Competitions and Calendars

If you’ve been visiting the Diamonds Down Under website you’ll have no doubt discovered the contest page… but if you haven’t been there recently, you might not know about the treasure hunt. If you’re a fan of treasure hunts and you love to read continuities, stay tuned from the beginning of next month for the first clues! The contest will run over six months and the winner will be drawn in July 2008 from the emails sent in by midnight on 14 July (EDT) with all twelve questions correctly answered. You’ve got to be in to win, so bookmark the Diamonds Down Under Blog and check, as each book in the continuity is released from January through to June 2008, for the two questions for each month’s treasure hunt! If you like diamonds and hearts and all things precious and pretty, you’ll love the treasure hunt prize.

I know at this time of the year we often look forward to our goals for the coming year, but I think it’s important that we also take the time to look back and appreciate the year we’ve just lived. With this in mind I’ve decided that my blog visitors should also be able to enjoy something as a Happy New Year gift and I have a 2008 New Zealand Firefighters’ Calendar (a percentage of sales of which support the New Zealand Child Cancer Foundation) for a randomly selected blog visitor who’d like to share the best thing that has happened to them in the past year. For myself, one of the best things that happened to me was seeing some of my books released into other countries. If you’ve been visiting my blog regularly you’ll know how excited I was when I learned of these releases. Take the jump to becoming a full time writer was both exciting and a little bit scary for me, this time last year, but it’s been a great year and those extra translations of my books are just the icing on the cake . I’ll keep this mini-contest open until Sunday 30 December at 3.00 p.m. (PST). I look forward to reading your happy memories!

What I’m watching: THE HOLIDAY

Pretty appropriate, I thought, to be watching THE HOLIDAY, starring Cameron Diaz, Jude Law, Kate Winslet and Jack Black. I loved this movie for many many reasons, although I have to admit that I did struggle a bit with Jack Black as a convincing love interest for Kate Winslet’s character. The things I loved the most about this movie…

• How Kate Winslet’s character had the time and the inclination to care about her elderly neighbour and learn about what a fantastic and wonderful life he’d led. All to often I think we get too caught up in our busy lives and we forget to stop and listen to our elders and learn their stories. Everyone we meet has life experience different to ours and I reckon we can learn something from everybody if we just take the time to listen.
• How Cameron Diaz’s character was so mecurial. She really wanted and needed to get away from home and her cheating partner and yet once she was where she thought she wanted to be she couldn’t wait to get back on a plane to the US.
• How Jude Law’s character interacted with his beautiful daughters. I think one of the most precious scenes in this film was with all three of them in bed and there wasn’t so much as an inappropriate suggestion about any of it. We have to deal with so much horror in our day to day lives it was lovely to see a widowed dad just being able to be a dad with his girls without fear of recrimination, or overt suggestion, that to love and comfort his children as a parent should, is wrong.

So yeah, all in all I really did enjoy this film. I love a good happy ending and this delivered on all levels of happy endings for me.

What about you? Seen anything you’ve really enjoyed lately?

Q&A With Silhouette Desire Senior Editor, Melissa Jeglinski!

Hi! If any of you are keen on targetting Silhouette Desire and have a manuscript or partial you’d love to have critiqued, or if you would just like the chance to go into the draw to win a telephone chat with Melissa Jeglinski, Senior Editor of Silhouette Desire, then comment on the Diamonds Down Under Q&A with MJ over on our DDU blog! All comments (barring the ones made by the DDU authors, of course) will go into a draw later next year for the chance to have a partial or full manuscript critiqued, or, if you’re not a writer you can still get the chance to win a telephone chat with a Senior Editor to discuss whatever takes your fancy.

I hope to see you over on the Diamonds Down Under Blog!

The best laid plans…

When we write a book and submit it to our editor we have a course of action that occurs afterwards. Generally the first thing on the list is revisions, but when a book goes through without revisions the first time the author gets to see it again is at ‘line edits’. It was about at this stage when my editor let me know that in TYCOON’S VALENTINE VENDETTA we’d have to change my hero’s name from Hunter Dolan to something else, because another book (a continuity book which couldn’t be changed because it affected five other books) to be released in February also had a hero named Hunter. So we duly rechristened Hunter to Jack, and when I next saw my manuscript, at what they call ‘AA’ (author alteration) stage, his name had been changed throughout the manuscript. AAs are when we get to have a final poke at anything that doesn’t sit right in the manuscript, to check whether there are errors either of our own making or ones that have appeared during copy editing etc.

As authors we don’t see the back cover copy or the inside cover copy until we get our eager hands on our books so it was quite a surprise, and a shock, to me when the first person I gave a copy of the book to read asked why my hero was called Hunter Dolan on the back cover blurb and on the inside cover copy when his name was Jack inside the book! Argh!

Unfortunately, it’s one of those things that we as authors have no control over and to my readers I can only apologise that the error has occurred and say that I hope it doesn’t affect your reading pleasure of the book when it comes out.

I’m Blogging on Tote Bags ‘n’ Blogs today!

I’m blogging over on Tote Bags ‘n’ Blogs so pop on over to to join in the discussion and let me know if you you’re a reader, a writer, or both? I love to see you there!

What I’m reading: Bronwyn Jameson’s VOWS & A VENGEFUL GROOM

I always knew the Diamonds Down Under continuity would be good and I’ve always loved how Bronwyn Jameson writes but when I read an advance copy of VOWS & A VENGEFUL GROOM (out Jan 08 USA, Feb 08 Aus/NZ), even knowing what the book was about, I was thrilled to still find myself transported into the world of the Blackstones and the Hammonds and the scandals and twists that set up their tale.

Cover art copyright © by Harlequin Enterprises Limited ® and ™ are trademarks of the publisher

 

I have to say it was a real thrill to see my character, Matt Hammond (Book #6 in the continuity), portrayed so vividly and just as I’d imagined him–and timely too, as I was doing line edits on Book #6 at the same time–but it was even better to see so many other characters, from the months we put into planning and discussing the continuity, come to life.

Here’s the back cover blurb for VOWS & A VENGEFUL GROOM:

HIS LOVER OF TEN MONTHS (supposed to be ten weeks, but who’s counting ). HIS WIFE OF TEN DAYS. HIS EX OF TEN YEARS.

Ric Perrini, chairman of Blackstone Diamonds and Sydney’s sexiest bachelor, still had one elusive prize to catch…Kimberley Blackstone. Luring her back to her estranged father’s company, back to her birthright, would be Ric’s toughest job ever. Luring her back into his arms, his most pleasurable. Ric had laid claim to part of Kim before; this time he’d accept nothing but her total surrender…

I’m really looking forward to the next book in the continuity, Tessa Radley’s PRIDE & A PREGNANCY SECRET.

Ramblings: The Art of Waiting Patiently

You know, much about a career in writing is about waiting. You start off as a newbie, hoping your manuscript will be the one the editor picks from the slush pile in the publisher’s office and that s/he’ll read it and bolt for the senior editor’s office shrieking “YES! YES! YES! We must jump onto the phone and buy this amazing new author this minute!” Okay, so dreams are free, right?

 

The reality is that in most cases you wait until you get your answer. In some cases for a very long time.

And in many cases it’s not the answer you’d really like to get. I know. I’ve been there. It took thirteen years from my first romance submission to the one that saw me say “YES!” over the phone when my wonderful editor rang to buy my first Silhouette Desire back in April 2005.

There are, I think, a lot of preconceptions about how your life changes when you’re published. One of the biggest being wait times. Yes, of course, when you’re contracted and you’re delivering a book on an agreed delivery date so it hits its production stages at just the right times, your book will be read sooner than perhaps one from the slush pile. But in a lot of ways, you still become very adept at waiting.

There’s a great deal to be said for taking your time before selling. You learn patience and persistence and procedures. And they stand you in good stead when you reach that magical milestone and sell to your targetted publisher.

I write this because I’m not currently on deadline. I’ve just delivered my line edits for my June 2008 book, (JEALOUSY & A JEWELED PROPOSITION, Book 6 in the Diamonds Down Under continuity,) and I’m waiting to hear if Book 7 (CLAIMING HIS RUNAWAY BRIDE) requires revisions or if its been accepted, and I’m waiting to hear on a proposal that I’ve pitched to my editor for books I want to write next year for publication in 2009.

Seems strange, sometimes, to be planning so far ahead. There’s nothing spur of the moment about this industry unless your book gets yanked from its spot and pulled forward in the publishing schedule .

So, yeah. Just a bit of rambling from me as I wait very patiently for news and remind myself that this would be the ideal time to get the ironing up to date and the oven clean and tidy my office desk and floor again, because if those proposals go ahead I’m in for a very busy time in the next twelve months. And, you know what? That’s just the way I like it.

Hmm, tampering or just changed links to pics?

Had an interesting experience today. Thought I’d squiz through a few of my old blogs and lo and behold but half the pictures had changed. Instead of the ones I’d put there, for posts like ‘Knocked Up’, a book cover and several pictures that related to my posts, there were landscapes, some guy after his fishing expedition, and someone’s girlfriend in a state of undress. Obviously I’ve deleted them now (with a fair amount of muttering I might add) but how does this happen?

I’m figuring, that since I cut and pasted those photos in after doing an image search on google, that someone was either able to tamper with the blog or the photo links just changed at their source. The pics that I put up that I’ve uploaded from my own computer remained the same so I’m hoping it was the latter, that the links had changed, but all the same I was a bit annoyed and surprised to see the altered posts. I hope no-one was offended by any of the incorrect/changed pictures, and I’ll certainly be keeping a check on things in future.

What I’m reading: Deborah Challinor’s FIRE

I thought I’d take a break from my usual romance reading to catch up on a story written by a well known and very popular New Zealand author, Deborah Challinor. Deborah is a freelance writer and historian who has featured in the number one slot on New Zealand’s best seller lists with great frequency.

Here’s the back cover blurb (a well-written one ) for FIRE:

Allie and her friends Louise, Irene and Daisy all work at Dunbar & Jones, one of the country’s most glamorous and sophisticated department stores. Allie’s a salesgirl in the dress department, Louise works in lingerie, Irene is a typist in Accounts and Daisy makes hats in the workroom out the back.

As they make their plans for the summer of 1953, their friendship is strained when one of the four begins an illicit relationship, and Allie finds herself attracted to handsome Sonny Manaia whose best mate is a leader of a notorious motorbike gang.

In the week before Christmas 1953, as the country prepares for a Royal Visit by the young Queen Elizabeth and the store is crammed with wealthy shoppers, smoke is discovered drifting from the basement lift shaft. What happens next will sear the heart of the city, tearing families apart and testing friendship, love and loyalty, opening wounds that will never heal.

FIRE delivered on every promise in the back cover blurb and, as I know many of the streets and suburbs mentioned in the book it really took on another life for me. I’ve even been in some of the stores mentioned in the book as a child and my mother even worked in the ‘counting house’ of a store much like Dunbar & Jones.

I almost felt as if I was watching a TV series while I read the book, with vignettes of the characters lives intertwining until they all tied into a knot of terror as the fire took hold of Dunbar & Jones. Deborah Challinor’s writing was honest and vivid and, to be totally frank with you, the final scenes in the book left me reeling. I have a rather vivid imagination and some parts of the story, I believe, will remain locked in my mind, as visual images, forever.

If you’re keen to read a slice of 1950’s New Zealand you really must get a copy of this book. It’s published by HarperCollins Publishers and was inspired by the fire at Ballantynes department store in Christchurch, which occurred in 1947 and resulted in the loss of forty-one lives.

Wedding Dance!

Every now and then you see something that really makes you smile. This sure did it for me!

http://www.youtube.com/v/gbvWdVj4vGU&rel=1