A Valentine’s Competition!

Aussie author Nicola Marsh is hosting a fabulous celebration of Valentine’s Day and romance over the next two weeks. Mark your calendar to check out Nic’s blog on January 31st for details of how you can win a fabulous prize pack of romantic reading featuring titles by: Liz Fielding, Jill Shalvis, Lucy Monroe, Anna Campbell, Kate Walker, Nalini Singh, Bronwyn Jameson, Jaci Burton, Julie Cohen, Fiona Lowe (me!), Christine Wells, Yvonne Lindsay, Barbara Hannay, Kate Hardy, and, of course, our Valentine’s hostess with the mostest, Nicola Marsh.

Then visit her blog daily for your chance to win! Oh, yes, and tell your friends!! It’s going to be SOOOOOO much fun

Sand Lingers Long after the Holiday is Over

Hello! The washing machine has been going full pelt for two days, the car has been de-sanded and washed to within an inch of it’s life and the canoe returned to the neighbours. The annual Lowe beach holiday is sadly over and that means 2008 is getting serious.

School goes back on Wednesday and the next day or so will be a round of new shoes, new school shorts (kids seem to sprout in summer) and hair cuts.

We had a fab time which was spent sleeping in, lazing in the hammock, body boarding in the surf (I LOVE my new full length wetsuit! No matter how cold that southern ocean is, I am covered) cycling and reading.

Reading…what fun! I read Anna Campbell’s Untouched, (ohh, that Matthew! No wonder he got a KISS award) Lori Wilde’s There Goes the Bride, (too much fun), Kathy Lette’s How To Kill Your Husband, (so many one-liners it was hard to keep up) and I read the newspaper every day.

What have you read lately?

Sun, Surf and Relaxation

I’m heading off down the beach for two weeks. Nothing to do except sleep, eat, read, swim, sit, walk, ride a bike, eat icecreams and read.

Hopefully my subconcious will refine my story idea and if I am kind to my muse she might even cough up another story as well. That would be too cool!

See you at the end of January! 

Coming up with a Book Idea

I’m really fortunate to have a DH and a close writing friend who are both happy to brain storm story ideas with me.  I seem to have this process of a HUGE blank space where I *wait* for inspiration to strike and of course, it never does. I live for the day an idea blasts into me with the clarity of a magnifiying glass but nine books done and dusted and it has never happened.

So I knew I would have to just sit down and start asking, ‘what if?’ questions and ‘why would’ questions.  I started on Saturday and by Sunday afternoon I had a story idea in a very basic form and a husband who after having a million questions fired at him said, ‘I’m brain dead.’

 Fair enough, he’d been in the war zone, he’d given his all, it was time to move onto a fresh brain.  My mate, Annie West, Harlequin Presents Author, came to the phone and in ten minutes had given me a light bulb moment about why my hero was holding himself back from relationships.  Thank you, Annie!

 Now I am on the search for hero inspiration and what better place to go than the Pink Heart Society’s Male on Monday archives   This guy caught my eye. I’m not 100% certain but I am going to have fun looking!

So the next step is a collage and I am off to look through magazines, and then have loads of fun with paste and scissors and to find a heroine or just another hero….

A NEW YEAR and a new cover

Happy New Year!

A brand new shiny year with no mistakes in it…yet! Give me 24 hours:-)  I had a lovely New Year spent with friends and family and today it’s back to work!

To celebrate 2008, I have a US release of A Woman To Belong To, and a brand new cover!  So if you’re feeling snowbound by a northern winter, grab yourselves a copy because this book will take you to an exoctic warm location and leave you feeling sundrenched and so very far removed from grey skies that you will feel like a new person.  And isn’t that a great way to start a New Year?