Chippendales!

Finally got my scanner working. Enjoy.

To the persons spamming my blog

It's very nice of you to drop by with your impersonal compliments about the stories on my blog. It's lovely to hear you enjoy reading it. However, as I only ever update it once about every three weeks and most of my 'stories' are snarks about various family members, I'm surprised that you peeked out of the ether to congratualate me. And then I see the ad at the end of your post. That's very kind, but I'm an erotic romance writer. I don't need cialis. If I did, I wouldn't be published.

I'm also not interested in your cellulite website, or your training seminars. What I am interested in, though, is that little button on my control panel that says, "Do not allow anonymous comments?"

I'm thinking I might click it.

Patrick is clearly a maniac

For my first sale. Sent on same-day delivery (I know 'cos he checked my address with me this morning). Look! That bouquet is over four feet tall! It filled two very large vases!

Just to put this in perspective, that's a three-seater sofa there, hidden behind that giant gerbera. And does anyone know what those mad red fan-shaped flowers are?

I'm weirded out.

Imagine what I'd get for a print book.

No, no - brain, stop. Stop now.

Winner announced!

For those of you following the contest on my website, the winner has now been announced. (I did it at the beginning of today, rather than the end, because I want to go to the pub tonight. What? Two words, people: Beer. Festival.)

Congrats to Carrie, who won a free copy of She Who Dares, a cute Egyptian cat silver charm, and other SWD goodies.

In other news, I've (mostly) finished the edits on Almost Human, which I will send back to Ellora's Cave ASAP for their consideration. Fingers crossed! I'm also about 2/3 through editing the Piatkus submission too. When I'm done with that, I get to (deep joy) do some more editing, on Wolf's Bane, which is next in the Sundown, Inc. series. Maybe, just maybe, if I'm a very good girl, I might get to actually do some writing soon!

Buffylicious

I forgot to upload this photo! Actually I look horrible in it, but SMG doesn't, because a) she never does and b) she's actually a waxwork anyway, so if ever there's a chance to look perfect, I guess this is it.



You know what I wonder? If they downsized Marilyn's model, because according to legend she was actually my dress size (or possibly bigger: I can't seem to find two size chart in agreement to tranalate US-UK!), but her dummy was way skinnier. Curious. Does anyone know how tall she was? 'Cos that'd be a giveaway.

Squee!

Yes, squee again! Sophie got her first full request! I sent a partial to Piatkus after the senior ed. did a talk at the RNA conference, and today she emailed asking for the full. Result! Sophie's story is my baby, I had the most fun writing it (and all the sequels, ahem) and it's the one I really, really want to see in print!

In other news I finished Magda's story today. This is the next in the series after She Who Dares, and it's about Sundown's company secretary, who is a werewolf.

I also started work on the edits for Almost Human, which was requested by Ellora's Cave after it won the Fab Five contest. A couple of weeks ago I got a revisions request - fix all the faults and send it back to them! Such a lot of work to do. Actually I am mortified at the state of it - somehow the version that got sent out wasn't spellchecked and it's so full of typos. Added to which, somewhere all my italics got lost in translation, and I use a lot of italics! The words just simply weren't there. A sentence would read "Oh my God, he just touched my !" (you can insert your own italicised word there). Argh. Aaargh! So apart from actual plot/character type revisions, I need to go through and look for words that aren't there. And it's 70,000 words long! Probably more once I've rounded up all the missing words...

Gonna be busy for a while!

Author Day

It's my author day today! Which I probably should have announced in advance, but I, er, forgot. My good friend Kendra (who has just got her first cover from Triskelian and muh gawd, it's gorgeous!) is hosting an author day for me on her Yahoo group. (if you're not a member, just follow the link and sign up, it's really easy and won't cost a single thing). Feel free (if Free doesn't mind - sorry) to pop by with questions, comments about She Who Dares if you've read it, excuses as to why you haven't read it, exact timeframes of when you are going to read it... you know, the usual.

Blog party continued

Um, I sort of forgot to actually announce this, so it's carrying on today! It's raining, the car is broken (think the battery's run down, it's with Charlie the Super Mechanic right now) so I'm not likely to go anywhere. Although I probably ought to go and get dressed at some point...

Also, I'd like to announce that I'm running a contest on my website. All you need to do is read the extract from She Who Dares, and answer two simple questions. In two weeks I'll draw one winner from all the right answers, and that lucky, lucky person will recieve a free copy of the book in their chosen format (see the Changeling page for available formats), an Egyptian silver cat charm, and She Who Dares goodies like bookmarks, postcards, and a personally autographed cover flat for you to treasure when I'm a NYT bestselling author. Isn't this fun?

She Who Dares blog party!

Well, here's the big day! My very first published work is released today, and isn't it exciting! To celebrate I'm having a blog party, so come on in, make yourself comfortable, and ask me whatever you like. I'll be around all day (no, I have no life) to answer such things as 'What's the book about?' 'Do you get to research the sex scenes yourself?' 'Where are my socks?'

I'm aware my news updates have been woeful lately, especially with the amount of news I have to give, so here's a brief update.

On Sunday, after about 26hrs of travelling, I came home from America and slept for 18 hours. Tired much? Well, I'd had a really busy couple of weeks!


First I went to Austin to visit with my good friend Amy - a good friend, this is, who I'd never actually met before. Turns out we get along even better in real life than we do in cyberspace, which was fantastic.


We shared a room in Reno for the RWA National conference, along with Amy's friend Nic and Nic's friend Frieda, who were both lovely and to whom I wish every writing success. I also met some of the bats (above), who were wonderful and I can't wait to meet them again next year!


Here's me with Sherrilyn Kenyon (look at her fabulous dress!) who was sweetness personified. She signed Sins of the Night for me, gave me a load of tattoos and badges, and complimented my accent. LOL! You wouldn't believe how many people over there thought my accent was 'pretty'. And here's me thinking I'm dead common! I tried to posh it up a bit when I wore the Lady Penelope suit (sadly, no pictures, but if you've seen Thunderbirds you'll know what I mean) for my editor/agent appointments with Ellen Edwards and Marta Justak, who both requested partials of Sophie (note to self, send out those partials).


Here's me at the awards ceremony, practising my 'Who, me? I won everything?' look. Think it's working?



Then on to Vegas. Mad, mad place! I mean truly insane, and this is from a girl who thinks it's normal to have pink hair and dress like a belly dancer for a book signing. Everything is just bigger and siller than you could imagine. Alysia has a photo that includes the Eiffel Tower and a pyramid in the same shot. Mine isn't so surreal, but have a look anyway.

Went to see the Chippendales. Well, you have to, don't you? Lovely, lovely shiny naked men. Ooh baby. The bartender refused to serve me tequila because he said I should have something British, so I ended up with a Rusty Nail (Scotch and Drambuie). He was so pretty and he smelled so nice, I couldn't complain. (picture following, I need to scan it in)


Inside (yes, inside) of the Rio hotel. Incidentally, it's very strange getting ID'd everywhere. Here, I've been allowed to drink for five years. I've never been ID'd in England - I guess by the time I was 18 I looked older. Maybe it's flattering that I can pass for 21 now!


Ended up going clubbing on the 51st floor of the Rio hotel, outside, where it was warm. Outside and warm - especially when put together with dark and high - are not mixy things in my vocabulary. Several strange people chatted me up, including a woman who was trying to get me together with her ex. Nice of her.


Then for a dose of sanity we went to the Grand Canyon. Did I say sanity? I'm sorry. This thing would stretch from London to Newcastle. It's freaking huge. Way beyond my understanding.


Also stopped in at the Hoover Dam. Didn't get to throw in a coin on the state line, but what're you gonna do? Probably they don't want copper in their water anyway.


Oh yeah! Madame Tussauds, where I made a friend...

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

I'm back! Sooo tired: I just slept for 18 hours and I'm nowhere near making up all the sleep I've lost! Debating whether or not to actually get dressed today. Mmmm, I smell chips.

This is the level my brain is currently functionining at. In two weeks I did: eleven flights, ten airports, six states, five airlines, four timezones, three countries, two missed flights and a partridge in a pear tree. Okay, I may have hallucinated the partridge. Yesterday I arrived home at 2pm after leaving Las Vegas (cue song) at 3.45am the day before, which makes about 26 hours of travelling during which I snatched about an hour and a half of sleep. I'll be back later to try and make more sense and give an undetailed report of Austin, RWA conference, and Vegas. Maybe.

ETA: oh! Most important thing! SHE WHO DARES is being released on 11th Aug - as in, this Thursday - and you can go and buy it right here or by clicking on my be-ee-aie-yoodiful cover, below. Isn't it pretty? Isn't it classy? Isn't it perfect for the book? Well, you can't answer that because you haven't read it. But answer on Thursday, I command thee!

Bad blogger

That's me, bad blogger, never updating. Well, I've been kinda busy lately - but at the same time can't really think of anything to say. Hmmm.

Honey seems to be doing better - matter of fact, she's running around the house looking ever so bored now we're not walking her. But vet's orders are vet's orders, and I'm not about to take a dog with a heart condition out on any kind of walk in this heat.

I'm horribly unprepared for Reno. All I've managed to do is buy a gigantic bright pink suitcase, with the rather feeble excuse that it'll be easier to spot on the baggage carousel. I did order a gigantic memory card for my camera (erm, perhaps that should read 'card with a gigantic amount of memory', not a card that's actually gigantic), off the internet, so I'm hoping it's going to arrive before Saturday. Or I have to run into town and buy one for a billion times as much.

Oh! I got a sample for my cover for SHE WHO DARES - no text or anything, just the background and figure, which looks really good. Generally I don't like Poser figures, but I think what I don't like the most is the faces, which always look so vacant. My cover (MY COVER) just shows Masika's back, and a very nice back it is too. I'm already planning out Magda's cover, and I've only written about six pages on her. Ahem.

Also I just read an email on the Changeling loop that had some release dates, and mine was one of them - so as soon as I've confirmed it with my editor (MY editor! etc) I'll be letting y'all know when you can rush out and buy it.

Off to a gig tonight - the boy is supporting... um... some Country singer I've never heard of, but apparently she's reasonably famous in her neck of the woods. Which is nice.

Off to hunt down my cowboy boots...

RNA conference

Feeling a little more coherent than I was when I got home yesterday, so I'll try for a slightly better report. I was horribly nervous about going to the conference for the first time - yes, I'd been assured by everyone I'd ever 'met' online that everyone would be very friendly, and that in fact there was someone whose specific job it was to take care of the first timers (thank you Mandy!). But I get nervous doing any new thing. I'm terrible at making conversation and ridiculously introverted for someone so noticable. But everyone was, indeed, very, very nice, to the point of carrying my bags when I was overloaded, and coming up to me to ask if I was Kate with an 8. I'd have bought the books of everyone there (a terribly tempting booksale was set up outside the lecture rooms we used) if I'd had the funds!

Workshops and talks all interesting. I think the reason it all went so quickly was that I wasn't bored once: everything was split into neat little segments and there was always something to do (and someone to talk to while you were doing it). Everyone very approachable, and because most of the workshops were being run by conference attendees, it was quite easy to chat about it to them afterwards.

My only regret is not coming up with a practised pitch that I could have used on the Piatkus editor, Gillian Green, who was wonderfully enthusiastic about her authors (including Sherrilyn Kenyon, very exciting) and invited submissions from us. Of course, next day was a workshop on query letters where Laurie Campbell encouraged us to write a 25 word pitch for the story. Mine will, of course, be going in my shortly-to-be-dispatched letter to Piatkus.


All the Conference Virgins on the last night, at the gala dinner. On the left in green is Lynne Conolly (did I spell that right?) who writes e-books; in the blue top with long hair is Mandy Jones, who was looking after us all; the lady with white hair and the funky print top is Anne Worboys, author of squillions of books; and I'm the one at the back, on the right, in purple, looking like a cardboard cutout.

Another update

I've literally just walked in after the RNA conference, so this'll be brief because I'm hella tired! As I've been greatly enjoying telling people, reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated. Had I travelled down a few hours earlier, however, they might not have been. But so far, me and mine are all okay. Thanks for all your concern - I really didn't know how wide an effect I was having!