My very own Plot Ninjas

I haven't blogged for ages, mainly because I have been knee deep in my manuscript for Scandinavian Scandal, which *drum roll, takes a bow* I have finished! :-) I am extremely pleased with it, even if I say so myself and it's a great feeling to know that I have completed it. Word count keeps changing, due to editing but right now it stands at 51105.

It is a certain amount of relief that Sven does not reside in my head anymore, though you know I didn't mind too much having to dream of that sexy Swede ;-) Hmm I digress....

Which brings me to the title of this post.I thought I would introduce you to my very own plot ninjas. Meet my eldest and youngest, both of them a constant source of inspiration in very different ways.

Tj, my little whirlwind, who gives me all the material I'll ever need for the children that seem to invariably find themselves in my stories - can't think why really - and Nate, my beautiful almost twenty year old daughter. She has come up with one of the twists for Scandinavian Scandal, so a very public Thank You!

Nate and I were still up in the early hours of this morning, putting the world to rights as only we can, when we started talking heroes. Such a hardship ;-)

Any hows, as you all know, mad woman that I am, have entered Nano this year and I had yet to figure out exactly who my hero was going to be, had vague ideas, but nothing concrete. Was he Italian, Greek, Russian -that had us giggling I tell you! Think we both have watched too many James Bond Movies as the only Russians we could picture in our heads were very tall, pale, menacing and wearing a fur hat! Apologies to any Russians who may be reading this btw...
I have been to your beautiful country many times and know how badly stereo typical that was.

We eventually decided that he is going to be English with an Italian mother and a firefighter. Cue both of us away with the fairies for a little while, imagining hunky firefighters as you do - ahem. Next we had to figure out my heroine. Nate decided she would be a fiery redhead, who hates her hair and her name. The heroine's mother called her Kitty, after reading Pride and Prejudice. "Seriously of all the names she could have chosen, she chose Kitty?!!"

Kitty will have a son called Noah, result of a hen weekend, five years ago, where she met a certain firefighter, who has no idea Noah exists....

Oh yeah, I'm going to have fun with this one! We came up with several other ideas too, that may or not make themselves into stories in the future.  But as I can clearly picture my hero in my head already, will be going with hunky Alex Giovanni.

Thanks Nate, for the giggle, the ranting about boobs and for just being you. Couldn't imagine anyone I would rather have those late night brainstorming sessions with.

Another day, another competition

I have entered Scandinavian Scandal into the Circalit Competition, so if anyone has the time, please read and write a review. The first three chapters are there. *gulp*

Nothing ventured, nothing gained and all that. The newbies novella is now mostly finished too and we have started a new project.

Isla amore can be read here and part two here.

On a personal level I had to giggle yesterday. It was parent's evening at the girl's school and I am pleased to report that they are doing very well.
Molly's teacher is new to the school and in conversation she said that Molly was quite quiet and she was wondering what her position in the family was. She guessed that she was either an only child or the youngest of two...

Cue, hubbie and I looking at each other, wondering what number Molly was (yes we really, did have to think about it, she is number six btw.) and bless the teacher she was completely flummoxed. She never would have guessed that apparently.
We're taking it as a compliment. Apparently children of large families are usually noisy, boisterous and ill behaved. Urm, no we would be mortified if ours acted like that! It does make me cross though, the stereo typing that goes on about large families. Not all of us live off the state and have children running riot in the streets!
Anyways, stepping off my soap box for a minute, we did work out that we had been parents at that school for a staggering fifteen years :-O

We have at least another eight years left at that school too. Does make me feel rather old, I tell you. I wonder whether you can get some sort of long service award for parents...

It's official

I have hopelessly fallen in love with my hero in Scandinavian Scandal. Now I am assuming this is a good thing, at least that's what I tell my husband, who finds all this still rather amusing. Not sure how he will feel once he has read chapter five mind you... Ahem.

This is after all the man, who has been known to express jealousy at my hopeless crush on one of  Charlaine Harris' characters in her hugely successful Sookie Stakehouse series of books. For those of you that have read them, well how can you resist Eric? And if you haven't discovered them yet, then start reading!

Anyhow, I digress slightly, easy to do when I start thinking of sexy vampires and back to Sven. As someone pointed out to me, if I don't fall in love with the hero of my book, then how can I expect anyone else to do so? Would this reasoning work on hubbie do you think? I have my doubts, but we'll find out I guess...

On a  different note, I am off just after lunch to pursue the other passion of my life, all things breastfeeding at the La Leche League  annual workshop in Newcastle.  Really looking forward to hearing Carlos Gonzales' Talk and generally speaking, soak up the LLL atmosphere. So good to be surrounded by like minded people, who value the nursing relationship between  mother and child as much as Tj and I still do. Not that he is coming with me this time. He is quite happy to stay home with daddy and his siblings and I will have a hotel room all to myself tonight. Pure bliss!

I am planning an early night with one of my favourite M&B authors, and copious amounts of chocolate ;-)

See you all when I get back. 

Scandinavian Scandal anyone?

I have decided that 'What are the odds?' really was not the best title for my story about Sven and Sylvia, so Scandinavian Scandal it is. Thank you Manda for the brilliant title :-)

I have been busy rewriting and adding bits and am now on chapter 4, with at long last a clear view of where these two are heading. Well, I always had the end, just needed a few twists and turns to get there. And as the title suggests, there will be a few scandals along the way and a few skeletons will be tumbling out of cupboards. *rubs her hands in glee*

Well, if you can't have fun writing your own story, when can you?

I was reminded that it would probably be wise to run a spell check, mind you. Yeah, sort of forgot about that in my haste to get the story down so far. Still, it will all need a good edit etc anyway, so for now am concentrating on getting that insistent  mental knocking out of my head and on paper. Those two definitely want to be told, I just hope I do them justice.

I have also entered the Reader's Digest 100 word story competition with a little story inspired by my three year old and his love of monsters or nompsters as he likes to call them.

Amazing, how inspiration strikes at the oddest times.

And now I guess I really ought to get on with the housework.  *sigh*

Woe is me ...

I am not happy, far from it it has to be said. New voices announced today a staggering 45 entries that they wanted to follow up on. I was not one of them! Not that I thought my entry was fantastic, it wasn't, but still, a small part of me was hoping.

It didn't help, when my ever truthful husband announced that he did not expect me to get through. How dare he!
He did go on to say, that he felt that my writing now was much better, then the hastily constructed chapter I submitted. And once I stopped sulking and feeling sorry for myself, I had to admit that he is right. I can do much better. That chapter is currently in it's third revision and I dare say it will have a few more, before I bite the bullet and submit to M&B through the normal channels.

But still, ya know, surely he must realise that I have got the makings of a great literacy genius ;-)

So, back to the drawing board and on with writing. I will get there one day...

Long time no blog

There was me thinking it would be easy to blog, hmmm, think again then. Whilst I have plenty to say in real life, somehow putting it down on paper, so to speak is harder to do. After all,  no one may want to read my ramblings, what if I bore folks, become the laughing stock of blogs... Other people's blogs are so much more interesting.

Deary me, what angst about a simple blog!

In my defence I have been keeping busy with all things romance and the writing of the Newbies Novella in particular.  Now this is pure writing by the seat of your pants stuff and I have quite surprised myself, how much I am enjoying it and the at times strange journey Astrid and Rashid are finding themselves on.

Have a look if you dare ;-)

One thing it has achieved is get me into the habit of writing in short bursts daily, which is just as well, as I have signed up for NaNoWriMo

The idea is that you write a 50000 word novel in a month, easily achieved, so they say by writing about 1000 words a day.... Hmmm, we shall see. I dare say I will be a nervous wreck come November and my children will be seen foraging for food.....
Mind you the teens do that on  regular basis, with the accusing wails of "There is no food in the house, mum.." ringing round the tardis on a daily basis.

I would like to reassure anyone reading these ramblings, that there is indeed no need to call out social services yet, as there is plenty of food, just not what my darling teenagers fancy.

*rollseyes*

And as my three year old teen in training is now demanding my attention I will sign off for now. You can wake up now, if you've nodded off!