This Writing Life: There's A Busy Week Ahead...

http://myBook.to/MyDreamGuy

Only a short blog today as I’ve got a very busy week ahead. I’m editing my new thriller to a tight deadline, trying to get round to beta reading my friend Lindsay Debout’s second collection of Warming Tales, and on Tuesday there’s  a meeting of my local RNA group to discuss, among other things, our next workshop. 

I hope summer still has a while to run, but my short romance, My Dream Guy, is published tomorrow, Tuesday, 15th September. You can reserve your copy of My Dream Guy from Amazon by clicking on this magical link: http://myBook.to/MyDreamGuy.

I had some great news a few days ago. Both His Majesty's Secret Passion and Her Royal Risk, the first two books in my Princes of Kharova series for The Wild Rose Press are up for nomination in The Romance Reviews Readers' Choice Awards, Winter 2015.

His Majesty's Secret Passion is my idea of escapist romantic fantasy, with an exhausted businesswoman and a king in disguise finding fun in the sun at a luxurious spa. There's sun, sea and secrets to be discovered in the ultimate in getting away from it all.

Her Royal Risk pits a perfect personal assistant against the boss from hell in a new job that's nobody's idea of heaven. It's only when Krisia and Athan are faced with a disaster they discover working together is a lot more productive than pulling each other apart...and it's pretty romantic, too!

myBook.to/HisMajestysSecret

You can find out more about both books by clicking here. I'd be really grateful if you could cast your vote for His Majesty's Secret Passion by clicking here, and for Her Royal Risk, here. Thank you so much! 

Stuck For A Great Read? Try Please Release Me, By Rhoda Baxter...

On Sale Today! 

Today is the launch of Rhoda Baxter's new book, Please Release Me.  I was ready to blog on the theme of being stuck as it's related to her book, but I didn't realise how apt my choice would be. I couldn't post my blog until just now. In fact, I couldn't do anything online at all. We've had no internet connection all day, so I was well and truly stuck, until Plusnet got their act together and I got back online!

So here, a bit later in the day than usual, is the news about Rhoda's book, Please Release Me...

What if you could only watch as your bright future slipped away from you? 
Sally Cummings has had it tougher than most but, if nothing else, it’s taught her to grab opportunity with both hands. And, when she stands looking into the eyes of her new husband Peter on her perfect wedding day, it seems her life is finally on the up. 

That is until the car crash that puts her in a coma and throws her entire future into question. 

In the following months, a small part of Sally’s consciousness begins to return, allowing her to listen in on the world around her – although she has no way to communicate. 

But Sally was never going to let a little thing like a coma get in the way of her happily ever after … 

To find out more, go to http://amzn.to/1MdM4wA.

And now here's my free ramble on the topic of being stuck...

Losing contact with the outside world is a regular thing when you live where we do. We're stuck in the middle of a Gloucestershire wood, and more than half a mile from the main road. March winds, summer storms or heavy winter snowfalls can, and often do, disrupt the power.  When we first moved here, going to bed by candlelight was fun—and who wants to get up early, when you're newly married? When the children were tiny it was even better. We could all be children together, playing snowballs, building snowmen and tobogganing the length of the steep lane which usually connected us with civilisation.

It was when the children started school we discovered the downside to being stuck out in the middle of the countryside, especially in winter. During the Christmas holidays of 2011, a blizzard lasting thirty-six hours presented us with three feet of snow. For the first few days, we were without electricity, broadband, and the landline. It was freezing! We only went outside to feed the hens, top up the bird tables and thaw out their drinking water.

Carving out paths to the bee hives and poultry was fun, but getting back to school after the break wasn't. The bus stop for the school coach is exactly two miles from our house. It's a lovely walk, when you're empty handed and without a deadline. When you're weighed down with school books, gym kit, and sports equipment with the bus arriving at exactly 7:55 on the dot each morning, it was torture. We left home in the pitch dark, to trudge for three-quarters of an hour along barely cleared, and rarely gritted, lanes. Then whichever parent was driving the walking bus had to trudge all the way home again. The one left back at base spent the time making hot chocolate and bacon sandwiches ready for the frozen traveller's  return, which is why neither OH nor I lost any weight during the week we were making all those journeys (worse luck).

Being stuck miles out in the English countryside, especially when you've got no power or telephone coverage could never be called a good thing, but there are advantages. It's so quiet, you don't get distracted by news and the internet, so you can get lots of writing done. And the scenery is amazing!

The Archers—A Habit I Just Can't Kick

Not St Stephen's

I know, each time we poor listeners are subjected to some new outrage I say I'll never listen to The Archers again, but the truth is I can't help myself. As I've explained in previous blogs, two generations of my family listened every day, plus the weekend omnibus. That's all changed. I know lots of people who've given up on it completely. As the series degenerates into Eastenders-On-Am, I can go for weeks at a time without switching on at all. The trouble is, I miss the old-style Archers terribly. It's a true addiction. I dip into online forums and the BBC Blog here to find out if it's worth tuning in again.

It never used to be like this. The Archers began a few years after World War Two, when few people had TVs. The Ministry of Agriculture liked the idea of a radio programme that would be "an agricultural Dick Barton" (think Indiana Jones, with tractors) to inform farmers of best practice while entertaining its listeners. The young, go-ahead Phil Archer tried out things his father frowned on. Comedy and drama spiced it up. The village's old scoundrel, Walter Gabriel, was always cackling at something. His son, the oddly suave and sophisticated Nelson, was a likeable yet slightly shady character. Phil famously lost his first wife Grace in a fire, a fictional tragedy intended to steal the thunder of a real-life TV station's opening night.

You tuned in to The Archers every night to hear about the ups and downs of family life in a believable country setting, with the odd train robbery, pet elephant, and plane crash thrown in now and again for variety.

I've lived in the country nearly all my life, and while times change and the tag line "an everyday story of country folk" was definitely beyond its sell-by date, The Archers is no longer fifteen minutes of escapism. They've shortened the slot, and the programme is now a clone of the snarling, sensational TV soaps I rejected a long time ago.

Okay, so life's not a bowl of cherries but the reason I (and my parents, and my grandparents before them) listened to The Archers was because I cared about the programmes characters, I wanted to hear the baddies get their comeuppance, and yes, I admit it–to laugh at the sometimes silly sound effects. It was fun. It was familiar.

Now all that has changed. First, the wind of Political Correctness swept through The Archers. The Vicar married a Hindu, while Ambridge has been introduced to racists, homophobes and gays, and at one time rivalled the United Nations in its number and variety of accents. Then, the Archers got a new editor.  Sean O'Connor came from TV, and doesn't it show? He's jettisoned old characters and some young ones, with the excuse they haven't been to drama school. The programme is now stuffed with drama school alumni who all (with the exception of Daisy Badger, who is unique) sound exactly the same. This really, really doesn't work on radio. We have no visual clues to help us sort out who is speaking to whom.

Reflecting the country's changing attitudes and population is a good thing. The problem for me is that concepts in The Archers are now introduced for the sake of it, with no reference to past characterisation, or future story development. For example: Shula Archer is a middle-aged pillar of the community, businesswoman, churchwarden and all-round goody-goody. She witnessed a relative's partner, Rob, commit a violent assault, then lied to the police about what she saw. That's something St Shula would never do in this story universe. Something she definitely would do is confide in her family about Rob's violent temper. This hasn't happened. People in real villages talk to each other. Rob the thug's card would have been marked out of existence a long time ago. Instead he's become a pantomime villain, while his first wife, the sainted Jess, has vanished. The nice, respectable woman who was liked by the whole village has been written out. She's never spoken about by the villagers any more. That's highly unlikely, considering how they were all such friends. Worse, Jess was apparently always a drunken slapper, according to the latest scripts. Wrong! Lady Muck Jennifer has a radar for that sort of thing. She would NEVER have let Brian within a mile of Jess if that was the case.

Kenton Archer has been bailed out by his family on lots of occasions. Expecting a windfall from the sale of his brother's farm, he maxed out on credit cards. So far, so typical. He's always been an idiot. When the sale fell through (another gripe—the scriptwriters now treat us as the idiots. How many listeners thought Brookfield Farm really would be sold, and David would move away? None, that's how many.) Real Kenton would have found a pressing need to visit his daughter on the other side of the world. Instead, he stays and slips into drinking and depression. That could well happen in real life, I agree. What I can't understand is why his wife, Jolene, craves his approval for the financial help she's getting from his family to bail out the business left to her by her husband? Jolene's a tough, sensible woman. She'd accept the money, save her business, and get help for Kenton. And that's another thing—only months ago Ruth Archer was crying over the size of an electricity bill. Since then, her family has had to pony up the dough for all sorts of expenses surrounding the failed sale of Brookfield, petrol, and temporary help while Ruth drives long distances to visit her mother. Now they can afford to hand over thousands of pounds to bail out Kenton, again. The rainbow after the Ambridge flood obviously had both ends on Brookfield land, with a crock of gold deposited at each one.

Go Wild In The Country!

The only reason I listen to The Archers now is if I get a hint that the evil Rob is going to get found out. As a survivor of mental abuse I'm horribly familiar with what's happening to Helen but to be honest, they've turned Rob into such a pantomime villain the storyline is ridiculous. It's the people you least suspect who get away with DV for the longest time. Rob's been fiddling the meg-dairy's computer, threatening blackmail, and he walked out on his job "on a whim". To take just one of those complaints, a huge enterprise like Berrow Farm would have a dedicated IT team. You don't rely on mucky fingered non-experts keying in info, as and when. You pay people who know all about it, and do it all day—properly.

The Archers used to have an agricultural advisor. I think they must have been abandoned somewhere, along with the archives and character sheets!

Have you been listening to The Archers for a long time, or are you a recent recruit? Are you enjoying the new-style Archers?

In other news, my own everyday story of city folk fooling about and (eventually) going wild in the country, My Dream Guy, is released on 15th September. You can order your copy here.

Romance In The Rain—My Dream Guy

Go Wild In The Country!

How do you fancy a short burst of fun at the end of this washout of a summer? I've got the perfect antidote for your back-to-work blues.

Here in Gloucestershire we had a miserable spring and early summer, followed by the hottest, driest July on record. 

Luckily for the wildlife (but not so good if you like life outdoors), all that sunshine was followed by a dismal, wet August. With the barbecues in storage, why not splash out on an affordable treat—my next release? 

My latest short romance, My Dream Guy, was inspired by a holiday booked by my husband a few years ago. I thought it was going to be glorified camping, which we'd got out of our systems in the years BC—Before Children. 

It was fun, but the idea of roughing it with a baby on board made me dread a week stuck in the middle of nowhere. 

myBook.to/MyDreamGuy 

Emily, the heroine of My Dream Guy, doesn't have any children to worry about. She's only twenty-three, with a job she likes, and a gorgeous boyfriend in the shape of Jack Wright, but the sparkle has gone out of their romance. 

When Jack books them into a Welsh campsite during the wettest summer on record, it’s nearly the last straw for poor Emily. Like her friend Grace, she's a soft beds and sushi kind of girl.

Emily thinks the bronzed farmer who was her teenage crush is going to be the best thing about this dreaded holiday. But time has moved on. Feinwen Farm isn't the place she remembered.  Hunky Harri might be twice the man he was, but he's not the only one who's full of surprises!

Will Emily’s holiday from hell turn out to have a happy ending, too? 

You can find out more here.

The real-life holiday I was dreading turned out to be great fun. The minute I discovered we'd be staying in a lovely chalet with all mod. cons (including a hot tub!) I was hooked. From an open fire to  swimming under the stars, our holiday had it all. 

What's your best holiday memory? There's a free copy of My Dream Guy on offer for a comment picked at random on Saturday, 10th September. 

5 Top Tips For Writing With Scrivener

Scrivener's not simply a word processing package, it's a project management tool for writers. It allows you to store all your research, ideas, images and metadata in one place—the same place you're creating your manuscript. It saves you from drowning in a sea of notes made on the backs of envelopes, or in half a dozen different notebooks (if you can find them). When your book is finished, Scrivener can export it in any number of forms, including compiled and ready for publishing online.

Once you can navigate the Scrivener system it's brilliant, but to begin with it can be daunting. You can find out more about the possible downside here, but now I've been working with Scrivener for a while these are my top tips:

1. There's no substitute for diving in and tinkering. Use the free trial facility available from Literature and Latte. Press all the buttons, switch from view to view, drag and drop, and try out various forms of compilation to create different types of document for publication or upload. You can customise the system, so that each time you start a new project the fonts and formatting are exactly as you want them. Take your time to become familiar with the whole Scrivener experience. It's lovely to open a new project and start typing, knowing you're free to work without having to fight the system. Which leads me to...

2. Never try to learn a new system such as Scrivener when you're working to a deadline. Learn first, write later. Or write using your normal word processor (regularly saving to flash drives or the cloud, of course) then import it into the Scrivener project where you store all your research and ideas. I did this when I was working on my latest short romance, My Dream Guy. I wrote the first draft in a single document, using Pages for Mac. Instead of giving each chapter a title, I put a hashtag (#) at the end of each one. When imported into Scrivener, the system automatically created a new file for each chapter.  After editing my work in Scrivener, all I needed to do to format it ready for publication was hit Scrivener's "compile" button and—bingo! One ready-formatted manuscript, ready to go.

 myBook.to/MyDreamGuy 

3. RTFM—Read The Flaming* Manual, which in Scrivener's case rather handily shows up each time you open the package. It's there, along with interactive and video tutorials, visible on the front page, and for a reason. Use it. The video tutorials provided by Literature and Latte are great if you're a visual learner—the type of person who needs to see things done, rather than simply having them explained in words.

4. Scrivener For Dummies, written by Scrivener Wizard Gwen Hernandez is an invaluable book, although in common with every other trouble-shooting system for computing I've used, if you don't know why you're stuck, it won't be much help. You need to know the exact questions to ask the index, and the terms to use. I found fiddling about free-form (see Tip 1, above) and then cross-referencing the effect I achieved with this book was a great way to learn. I've always got my copy within reach. As a result, it's covered with notes, and remnants of those two vital components of a writer's life, tea and cake. Gwen Hernandez also has a Scrivener Corner on her website, with loads of useful tips (and no cake crumbs). You can find that here.

5. If all else fails, type your question into a search engine. You'll be amazed how many articles and YouTube videos have been produced by enthusiasts. A word of warning: because these people are enthusiasts, you may find the instructors go too fast, or skip over exactly the details you need to know. More than one of these personable geniuses uses the phrase  "you'll know how to do that already...." about the precise part of the process you want explained. The screenshots these video artistes use are often tiny and indistinct, too, so use these only if you've got 20/20 vision, a degree in mind-reading, and you're willing to take a chance.

Have you tried working with Scrivener? What's your favourite tip?

* other words beginning with F are available...

This Writing Life—Cover Reveal for My Dream Guy...

myBook.to/MyDreamGuy 

In my summer newsletter, I held a competition for readers to choose between potential covers for my next short story, My Dream Guy. The names of everyone who voted went into a draw to win a preview copy of my next short romance, My Dream Guy, and Emma’s name was first out of the hat. Here’s the cover my subscribers chose. What do you think? 

My Dream Guy is based on a holiday OH booked as a surprise when we hadn’t been together long. I really did not want to go. I was too busy at work, the weather had been foul for weeks and wasn’t forecast to get any better, while to cap it all, this was an outdoor activity holiday. I’d much rather sit in a wood than fly through it on a zip wire, but when you’re first in love, you don't always say things like that out loud! I was all ready to be a martyr, but I got a big shock when I discovered my own dream guy had hidden depths... 

Emily gets a wake-up call too in my new story, My Dream Guy. The sparkle’s gone out of her relationship with Jack. She’s started hankering after the guy who was her first crush. Back then, Harri was a bronzed, twenty-something farmer who hardly paid any attention to the tongue-tied kid camping in his field with her family. Now Emily’s older, she’s thinks Harri the Hunk’s going to be the best thing about her dreaded holiday to a Welsh campsite, during the wettest summer on record. 

She’s in for an enormous shock—and then her boyfriend Jack springs an even bigger surprise. 

Can Emily’s holiday from hell ever have a happy ending?

There’ll be more about My Dream Guy in my autumn newsletter. That will have all sorts of news about life here at Tottering Towers, including the latest on Heart of A Hostage, the next book in my Princes Of Kharova series for The Wild Rose Press, an update on my bees and the kitchen garden harvest, together with a seasonal recipe, and a competition for subscribers only.

 My next newsletter will be out in the autumn. To get a copy, you can join my mailing list here: http://bit.ly/1eKihHg 

This Writing Life—Heart Of A Hostage

Coming soon!

Here's the newly-produced cover of my twentieth published novel. What do you think? Heart Of A Hostage is the third book in my Princes of Kharova series for the Wild Rose Press.

Mihail inherits a fearsome reputation as Public Enemy Number One. His family lost the throne of Kharova four generations ago—but in the small European country of Kharova, blood feuds last for centuries.

A car breaks down near his rebel headquarters, stranding its beautiful royal passenger. Mihail seizes the chance to take Princess Maia hostage. It's his perfect short-cut to the throne—or so he thinks.

Maia turns out to be the house guest from hell, and Mihail is a man with dark secrets locked away in his ruined castle hideaway. When Maia discovers what they are, the stakes rise and an already dangerous situation becomes lethal...

There's a big secret at the centre of Heart Of A Hostage, but I'm only revealing that to readers of my newsletter! The autumn edition will be coming out in October.  As well as a revelation about Heart Of A Hostage, my newsletter will  also contain details of my latest short story, My Dream Guy, together with a seasonal recipe, news about the harvest here at Tottering Towers, an update on my bees after their recent scare, and a competition. Sign up to my mailing list here to get a copy delivered straight to your inbox!