I’m excited to tell you that the Harlequin Medical Romance Author’s Group Blog was voted the number one favourite over at e-Harlequin!
If you haven’t ever visited it, call by! Most of the Medical Romance Authors blog across the month talking about just about everything from chocolate to writing and heroes to holidays. It would be great to see you there!
It’s the end of January and I’m starting to twitch so it must be time for the gorgeous boys to go back to school and for me to start writing again! Although starting again is always scary and I have my usual post-holiday blues that come each year between the end of holidays and the return of school. Unlike many authors, starting a new book is more daunting than exciting for me. I’d love for that to change but so far with fourteen purchased books and four non-purchased books it has remained the same and the seeds of doubt chant loud in my head. Can I do it again? Can I THINK of anything worth writing about?
I have a bit of an idea that needs to be fleshed out A LOT. I’ve started doing some research, pulling pages out of magazines for a collage, doing a bit of googling and finger’s crossed it will all start to gel.
Now if only I could borrow some of Alexander McCall-Smiths’ word speed…1000 an hour!!!!! I WISH!! Meanwhile enjoy a couple of pictures from my holiday in Tasmania!
2009 ended in my part of the world with heat and a spectacular thunder storm which means 2010 has started cool, damp and shiny! A new year and a new decade just waiting to be explored. In many ways 2010 will be filled with the routine of previous years and I have already lamented the fact that there are only 52 weeks in 2010 which means no extra time. I would like extra time to write and to read! I hope that 2010 brings you challenges, adventures, good times and time to read.
Love Fiona x
I guess you’re busy with Christmas. I’ve been shopping and baking and wrapping gifts and last night we had the ‘lane’ party. We have a lane that runs behind our house that two streets back onto and we gathered in the lane with the BBQ. It was BYO everything and something to share. Kids scooted and biked up and down the lane and the adults talked the and the teenagers did both and it was a fun evening with an unexpected cool breeze.
This year we missed out on DH’s work party in Sydney as we were collecting ‘the lad’ from his year away and we haven’t dashed up to Melbourne for our annual ‘Christmas lights/windows’ weekend and although I was a bit sad about that I have to confess it’s made the run-up to Christmas really relaxed and I’m all for that!
If you’re interested in what we do over Christmas, head over here and read my entry on the eharlequin Medical authors’ blog. For every day events, you can catch me on Facebook.
Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a year ahead filled with good things, happiness and a lot of reading!
I love the relief of finishing a book! I know it will bounce back from my Editor who will have her thoughts and I will have to revisit Sophie and Jack, but for now, I have met my deadline and I can breathe.
For weeks Sophie and Jack have been constantly with me, whether I was typing pages or cooking dinner…they were in my head. The fact they are no longer is so liberating!
As I have been writing a Christmas themed book since October , I’m pretty much in the Christmas spirit 
This morning I baked the Christmas Cake…the fruit has been soaking for five weeks! I have made a start on Christmas shopping which also relieves some of the stress and now I am about to start copy edits which did, as I predicted, ping into my in-box on Thursday morning.
So Sophie and Jack have left for a bit and Abbie and Leo are back for a final check before they head into production. It’s basically a nine month lead time from manuscript to book. I’m going to enjoy my week and very much looking forward to collecting my eldest son on Friday as he ‘Arrives at the Building!’
Mills & Boon, Australia have put together some fabulous ‘book packs’ for the festive season and I’m excited to see The Surgeon’s Special Delivery has been packaged up with The Billionaire’s Baby by Nicola Marsh , The Heart Surgeon’s Baby Surprise by Meredith Webber and The Australian’s Society Bride by Margaret Way.
So if you enjoy the emotion of a good romance then this might just be the ideal gift for under your tree. Want more information? Head to Mills and Boon Australia
As you know, December means a book is due in nine days but it also means Christmas is coming. I am keeping the faith that as the letter is written and the OS cards are half done that come Dec 12, after we have collected DS1 from his year in the bush ,I can actually think about Christmas. Mind you, the copyedits for Her Brooding Italian Surgeon must be about to hit any minute!
Anyway, as I am writing Sophie and Jack’s story, set across the month of December, my head is busy with Aussie Christmas traditions. Head over to my website to read about a few of them and to snag yourself one of my fave recipes that I serve when I host Christmas.
Meanwhile, I’m back to Sophie and Jack. It’s all fallen apart and somehow Sophie has to realise she needs to stay not run. Not a CLUE in the world on how I am going to make that happen…
Every year at this time I have three weeks to go until deadline, a lot of book left to write, a husband who has a birthday …WHAT was his mother thinking having him six weeks before Christmas?!..and the rising panic that Christmas shopping, cards and baking really needs to start happening. This year is no exception and it’s all happening and I start to employ ’swiss cheesing’. That’s making tiny holes in BIG tasks so I can at least pretend I have some control. Yesterday I ransacked the calendar and made a list of what has happened this year. Today I wrote the nuts and bolts of the Christmas letter. The relief is immense even though not a single card has been scribed.
As for the book..well all I can do is write every day and keep the faith I will make the deadline like I have for the last four years but man, there seems to be a lot left to write! My head is full of book and other things are slipping like taking DH and DS2 to the movies yesterday only to find I was at the wrong cinema! My brain is too full of Sophie and Jack and even with lists a-plenty I am pretty much in the cave until December 10.
November is a pretty busy month in our house. For the last few years it’s been concert and play month, with both boys on different stages and sometimes performing at the same time! This year with Boy Wonder 15, ‘up the bush’, it’s been so much easier only having to organise ONE set of costumes. Of course, I’m trying to write and finish a book before the summer holidays start in December. We were lucky enough to be able to go to the High Country and visit BW15 last weekend so on the long journey up and back I read the first four chapters of ‘Outback Christmas’ (working title). Sophie and Jack are nothing like I imagined they were going to be and right now as I head into writing chapter six, I’m hanging on for the ride. There is so much story left to write and not that many words and somehow they HAVE to slow down and talk about the important things. But neither of them are keen. So that’s my task this week…reining them in. Wish me luck!
I’ve spent a lot of time in South Australia. We have cousins over there and family ties along with my father’s love affair with wine meant we pretty much went everywhere via the Barossa Valley. But we also took trips to the Flinders Ranges and I’ve taken my boys there too.
Red dust, mauve/blue mountains, spectacular gorges, stony dry creek beds and the glorious towering river red gums make it easy to see why famous artists like Hans Heysen fell in love with the area. So my current WIP with the working title of Outback Christmas is set there.
Here are some pics to give you an idea of where Sophie and Jack are spending their time.
