Weekend Bulletin

Here I am sitting in the garden, playing on my new tiny baby laptop (shiny new toy! So exciting!) and dropping by to tell you that tomorrow, as promised, I’ll be launching the start of a week-long competition to celebrate the release of Mistress: Hired for the Billionaire’s Pleasure.

(How sweet is this? It's an Advent 4211, fact fans, and is the size of a smallish notebook and really light.

Obviously, it's going to revolutionise my working life and quadruple my productivity... )

Every day I’ll be posting about a different aspect of the book, with a question, and on Friday I’ll do a quick recap and announce the prizes (which I’m still finalising). However, bear with me a little as tomorrow’s post will be up slightly behind my usual post-school run/cup-of-tea and slice-of-toast kind of schedule. This is because I’m appearing on Channel M’s breakfast show tomorrow morning. Live! (or live-ish, given the state of me in the mornings...)

What’s worrying me most about this at the moment is not the question of what to wear (about a 5 on a scale of 1 to 10 Top Things to Worry About) or oversleeping and being horribly late (possibly a 7) but the fact that all around daughters are succumbing to the sickness bug that’s doing the rounds at school. I’m counting on my notorious oil-tanker constitution to see me right...

Three Things to Celebrate

1. Francesco Da Mosto’s new BBC series, Francesco’s Mediterranean Voyage. Research, inspiration and relaxation in one gorgeously-accented package, this goes a long way to filling the viewing gap left by The Apprentice. Just add sofa, wine and olives for the closest you can get to heaven on a Tuesday evening.


2. Translations of my first and second books into Spanish and Portugese. New covers, and great new titles. Innocencia Oculta... how fabulous is that? (Have had enormous fun opening them on random pages and trying to work out which bit I’m reading, but even though I know the books inside out it’s surprisingly hard! Since I’m obviously never going to be able to sit down and skim read through them, if anyone would like a copy just drop me your address via the website and I’ll get one off to you.)

3. Finally, after months of trying, yesterday I managed to get project playlist to work on my website. Apologies to anyone within a three mile radius of my house who would undoubtedly have heard the whoop of triumph, followed by an ear-shattering rendition of the songs while I danced round the house. Expect a further slump in word count over the next few days as I exercise my new found competence and play!

In the news

Gordon Brown says we must stop wasting food.

Wise words. I have therefore spent the day methodically finishing up all the weekend's leftovers. These included a third of a lovely Waitrose Balsamic onion and cheddar quiche*, the remains of Saturday night's roast beef, the last two brownies from the batch that I took to my library talk in Macclesfield, and four cold roast potatoes*.

Never let it be said I shirk my social responsibilities.

(*eaten standing by the open fridge, and therefore calorie free)

Still Catching Up

I’m ashamed to realise that my unhealthy preoccupation with Alejandro and The Deadline meant that I failed to mention earlier something pretty important and very exciting. Fortunately Michelle Styles, Natasha Oakley, Kate Hardy and Susan Stephens are better women than I, so you probably already know that 2008 is the National Year of Reading, which is a ‘year long celebration of reading, in all its forms.’ To my mind, reading-- like friendship and Friday evenings—is something we should all celebrate, often, so I’m really delighted to have been invited to be the writer in residence for Cheshire Libraries. Sadly, being a writer in residence doesn’t mean you get to live in the library for a year, which would be my idea of heaven, (I’d bed down in the far corner by Historicals, and work my way steadily from there, via Biography, to Romance and General Fiction, with frequent sorties into Cookery to dream over beautifully photographed recipes that—since I was living in the library, I’d be under no pressure at all to attempt) however, it does mean that this Saturday I get to spend a couple of hours talking heroes and happy endings at Macclesfield Library. If you’re going to be anywhere near, we’ll have the kettle on at 10am sharp, so come and join us!

Yesterday, once I’d done my thousand words (1194 actually—how keen am I?) I started work on the Great Website Update, and that’s why this morning I have a sore shoulders, a slight hangover and have had only four hours sleep.

And it’s still nowhere near fully functional.

New book. New man. New routine.

I’m so excited about this one. This is the book I’ve been itching to write since January when I was struggling to finish the troublesome Olivier’s story (Taken for Revenge, Bedded for Pleasure) and the idea came to me fully formed, in a flash of clarity and inspiration while putting on mascara. (That part is purely coincidental I should mention. The plot is in no way mascara-related.) I nearly poked my eye out in my haste to grab a pen and get it down before it slipped away.


So, after the excesses of Dublin I’m back in the White Chair of Creativity (as Rachel calls it) with pictures of my new hero pinned up all over the place. I’m liking him lots—and not just because I saw him in the (extremely lovely) flesh last week and he smiled at me, though I’m sure that this can only make the writing flow more easily. I first fell in love with Henry Cavill in Tristan and Isolde, when he looked dark, dangerous and delicious—as well as excitingly dirty...



But now I've seen how he looks when he’s scrubbed up I'm even more smitten...

So far, so gorgeous-- I’m feeling totally positive about the new book and the new man. It’s the new routine I’m less happy about.

I’m not a big fan of change. In fact, it’s pretty true to say that I embrace change with about the same level of enthusiasm with which I’d hug a man-eating shark, but sometimes you just have to take a deep breath and do these things. (Fortunately so far I’ve never been in a situation where physical contact with sharks is necessary... obviously.) My latest deadline nightmare of sixteen hour days (which coincided with the children being off for half term) punctuated by regular heart palpitations and adrenaline rushes and fuelled by a diet of sugar and caffeine convinced me that something has to change in the way I handle this writing life. So, with the summer holidays yawning like a vast chasm between here and the next deadline I’m following the advice of the brilliant (and endlessly kind) Michelle Styles and planning to stick to a slow and steady thousand words a day. I have this dreadful kind of guilt thing that says that because I’m a working writer I have to spend every available moment at my keyboard, and this has turned me into a miserable recluse who dives under the desk whenever the phone rings (If I hear it, that is. Mostly I have music on so loudly that this isn’t an issue.) I’ve come to the conclusion I need to work less, but more efficiently. And also go out for more coffee and boozy lunches with friends, and bake more fairy cakes with the children.

The theory sounds fabulous, doesn’t it? Now, let’s see if it works.

Dublin

Amazing city, amazing people, amazing time. And since that's about as articulate as I can manage at the moment, here's a pictoral guide to the last few days...

If you can make sense of any of that, do fill me in. For some reason ( and I can't think why...) it's all a bit hazy, but I do know I had a GREAT time-- thanks Abby!

Still not here

With the Argentinean finished and accepted (and titled At the Argentinean Billionaire's Bidding, which I'm loving...) I’m taking a few days off to visit Abby Green in Dublin. Will be back at the end of the week with a full report of all the sophisticated, cultural things we’ve been up to.

(falls off chair laughing...)

And then I’m going to update my website.