The past couple of weeks have been blah. I guess I’ve reached the uncomfortable phase of pregnancy. I totally bypassed the energy burst I was expecting to experience in the second trimester, or perhaps I had it but didn’t notice because I was so preoccupied with finishing my book. I’m now in the third trimester with all that that implies: backache, insomnia, sore ribs, and a sense time is dragging. On the one hand, I have so much to do before the baby comes, particularly on the writing front. On the other, I just want this kid out.

Writing:

I’m pleased with my pre-writing progress, but not so thrilled with the few thousand words I’ve written for my new WIP. Admittedly, I am a perfectionist, and rarely impressed by my first effort at any given scene.

Author Blog:

I spent more time than I care to admit updating my author website and tinkering with its appearance. I’ve started a blog on it which will focus on writing-related topics. The first two posts are up and are concerned with the dreaded (for me) First Draftitis. They are First Drafts: The Curse of the Blinking Cursor and First Drafts: The Pre-Writing Stage. I hope to publish the third post on Wednesday.

Reading:

I’m currently listening to the unabridged audiobook of Rhys Bowen’s Her Royal Spyness. It’s the first in a series. It’s an amusing cozy mystery and the narrator, Katherine Kellgren, does an excellent job. Unfortunately for me, the rest of the audiobooks in the series are geographically restricted. Why on earth do publishers do that? As my enjoyment of the book has at least as much to do with the excellent narration as with the story, that’s several lost sales.

TV:

Sherlock. What can I say, except this series rocks. I resisted watching the first series when it aired in 2010. As a fan of the books, I couldn’t imagine a modern version being anything other than a monumental mess. My husband persuaded me to watch the first three episodes with him over the Christmas holidays as he was keen to see the second series when it started on New Year’s Day. We were hooked from the first episode. We both agreed that Sherlock alone made our digital TV subscription worth it for the month of January. While I’m sorry we have to wait another year for series 3, I’d rather they made fewer episodes and maintained the high quality rather than churning them out and dumbing them down like Downton Abbey.

Have you written, read, or watched anything interesting lately? Have you seen Sherlock?

I might be one of about five people in the world who love January. The New Year always brings hope, and the chance to start afresh. It’s also an opportunity to set goals for the coming months. As I love making lists, this appeals to me. The timing is also fortuitous: Yesterday, I submitted ‘Luck of the Irish’ to the editor and agents who requested it, so it’s time to get cracking on a new story.

2011 was my year to focus on writing craft. I participated in several workshops during the first half of the year, as well as reading books on craft. Attending the RWA conference in New York City was a fantastic experience, both personally and professionally. Concentrating on writing theory, and applying the tools I acquired to my WIP, did mean it took me longer to complete ‘Luck of the Irish’ than I’d hoped, but I feel I learned a lot. ‘Luck of the Irish’ might not be perfect, but I know it’s much stronger than its predecessor.

I was fortunate enough to participate in the Romance Divas’ Mentor Program between March and June. My mentor was extremely helpful, and gave me some invaluable advice. She suggested I focus on improving one craft element per story. For ‘Luck of the Irish’, I chose plot structure with a particular concentration on constructing strong scenes. For my next story, I want to work on my use of dialogue and nonverbal communication.

I’m keeping my 2012 goals focused on writing. I want to complete one novella and one novel of by the end of the year. The novella idea might turn into a longer book, but I want to start off with a bare-bones story of around 30K. The novella/potential novel will be a historical romance set in Ireland in the early Twentieth Century. A hard sell, perhaps, but I figure I have nothing to lose by trying. It’s not like I’m a contracted author with deadlines. Besides which, it’s the sort of story I’d love to read, and I think readers can tell when an author feels passionate about the tale they’re telling.

I hope to have the novella/first draft of novel done by the end of March, then take a couple of months off (I’m expecting another baby), and begin writing again in June. I’ll probably start back with Inkygirl’s 250 or 500 Words a Day Challenge to draft another contemporary romance. A page or two a day should be manageable, even with a newborn.

2011 was the year of slow reading. I read 47 novels last year, down from 152 last year. Only 19 were romance, and the vast majority of those were published by Harlequin. I read 5 romances published by the so-called Big Six New York publishers. One reason I read so few books is down to a lack of time. 2011 was crazy busy, and I invested most of my spare time on my writing, or writing-related reading. Another reason is my lack of satisfaction with the variety of settings and tropes on offer from the traditional publishers. Either I’m bang out of luck in that what’s popular at the moment doesn’t appeal to me, or publishers are playing it safe and not publishing the sort of envelope-pushing romances I miss from the Nineties and early 2000s. For more on this topic, Sandy at All About Romance has a great blog post entitled Romance Rant (Volume XXXVI).

How was 2011 for you reading wise? Did you discover any great new-to-you authors? If you write, did you achieve your goals? 

I am currently in Moving Hell. I’ll be offline for a bit until we get everything packed, moved, and sorted. In the meantime, I hope everyone reads lots of great books!

It’s all about perspective. When asked if I was looking forward to the New Year, I told my husband 2010 sucked and I was glad to see the back of it. He was surprised by this and starting listing off all the nice things that happened this year. Note: this is why we get along. I subscribe to the glass is half-empty philosophy of life. For him, it’s always half-full. Somewhere between our respective outlooks lies reality.

I made seven New Year’s resolutions for 2010 and I stuck to five of them. They were:

• Write an average of 4 blog posts per week. (I managed this but only because I was prolific over the summer which brought my average up.)
• Finish revising current WIP and start a new project. (I did more than this. I revised WIP, wrote and revised another, and started a third.)
• Read a book from a new-to-me genre or author every two months or so. (This definitely made 2010 an interesting reading year for me.)
• Read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. (Erm…no. Still haven’t read it.)
• Don’t stress as much as I usually do about silly things. (Snort. Fat chance of that happening. It certainly didn’t in 2010.)
• Reorganize home office. (Technically, I did this. Unfortunately, it needs to be done again…)
• Update my computer skills. (This is still an ongoing process but I feel more confident than I did last January.)

My unofficial resolution was to read 150 books this year. I managed 147 novels and 26 non-fiction titles. Does that count?

With 2011 just a few hours away, I have a few goals I hope to achieve by the end of the year. Again, I’m keeping them simple and achievable.

• Write an average of 2 blog posts per week. Down from last year’s goal, but more realistic with my current schedule.
• Participate in a couple of writing workshops which focus on areas I need to improve.
• Continue writing 4-5 pages per day.
• Finish and revise current WIP.
• Write the Alternate Reality Mystery I’ve been scribbling notes on for the past two years.
• Reorganize home office. Yep, it needs to be done again.
• Read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. (Why did I tell C I would do this? Oh, yeah: so that he’d read Loretta Chase’s Lord Perfect in return. Which he did. Gah!)
• Buy fewer books. I bought more than I read in 2010. Not good.

Did you stick to your resolutions for this year? Are you making any for 2011?

Happy New Year!

I’ve been neglecting my poor blog over the past few weeks. Ever since we got back from France, life has been very busy. Warning: moan alert!

I mentioned a while ago that my son is having tests for autism/Asperger’s Syndrome. It’s pretty certain that he is on the autism spectrum, and Asperger’s Syndrome is what was mentioned to us by the very first person he saw. However, there are a specific battery of tests which a child has to go through in Switzerland before such a diagnosis is official. This involves a lot of back and forth to appointments and a lot of stress and frustration for me.

It is stressful because I worry about him and his future. So far, it seems he is a smart kid but has problems with social interaction. There is no reason to suppose he can’t attend a regular school, but much depends on how understanding his future teachers are about dealing with a kid who needs a little extra help to focus on the task at hand and to integrate with his classmates. After our negative experience with the local playgroup leader, we decided to send him to a private playgroup which is part of a fee-paying school. They have smaller classes and their philosophy is a more open to children who are different, as long as they are intelligent enough to go through the regular education system. Should he go on to the school after the playgroup, the fees are enough to make me weep, but we’ll do it if we feel it’s the best option for him.

The appointments and assessments are frustrating because (a) I hate psychiatrists (entirely personal and nothing to do with the people seeing my son) and (b) I am annoyed at people who have only seen my son once making a judgement call on his condition. As we have repeatedly told his case manager, he acts very differently with people he doesn’t know. When he meets someone for the first time, especially in a new environment, he displays all the autistic traits that they’re looking out for: he ignores them, makes no eye contact, and focuses on whatever toys strike his fancy for the duration of the session. If he gets to know someone and feels comfortable with them, he’s a different kid. He adores his occupational therapist, for example, and she’s the person he’s seen the most often. She’s totally irritated the psychiatrists by telling them he’s perfectly chatty and interactive with her.

We have an appointment next week with his case manager and the psychiatrist at the autism centre. I am dreading it as talking with them makes me itch. However, I realise it’s necessary and it will give us a chance to voice our concerns that they’re pushing through the tests too quickly. I’m not denying that my son is most probably on the autism spectrum, but I can’t take the assessments seriously if each individual only sees my son once. The irony is that the occupational therapist – the person he has seen on a regular basis over the past couple of months – is the one with the least say in the ultimate diagnosis. There is something wrong with this constellation.

In addition to ferrying my son back and forth to appointments, my daughter decided to add a little extra drama to our lives. While on holiday, she got one of her fingers caught in a door and part of it was severed. She had surgery in France. They were unable to reattach the severed part, but they used material from it to rebuild the top of her finger. There is a German phrase “Glück im Unglück”, which translates roughly to luck in an unlucky situation, and that’s pretty much what we had. It turned out that the surgeon who operated on my daughter is one of the top surgeons in France specialising in hand surgery on small children. Two months after the accident, the Swiss surgeon in charge of her after care removed her bandages. They did an amazing job. Unless you know that something happened to that finger, you wouldn’t notice anything unusual about it on initial inspection.

In the midst of all these appointments, I’ve been struggling to find time to finish my revisions for my Golden Heart entry. It won’t be as polished as I would like it to be, but I’m still submitting it. Even if I don’t stand much of a chance of making the list of finalists, it will be useful to get some feedback on the entire manuscript. A steady stream of colds, stomach bugs and the like over the past two weeks has kept me busy dealing with sick kids and feeling rotten myself. Despite a rough couple of months, I’m hopeful that things will improve. Somewhere up there, there is a writing fairy who will grant me my wish of a few hours of writing time unimpeded by whining small people and pressing engagements. Hey, I can hope, right?

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

Okay, moan over. Now for more positive news and a few links:

Jane from Dear Author, Maili and Keishon have set up a site called Lost Book Sales where people can submit their stories of not being able to purchase a book due to geographical restrictions, crazy pricing, etc. If enough people contribute their experiences, hopefully the Powers That Be in publishing will take notice. Okay, I’m being wildly optimistic, but it certainly can’t hurt.

From 1-5 November, Harlequin ran an excellent editorial week, So You Think You Can Write. There were blog posts, writing challenges, podcasts, webinars, and live chats. For anyone thinking of submitting a story to Harlequin, it was a fantastic opportunity to ask editors questions about their personal preferences for synopsis length, pet peeves, and things they want to see in future submissions.

One very interesting piece of information was the announcement that Harlequin Superromance is increasing the required word count from 60-65K to 70-75K. I’m paraphrasing wildly from the webinar and live chat with one of the Superromance editors, Victoria Curran, but the general gist of it was that they are responding to readers’ demands for longer, meatier reads which allow authors to dig deeper into their characters’ motivations. In other words, Harlequin Superromance will now truly be somewhere between a category romance and a single title, rather than a slightly longer series romance.

Have I missed anything interesting in Blogland over the past few weeks? Have you read any good books lately?

I know I’m procrastinating when I spend the best part of an hour shopping for doll accessories. I can’t even shove this into the “creative avoidance” category. It’s pure and utter time wasting, not to mention hard on the bank balance. I somehow managed to order a buggy/stroller/whatever-the-heck-you-call-it-in-your-country for my daughter’s doll. Seriously. A fricking doll’s buggy!

Then I spent/wasted another hour looking up current clothing fashions. It’s been so long since I shopped in a CITY where there’s VARIETY that I no longer know what’s “In” and what’s “Out”. Our local town has an Esprit shop, and….well, that’s pretty much it. I do have a legitimate excuse for the fashion research, though: I need to clothe my characters. *cough”

Having shopped for toys and clothes, I made the oh-so-logical leap to elliptical trainers. I’ve picked out the one I want for Christmas. I even ran it by C, who approved its purchase. He might have been half asleep at the time this conversation took place, but I’m interpreting it as a “Yes”.

I know I’m procrastinating when I feel a sudden urge to clean. I clean because I have to, not because I get any joy out of the process. An urgent desire to clean is generally indicative of wanting to avoid doing whatever it is I really should be doing.

A more entertaining method of creative avoidance is baking. I love making cakes. I also love eating them. There’s something therapeutic about the whole process.

Anyway, I have 302 words to go until I reach my daily word count goal. Sadly, this post doesn’t count.

What do you do when you procrastinate? Clean? Bake? Engage in a spot of retail therapy?

♥ I didn’t get as much reading done this week as I would have liked, but I still managed to read two category romances and two single-title books. The best of the bunch was Libertine’s Kiss by Judith James, which is set during the Restoration. My review will be up on Monday. The Heat is On by Jill Shalvis also deserves a mention. If you like Harlequin Blazes, this is a good one.

♥ I have several ARCs I’m excited to read. They include My Lord Jack by Hope Tarr, an historical romance featuring a courtesan heroine and a hangman hero; All I Ever Wanted by Kristan Higgins; and White Heat by Brenda Novak, which is the start of her new Romantic Suspense trilogy, Dept. 6 Hired Guns. If you’re a reviewer, they’re currently available for request at NetGalley.

♥ My writing for the Book in 3 Months Challenge went well this week, but the weekend has not been as productive as I would have liked. I polished my first four chapters. I’ve also managed just under 5,000 new words so far, bringing my total up to 23,232. I was hoping to hit the 25K mark today, but I’m dragging.

♥ In a rare show of good fashion sense, Iran has officially banned the mullet. I laughed myself silly when I read this. Yes, I know; I have a weird sense of humour.

♥ I didn’t get much blog hopping done this week, so I’m afraid I don’t have any posts to recommend. If my writing continues to suck today, I might use it as an excuse to catch up on what my favourite bloggers have been up to.

Enjoy your Sunday!

We’re just back from a family BBQ. My children’s behaviour at the party can be best described as a walking ad for contraception.

I’d been very much looking forward to it, especially as it was an incentive to dress up, and take particular care with my hair and make-up. By the time I was finished getting ready this morning, I thought I looked pretty good. Unfortunately, I wasn’t destined to stay that way.

The party was hosted by my sister-in-law’s parents. They live in a beautiful house on a river with a large, sprawling garden. They also have a pond. When I saw the pond, I figured I’d have to be extra vigilant as the small one in particular loves water.

Within half an hour of our arrival, the boy decided to go for a refreshing dip. I saw him wading into the pond, legged it across the lawn, and was horrified when he promptly sank. Apparently, the pond is deep. I dove in, quickly followed by C and one of his brothers. The boy was hauled out covered in dirt and slime. Needless to say, those of us who went in after him were also not looking or smelling our best.

While all the adults were distracted by the rescue operation, the girl seized the opportunity to get into some serious mischief. She emptied watering cans; trampled plants; raided a raspberry bush; and – quite literally – rolled in dirt.

By the time we were leaving, I was covered from head to toe in pond slime, raspberry juice, dirt, potato salad and some unidentifiable substance.

I think a very large glass of wine is called for this evening, don’t you?

♥ I’ve finally updated my About page. I’ve also added an extra page to my menu bar called Faves.

♥ My progress for the Book in 3 Months Challenge was pathetic. My excuse: I was sick. But if I don’t make some serious headway next week, it will be more like the Book in 3 Years Challenge.

♥ I read four books so far this week, plus three novellas. The winner of the week was Marie Force’s Fatal Affair, which I’ve already reviewed. I also enjoyed Jill Shalvis’ steamy novella, Friendly Fire, which is in the Harlequin Blaze anthology, Born on the 4th of July.

♥ I laughed out loud at Wendy the Super Librarian’s post, Booktastic Bus for Sale. If Wendy and the SoCal Bloggers buy that bus, I’m going to show up on their doorsteps and beg to become an honorary member.

♥ Meljean Brook announced the sale of the final two books in her Guardian series. They will be released in 2011 and 2012 respectively, and the last one will be Michael’s long-awaited story. Yay! I still have three books plus a novella to read in order to be caught up with the series, but I think I should manage that in the next two years.

♥ RRRJessica has a great (as in amusing) review of The Raider by Jude Deveraux, complete with action figures!

♥ Magdalen’s husband, Ross, made good on his promise to read and review a romance novel. Check out his review of Morning Glory by LaVyrle Spencer. (I need to wrest Christian’s new iPad from him and force him to write up his review of Lord Perfect.)

Enjoy your Sunday!

I am not having a good day. I have a splitting headache and everyone and everything is annoying me. If I were 18 months old, like my daughter, I would pout and throw a tantrum. Sadly, this option is not considered socially acceptable in a 31-year-old. Plus I’d have to clean up the mess. Bummer.

My son has more or less been “asked to leave” his playgroup. He has Asperger’s Syndrome and prefers to play on his own rather than in a group. That, apparently, is unacceptable in the village playgroup. He didn’t scream and roar or hit anybody. He didn’t do anything to bother the other kids, or otherwise disrupt the group. He simply preferred to play in a corner with a red fire truck rather than play with Play Doh.

I don’t want to raise a brat. If he’d behaved badly, AS or no AS, I’d be on the playgroup leader’s side. But FFS, he didn’t do anything except be himself. He’s simply a bit different, doesn’t say much, and tends to become passionately interested in a single object in a way that most other little kids don’t. His favourite toy in the playgroup is the aforementioned fire truck. The playgroup leader finds it “unnerving” that this is the only toy he wants to play with, and the fact that he’s different is apparently “scaring” the other kids.

To cut a long rant short, I was advised that he’d be better off in a playgroup for mentally handicapped kids. Apparently, my attempts to explain what Asperger’s Syndrome is and what it ISN’T fell on deaf ears. Oh, and she also discussed my son’s condition with my neighbour. Without my permission. Aargh!

Thankfully, we have an appointment with another playgroup in mid-June. The leader of that playgroup didn’t seem fazed in the least when I mentioned AS. She actually had a notion of what it was. Fingers crossed that it works out.

I know this will not be the last time I encounter prejudice and misunderstandings about what AS is. However, it’s still all new to me. I haven’t yet developed the thick skin I’m going to need to deal with this.

In more positive news: I received the first four books in Mary Balogh’s Huxtable series in today’s post. Thank goodness for good books!