage Miracle by Liz Fielding
6. One book I wish I'd written: Mr Impossible by Loretta Chase. An excellent historical romance writer and I am consumed by jealousy. There are others aswell she mutters darkly...
7. One book I wish had never been written: Or is a better sentiment as I am not into book banning – sunk without a trace? Here I could put Mien Kampf or Das Capital. Both have had a detrimental effect on the world. But I will have to go for Marx. And among other things Marx can’t do math.
8. One book I am currently reading: 1776 David McCullough (just finished Mr Impossible) it is an excellent companion to his Pultizer winning biography of john Adams that I read several years ago. I have several others on the go including an Icelandic Saga.
9. One book I have been meaning to read: Blood and Sand by Frank Gardiner – It is an account of the BBC correspondent’s life, what happened to him before he was shot and left to die in Saudi street and how he recovered afterward. My eldest has read it. I also am meaning to read Ghost Wars, but as my dh is currently reading our copy, I think I am excused for the moment

Now to tag: Nell Dixon, Anna Lucia and Kate Walker.

And sometimes you are the bug

I have a fondness for Mary Chapin Carpenter and her songs. I discovered her about 12 years ago The one which is playing through my head is the one about Sometimes you are the windshield and sometime you are the bug.

Yesterday was an eventful day. It started noramly enough. In fact it was normal up to 3 o'clock. Then the hot water pipe burst inside the AGA. The first I knew about it, my dh was screaming at me to come and see. As he had just screamed about there being no hot water for his shower, and I was busy with laundry, I was not best pleased. However, once I realised the situation, it was all hands on deck.
The water had flowed out and was busily dripping down into the basement. The rugs are the bottom of the staris were soaked. The well around the Aga was covered in warm red brown silt and water poured from its side. We turned everything off and still the water flowed out. I think we finally drained last bit of water from the house....Anyway, now today I have to see about getting it fixed as my usual plumber is on holiday. As we have another boiler, I suspect that the Aga shall to be bypassed. The thought of having to have it taken apart...

There is no reason why the pipes should have gone -- except the water pressure has been funny lately and the pipes are very old.

All this has meant that HVC was not worked on and I shall have to try to catch up in the next few days...