Look what I got for Sophie! Actually, go and look at her MySpace, it's so blingy right now. And! Oh God, this is scary--I got a countdown thingy for I, Spy?. 33 days? Argh! I'm still doing edits!

In other news, do you think Spike is doing this deliberaely to be cute, or that he just can't help it?

Cover woes

Okay, so my editor emailed last night and said I needed to send in a cover request ASAP for Maneater (I also need to send in the book, too, but that's a different dilemma).

It’s tough to form a meaningful relationship when you have all the dating skills of a praying mantis.

For Chloe, human interaction is an absolute disaster area, but then she is a siren. Vegetarianism is not an option when you can turn into a six-foot eagle with a human head. But in the glittering lights of Las Vegas, she meets the dazzling, irresistible Alexius.

He’s gorgeous. He’s sexy. He’s perfect in every way. And he’s about to hand her over to the harem of a collector of paranormal beings

Suddenly, delicious takes on a whole new meaning.

Problem is, I've no freaking clue what to put on there. Usually, I can see what I want, and I tell the cover dept. pretty clearly instead of just going, "Er, it's about vampires," which is why my covers are so pretty. And they are pretty, aren't they?

But this time...nothing. It's called Maneater because the heroine is a siren and she eats people. Try putting that on a cover. Sexy. And anyway, I'm advised that covers with women on them don't sell as well as covers with men, because the readership is largely female. Okay, but Poser men tend to look like they're having allergic reactions. And even if they turn out okay, the hero doesn't ahve any obvious paranormal qualities except for extreme hotness, so it'd be another faceless torso cover, and how many millions of them have you seen recently?

When I do a cover request I generally try to think about themes or motifs. You know, like for She Who Dares it was the stake and the tattoo and the Egyptian background. What are the themes and motifs for Maneater? Well, the heroine is a siren--so, water, rocks, wings. And it's set largely in Las Vegas--bright lights, gambling, showgirls. So...a showgirl on a rock, with wings?

Yep. That'll appear to my hererosexual female readership.

911

No, not American emergency services. A 1990s boyband. Who my friend Alysia used to be mad about. And who were playing at Chicago's in Bishop's Stortford on Friday (yeah...not quite Wembley or Shea Stadium, is it? The stage is smaller than my kitchen). And I made the mistake of telling her...

Anyway. All I can say is I've never been to a gig where the band threw out freebies like these before. I am now the proud owner of a 7" dildo, courtesy of 911. And yes, I asked them to sign it. And yes, I was sober.



On another note, we did have cause for an emergency last night when Spike didn't come home and we realised none of us had seen him since Saturday afternoon. Cue much panic, not helped by my mother outlining the possible scenarios (he's trapped, he's hurt, he's been stolen, or he's dead. I felt so much better for hearing that). An especial fear was that we live about 50yds from a main road with three pubs. What if someone, leaving the oub on Saturday night, had picked up this friendly white cat and shoved him in a wheelie bin for a joke? Those bins get colelcted on Monday morning.

Which had me rushing around stuffing flyers through everyone's door begging them to check their bins, sheds and garages. We were just on our way back from doing the immediate area when my brother called: a neighbour just down the road had found him in the garage, safe and sound, if a little hungry.

Little beggar's hardly left my side since. Except when he tried to follow my dad into the garage earlier...

'No photos, please!'

Sloppy posting

Okay, but I'm gonna boast I got this hot off Nathan Fillion's MySpace. He's my Friend. He loves me. We're gonna get like married'n'stuff.


Which Serenity character are you? Your results:
You are Kaylee Frye (Ship Mechanic)

Kaylee Frye (Ship Mechanic) 75% Jayne Cobb (Mercenary) 50% Zoe Washburne (Second-in-command) 45% Inara Serra (Companion) 40% A Reaver (Cannibal) 40% Dr. Simon Tam (Ship Medic) 40% Malcolm Reynolds (Captain) 40% Derrial Book (Shepherd) 35% Wash (Ship Pilot) 30% River (Stowaway) 25% Alliance 25%

You are good at fixing things. You are usually cheerful. You appreciate being treated with delicacy and specialness.

Click here to take the "Which Serenity character are you?" quiz...

New blog template

I know, aren't you excited? I bet you're so thrilled you're compiling a list of the differences. I know I am.

Okay, nothing else to say. Got a new confuser--I mean, computer--and have spent most of the day swearing at it. I was going to post a picture of my exciting new haircut (it's blonder! And marginally shorter than before!) but since I really, really can't be arsed to search out the software that comes with the camera upload...you'll have to wait.

In the meantime, here is a picture of David Tennant. (I transferred a discful of all my most important files over this arvo. Am intending to link the two PCs together so I can copy all my files, but for now it's essentials only--stories, bookmarks, photos of Sugar and Spike, etc. Daivd came courtesy of my trawl for a screensaver...)

More on names

...including the ever-popular How Can I Fit My Cats Into This Conversation game. Well, how, you ask? By telling you that Spike's name was cause for some serious thought. He's only the second male pet I've ever had (two female dogs and three female cats preceded him and Sugar). The first, my darling Tinker, was quite simply the gayest cat in existence. He was beautiful, dapper, and effeminate, and I've no doubt that this was due in no small part to the fact that when we got him and his sister, Willow, we thought we had two girls, and christened him Tinkerbell (I was six, okay?). By the time we discovered our little fairy was actually a boy, and shortened his name to Tinker, the damage was already done. For the last few years, I called him Tinkerbell. He minced.

Consequently, when we acquired Fluff & Fluffier, I was determined to give my boy cat a butch name. I'll make a man of this one, I decided. I'm not going to gay him up. So I called him Spike. Spike. Like the dog in Tom & Jerry, or the henchman in Storm Front, or yes, even my favourite vampire. It's a good manly name, is Spike.

Unfortunately, then my gorgeous boy turned out to be heartbreakingly pretty and has spent most of his ten months being cuddled and pampered. As a result, he's turned into a total mummy's boy who, last night, allowed a strange black and white cat into the house. Twice. While his mummy chased the bugger out, Spike hid under the kitchen table.

But then again, Spike the vampire was a mummy's boy too. Maybe I'll call my next cat Pansy and just have done with it...

Anyway. Names, as I said earlier in the week, are important. The naming of a character is a difficult matter and I know I'm not alone in saying it's sometimes hard to write a character if they don't have the right name. Sometimes the name pops up with the character, fully-formed--Luke Sharpe, for instance, turned up in my head without any name changes. So did Chance in Almost Human, although I do remember that when I first created her father, it took me bloody ages to come up with Striker. Now, of course, I can't think of him being called anything else. It's the same with Sophie. She actually started out life as a Sally, but that never quite suited her and it wasn't until she got her new name that I could really write her.

Her surname, however, was something of an accident. Sophie Green. I really just wanted a name that was ordinary, easy to spell, and wouldn't make anyone look twice. Only later did I realise quite how appropriate it was: Sophie's as green as can be. Luke, on the other hand, didn't end up with his surname by accident (quite apart from the fact that it's damn funny to say out loud). I wanted a name that fitted him as a character: sharp-eyed, sharp-minded, sharp-shooter. He's even a sharp dresser. There's nothing soft and fuzzy about Luke--well, not until you know him better.

I have been known to name characters deliberately using words that fit them as people. I have a work-in-progress with a character named Harker. Say it out loud: it's a harsh, sharp word; an onomatopaeic name (did I spell that right?), for a man who doesn't have much space in his life for softness. Similarly, when I came across Dare as an abbreviation of Darien, I knew I had to use it for the devil-may-care hero of She Who Dares (yes, the title came later).

It's a trick a lot of worthies have used. Dickens famously gave his characters outrageous names which perfectly suited them. Look at Bill Sykes: he was a psycho. And William Makepeace Thackery did it to perfection in Vanity Fair with another Sharp, this one Becky; the steadfast Dobbin; the odious Sir Pitt Crawley. In more modern times, the great Pratchett has given us Sam Vimes, a grubby, disreputable name; and Bernard Cornwell his eponymous Richard Sharpe (see, it's a good ol' name, isn't it?).

Incidentally, I read the other day that there's a high ioncidence of people taking on jobs which resemble their names. Geographers called Geoffrey, and dentists called Denise, that sort of thing. I guess this means I should be living in a cattery...no wait, I practically do...

What other examples of clever naming do you know? And do you know any characters who've been terribly badly named?

Full-size teaser here

Yepyep, I have another ad! Only a silent teaser; a full-length, bells and whistles one will be coming soon and it will--I'm sure it will--have sound! Yes! A soundtracked book trailer! How exciting is that?

Very, I'm sure you'll agree. The Sundown, Inc. paperback anthology should be with us this spring: I'll let you know the date as soon as I have it finalised. An actual paperback! That's even more exciting than a book trailer!

In the meantime, I've got my Cat Marsters hat back on and I'm working on the next in the Sundown series; actually, the final Sundown International book. But don't fret, never fear, for a new Sundown series will be forthcoming. (The reason they're split into four books apiece is quite simply so they can fit neatly into a paperback anthology).

This, the fourth Sundown International book, is called Maneater, and it's about a siren. Yes, the Greek kind who lured sailors to their deaths. Poor Chloe finds it rather hard to have a relationship with anyone when she has such an unfortunate habit of eating her lovers...

As for the next Sundown series...well, I have a few ideas, but I thought I might take this opportunity to ask what you'd like to see from the series. Are vampires your thing? Do you prefer werewolves? What about menages, or even a m/m book? Don't be shy...tell me what you like!

What's in a name?

That which we call a rose, by any other name, would still smell so sweet.

Yeah, but would it? If it was called a Stinkweed, would you even let your nose near it? I may have misquoted that above, by the way. I'm doing it from memory.

Yesterday in The Times there was a feature--a whole separate booklet, even!--on names. On what they mean, and what they mean for you. Are Richards and Davids really more likely to succeed than Waynes and Kevins? Why do teachers give higher marks to Emmas than to Kayleighs? Should it be considered child cruelty to name your kid Reignbeaux? (yes. Yes, it should. Do you want the kid to get beaten up in the playground?).

So of course I look up my own name. Now, I was actually christened Kate. Not, as my mother restrospectively wishes, Katharine; but just plain Kate. And bonny Kate, and sometimes Kate the curst, But Kate, the prettiest Kate in Christendom, Kate of Kate Hall, my super-dainty Kate... (okay, I had to look that one up. But snaps to me for having a Shakespearean name, right?).

But here's the thing. I can never find 'Kate' on a mug or a door plaque. Katie, yes. Katharine, Catherine, and everything in between. And yes, I know, one name comes from another. I know the Greek root of it ('pure', if that's not funny enough). I know that all Caitlins and Kathleens are from the same root and mean the same thing.

But they're not the same, are they? Picture someone called Katharine, and someone called Catherine. To me, one is a 60s filmstar riding around on a bicycle with Paul Newman, and the other is the cosy lady who lived at the end of my street when I was little. Picture Kate, and Katie. Moss, Winslet? Holmes, Price? They're different names. I honestly don't know if the Ms's Winslet, Moss, Blanchett, Holmes etc were christened Katherine and chose to shorten their names. but I think the diminutive you choose, or is chosen for you, can make a huge difference in the way you're seen or the way you act. Look at the difference between Liz, Lizzie, Lilibet, Beth, Bethan, Betty, Bess...all from the same name (which is, incidentally, my middle name).

When I was picking out a pseudonym to write under (with two very different kinds of books, I wanted two different names) I went through various different names. For a while I considered changing my name entirely to Jamie (one of my favourite boy's names, and one I'd doubtless overuse otherwise). But Cat wasn't hard to settle on. With my well-known love of all things feline, it's a certainly in my house that if I had actually been christened Katharine, I'd have been nicknamed Cat. It's nice to finally get the name I always thought I should have.

Names are so crucial to the way a person is perceived that it can take a long, long time to name a character. But more on that later--that's several blogposts all in one!

What do you think of your own name? Would you pick a different moniker if you could--or have you already?

This season, I will be mostly...

Okay, I hate resolutions. But there are a couple of things that I'm going to try hard to do this year. Let's call them goals (which I usually hate also. Dunno what's got into me).

1. Go and see the Hogarth show at the Tate Britain. Got interested in Hogarth when my A level History teacher handed out assignments on C18th writers/artists/architects. He said he'd tried to match the artist to the student. Since the first words I read about Hogarth were how he was a subersive satirist obsessed with the dark side of life, I'm not sure how well this reflected on me. Anyway, I've totally and completely neglected any form of art studies ever since I left school, and besides, I like the idea of going to an art show. It sounds v cultured.

2. Try and see Patrick Stewart in the Tempest. While I'm at the cultural stuff, I might as well mention this. The Tempest was also an A level subject, and I reckon ol' Jean-Luc will be superb as Prospero. Well, he's generally superb in everything else I've seen him in. I wanted to see Tamsin Greig in Much Ado, since it's my favourite Shakespeare, but I'm pretty sure the run's finished now and anyway, I can't remember where it was. There was another play I wanted to see...I read the critical list in The Times the other week and so many things leapt out at me. But I resolve to get myself to the theatre at least once this year.

Oh, and I ought to check out The Globe's 2007 season, too, what with all this mad hot weather we're supposed to have coming up this season. Ain't going if it rains.

3. Write another damn book for Ellora's Cave and stop procrastinating over it. It's just that every time I try to get stuck into Kett's story (yes, I've already started it) I get sidetracked by a deadline or edits on one of my Changeling or Samhain books. I gues I should have thought harder before I did that spell to attract more business, huh?

4. Closely related to the above: earn more money.

5. Remain composed and not get involved in internet flame wars. Simply sit back, shaking head piteously at the folly of others, while displaying quiet grace and earning respect for it. Snort.

6. Lose another half-stone. Oh dear, this does sound boring and predictable, doesn't it?

7. Go somewhere new. A new seaside resort or a new country. I mean, obviously the country thing is more exciting, but going to a new seaside resort is definitely cheaper, plus you get fish and chips.

8. Get an agent. Or at least start looking for one. 'Get an agent' is one of those silly resolutions like 'get married this year'. Unless you already have the ring on your finger and the church booked, I'd say starting with 'find man to marry' might be a better resolution, right? So: I shall endeavour to search for an agent. Howzat?

There. I reckon eight is good, right? Broadening horizons, etc, while not over-the-top and unattainable. Mind you, remind me of these come December. I'll probably have managed one at most.

Place your bets please: how many of these will I fulfill? What do you think I ought to resolve to do? What are your resolutions? Do you ever keep them? Where are my socks?

Shameless Self Promotion, pt 2

I'd like to introduce you to someone. He's big, he's strong, he's very sexy, and he has fangs. His name is Rafael, and he's a Master vampire. He's been alive fifteen hundred years, has killed and created, watched empires rise and fall, and taken countless women--and men--to his bed.

Unfortunately, he has a serious impulse control problem.

Being a vampire, this leads to a few unfortunate consequences. Like with Paige. Paige is smart, modern, and beautiful, and also unfortunately dead, since Rafa got a little carried away with the biting. And since Paige is the best beloved of Rafa's friend and employee, Jamie, he's got to do something about it. Or Jamie will be inviting Rafa for a cosy threesome with a wooden stake.

So what's a vampire to do? Turn her and hope Jamie can help her through it? Let her die? Or make her into a be-fanged one, and risk her turning out like him, a barely civilised barbarian who accidentally kills people when he feeds?

What's a vampire to do?

If you'd like to find out, be sure to check out Rafa, Paige and Jamie's story in Unholy Trinity, available as soon as Friday dawns!

Vote for me!

Yes, I know. I'm not even pretending it's not shameless.

The Preditors and Editors 2006 poll is up. Yours truly is listed under best author, novella (twice), and novel. All three of my publishers are listed for best publisher, and likewise my wonderful editors, Sheri Ross Fogarty, Kelli Kwiatkowski, and Jess Bimberg. If you happen to think that any of my books, publishers, or editors are the best of 2006, please go and vote--and if your favourite isn't listed (I'm talking about books here, because of course your favourite author is listed) then you can nominate it too.

Ta!

Put the fun back into writing

Recently Susan Hill blogged about how so many writers these days complain about the hard work and misery of their chosen career.

And in among all manner of different comments and counter-comments, confessions and questions and answers and pieces of advice, one thing struck me and this was how painful the whole thing seemed to be. How much angst, anguish, worry, striving, fear of failure, self-flagellation and goodness knows what else which indicated that almost none of these people are ENJOYING WRITING.

I have to wonder if they're making all of this misery up. I mean, look: writing is a profession where you get to sit in your pyjamas and eat chocolate all day while you let your imagination go doolally. It's fantastic. It's the best job in the world! The only miserable part about it is the pay. And all those stroppy people who write bad reviews. And the times when you're a week past deadline and have no frickin' clue how the damn book is going to end.

But for the most part, writing is fun. As the great Terry Pratchett said, it's the most fun you can have by yourself. And to all those people who have such an agonising time of it, I have to say: dude, you want a badly-paid job you hate, go work at Blockbuster. Don't write for money. You'll never be rich. Even after ten books you won't be rich. Don't write for money. Ignore JK Rowling and Barbara Cartland. Don't write for money. Write because you love it. And if you don't love it, stop doing it, because your misery is annoying.

Although. Perhaps we should put the word out that writing is a horrible profession, hard gruelling work, whip-wielding editors, etc. Because otherwise people might think we actually do just sit around all day in our pyjamas eating chocolates. They might think it's not actually work at all. Certainly the pay reflects this (do I whinge about pay too much? Make it stop: buy my books). Because we're still influenced by those stupid Victorian rules that state anything enjoyable must be bad for you, and vice versa, people don't want to know that it's possible to do a job you really love.

I mean, think about it. You get up at 6.30, feed and wash and dress your kids, drive them to school, go to work, get a headache from the fluorescent lights, drink coffee that tastes like cardboard, devise new ways to kill your boss (or at least gag his whining nasal voice) come home in the rain, put on a load of washing, cook dinner, watch something mindless on TV, put the kids to bed, collapse with a glass of enamel-stripping cheap red wine, then fall into bed ready to do it all again. When you hear that I get up when I want to (except on Wednesday, when I'm rudely awakened by the dustmen) and can take time off to watch telly if I so desire, you must really hate me. And I don't want you to hate me. So I'll say what all those other clever writers say: Writing Is Hard Work And It Makes Me Miserable. There, do you like me better?

Anyway, on another note, my first newsletter of the new year is out, and you can access it here in pink, or here in purple. Speaking of Pratchett, there's a recommendation for Going Postal, as well as interviews with Alice Gaines and Michelle M. Pillow; my two latest covers, release dates, and other news snippets.

Happy New Year!

I'm going to celebrate the beginning of 2007 with three fab things: the cover for Kate's next book, I, Spy?, out in March...


...the cover for Cat's next book, Unholy Trinity, out next Friday...


...and my new crush, Richard Armitage, on whom I will surely be basing a hero soon...



Happy 2007!