Getting into The Christmas Spirit!

I do enjoy Christmas and when I feel a bit overwhelmed by the cards and the shopping I think of the wonder and joy on children’s faces each year and I tap into the wonder.

We have a family tradition of going up to Melbourne and spending the weekend experiencing a big, city, Christmas. The decorations, the glorious Myer Windows, the street theatre, the giant Christmas tree, the Christmas concert….all of it gets me into the Spirit of the season.

As I wrap presents I haul out my favourite Romantic Christmas movies. I love “While You Were Sleeping.” When we lived in Wisconsin we would go to Chicago for our ‘big city Christmas’ and I love watching this film now and recalling the golden trumpets at Marshall Fields, the lights on the bare trees, the nip of cold that I miss so much in the southern hemisphere.

Another Christmas movie I adore is “Love Actually.” London bedecked in Christmas lights is a magical thing. My favourite story is the writer and the Portuguese woman, although my fave scene would have to be Hugh Grant dancing.

I sit and wrap and sob and laugh my way through both these movies every Christmas.

Do you have a favorite Christmas movie?

An Early Christmas Present

I spent the first two weeks of September in Vietnam. I came home with an idea for a story and sent off a rather vague synopsis to my editor. I got the go ahead by the end of September. Lucky, cos I had already written the first chapter. My deadline was December 10th but it soon became very clear that getting any writing done after November 30th was completely unlikely. December was going to explode around me with guests, grade 6 graduation and that big celebration at the end of the month that requires a bit of planning

So I wrote ‘the Vietnam book’ in ten weeks…that is very fast for me especially as I had no idea where to start the book or what was going to happen. All I had were my H&H’s conflicts which were very strong but how the story was going to play out, I had no idea. I only had ONE scene in my head…a scene in Halong Bay and that ended up being in chapter nine of an eleven chapter book!!

I stared and stared at my collage and it slowly came together.

I sent it off at the start of December and braced myself for

revisions wondering HOW I could manage them in the middle of the busiest month of the year.

I’m excited to say that the book SOLD without major rewrites. In fact, it only took me two hours to do a tiny bit of tweaking. So I’m happy dancing here!! I have no release date or title but hope to hear about all that stuff soon. Meanwhile, I’m off to write the dedication and a ‘why I wrote this book.’

A Christmas Recipe!

Wondering about a new recipe for Christmas this year?

Head over to my website for a really scrummy idea. My family LOVE it.

Persistence Pays!

Sound preachy? Well, I have the BEST example of this. A gorgeous writing friend of mine, Robyn Grady has just SOLD her first book to Silhouette Desire! Robbie has been SOOOO close to a sale for about two years. So close that she could taste it but it didn’t happen. Many of us would have packed up our manuscripts and gone home pouting. And I’m sure a bit of pouting got done, but after that she dusted herself down, kept writing, kept improving and took a new tack. She entered competitions. This year she blitzed them but still she didn’t sell.

Persistence paid off and today she is dancing on air as she joins a bevvy of new Aussie and Kiwi writers for that line. Other Aussie/NZ Desire authors are Bronwyn Jameson ,
Nalini Singh , Jan Colley , Yvonne Lindsay ,Tessa Radley , Maxine Sullivan and Paula Roe.

CONGRATULATIONS ROBBIE!!!

Two Little Words

I’ve typed THE END on the “Vietnam Book.” YAY. It is done and dusted and has been sent to my editor. I’d love to sit around and worry about, ‘will she like it?’ but it is December and a million other things are clamouring to claim my attention. Like Christmas shopping.