Christmas

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!

The Book has Left the Building!

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!’

A Christmas Idea

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

December means…

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…

Characters That don’t Care you have a Deadline!

                                                                                                                   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!

The Flinders Ranges

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.

The Joy of Spring Gardens

When we bought out house almost ten years ago the garden had been laid out and we inherited 80 rose bushes, three 40 year old camellias, a rhododendron and azaleas. The drought had broken so everything thrived for a few years but for the last three years we’ve had serious water restrictions and we’ve kept the garden alive with grey water and tank water. Pretty soon you work out what is going to make it and what isn’t. Roses are tough things but even last summer they took a beating. I really don’t know how long the north facing camellias will last as each year they get thinner and thinner. Amazingly we have kept the standard azalea alive and damn it we have to as due to a massive misunderstanding it was the most expensive plant I have ever bought in my life!!      Here it is looking like a bride which it does every September/October, complete with the water-wally behind it to keep it watered

Slowly as water-hungry plants die we replace them with more drought -resistant things like Hebes and Lavender and Kangaroo-paws but the one thing that amazes me each year are the bulbs. They just keep dividing and coming up and flowering! Between the bulbs and the roses, azaleas and the rhododendron my garden looks lovely in Spring. I have learned to accept that beds of summer annuals are just not going to happen anymore and am starting to see the beauty in the variegated leaves of sturdier plants. It’s tough though as I love flowers so that’s why I really enjoy my garden in spring!

Sold!

I woke up this morningt to an email from my editor and book 12, Abbie and Leo’s story is a done deal! YAY. I even made my editor cry at the end which I think is a first. No title yet but July 2010 release date. Now to start Sophie and Jack’s story…..

The World of Waiting

As you can see I’ve been blog AWOL…school holidays will do that although you can always catch me on Facebook Anyway the kids are back to school in the AM and routine is returning which means I have no excusesleft so I have  to start that book I was talking about a month ago!  Seems I’ve been treading water…waiting for school to start, waiting to hear from my editor, about the book I turned in a month ago,  waiting to start the new book …just waiting. 

Waiting never stops. First you wait before you are published and you think once you’re published you’ll never wait again, but you do. Often.

My brain is compartmentalised and I like things to be stowed away before I start a new task but the world of writing doesn’t work like that and I have to accept this and just start the new project even though I know it will just get interrupted. That is probably one of the biggest things I had to learn when I got published…creative flexibility, oh and even more waiting!

Community Spirit

On the weekend I helped cook 600 sausages at the boys’ school Athletics Carnival. I’ll be brutally honest here and say a large part of my motivation to do this was to make seven hours go a lot faster  I would dash out and see the boys do their event and then go back as did all the other helpers . We had so much fun chatting and cooking and selling a sausage in a piece of bread for $2…do you want onions with that?  I met new parents, I met old friends and we laughed and we were all their with a common goal of helping out and raising some funds for the Middle School section of the school. I left at the end of the day feeling really happy and with a sense of achievement as did the boys who got PBs for their events. 

Now I have just got involved in community activities because that’s what my family did. Dad belonged to the Yacht Club, mum helped out at school, I met my husband in amateur theatre and then when the kids started at kinder and school it was a natural progression to be involved. Sometimes it gets a bit stressful but 99% of the time it’s a really positive experience. It seems what I know intuitively has been given a name!

The University of Pennsylvania has a department called ‘Positive Psychology.’ It’s all about authentic happiness. What’s that? Well, it isn’t about what the media are constantly telling us makes us happy..thin, rich, stylish etc.  What it is about it is connecting with people. The research shows that when we give of ourselves we feel happier. 

I get a lot of letters about the towns in my books and the sense of community. Often the town comes together for the greater good and the fete in Miracle:Twin Babies is an example of this.  Miracle: Twin Babies is on sale now in Australia. You can grab it at Big W, Target, Kmart, Borders or online at Mills and Boon Australia.

Oh, and if you’re interested, take the happiness quiz at the Authentic Happiness site..it makes for interesting reading.