…going away together, for a week in blissful seclusion…

…arriving when the floods have just gone down, and the rivers are still in spate…

…special, secret places:  some familiar…  

some new…

…mud, glorious mud…

…the path less travelled (yes, I did walk through this)…

 that leads to new discoveries…

and the one bathed in light…

 that takes you to a happy place ….

…autumn colours

… and magic moments,…

…unexpected play

… and the end of a fantastic week.

… the current preoccupations.

I’m working on WIP, DANGER: DEEP WATER, which picks up a secondary character from DANGEROUS LIES two years after that book finishes.

Gareth Lacy (inspired by Gerard Butler) is an ex Navy diver, specialising in mine-clearance.  He knows all about going down into the depths of darkness in search of the evil that men leave behind.  Now that’s all behind him, and he lives out his days aboard his shabby yacht Orpheus in the Mediterranean, avoiding people, life, love, and trying to escape the nightmares of his past.

Lisa’s nightmares are right here, right now. 

(I think Lisa looks a bit like Roselyn Sanchez, pictured below – she gets her looks from her spanish mother.)

Her free-spirit, less-than-truthful ways got Lisa in deep with a man and his ‘business’.  When Lisa realised what she was in to, she bailed, jumping overboard miles from shore.  Trusting to her strength and wits, she invites herself aboard Gareth’s yacht, Orpheus, enlists his help, and promptly blows his life apart.

Question is, can she help him put it together again?  And can Gareth trust a woman who lies with every breath or, better yet, can he teach her to be truthful?

Lies will run them into danger.  But the truth will draw them in deep.

 Yes, I know… late, late, late!  Between travel, my brother’s wedding last weekend, my sickness, laptop sickness, work and home life, it’s been a long time since I promised to post pics of my Maine trip and the RWA Conference in San Francisco at the beginning of August.

What can I say?  It was marvellous, magical, a real couple of weeks of fun, friends, and perhaps most importantly, reflection.  Thinking back on how far I’d come (and how far I have to go!) and how much I have to be thankful for.  Missing absent friends and making new ones. 

Maine suited me down to the ground. 

Water, trees, swimming, walking, boating.  I’ll be forever thankful to Julie’s parents for taking me in, making me welcome, and answering all my research questions about sailing. 

Gareth and his treasured yacht Orpheus will be the better for it.  Lovely to spend time with Julie and her gorgeous boy (who learned a new word from me – ‘Brilliant!’)

Julie had arranged a joint reading/signing at Rumford Library with mutual friend Kathy Love and me, with the help of the wonderfully enthusiastic and dedicated Claudia.  We had a blast, as you can see:

And I think we had some happy readers!

(Martha Hill clutching her bounty of books and looking very happy about it!)

And then on to San Francisco.

This RWA National Conference was a biggy for me – my ‘first sale’ Pink Ribbon, the first at which I could participate in the mass Literacy Autographing, where over 520 authors signed their books, donated by the publishers for charity.  It was fabulous – I have to admit I was choked up a bit by it at times.  My fondest memory is selling a book because I found out the reader and I both adored BBC car programme Top Gear!  Result!  I was there very early, and there was a lot of time (before the Sherrilyn Kenyon inspired reader stampede) to reflect on the time that had passed since I started to write, and started to seek publication. 

It was an awe inspiring thing to sit there behind a pile of my books and sell them and sign them.  Just wonderful.

Even better to share it with some special people.  Kate Walker came over to congratulate me, and remind me Dad would have just about expired (if he wasn’t already!) with pride if he’d seen it.  Since Kate’s mentorship helped get me where I am, that was a very wonderful moment for me.

And I was very proud to participate, in however a small fashion, in raising over $58,000 for Adult Literacy.

I enjoyed the workshops – highlights were the His Brain/ Her Brain sessions, Advanced Writing Tools, Linda Howard’s brilliant Q&A (is it sad and shallow of me to note how much we have in common???) and Holly Jacobs and Nancy Warren’s session on being professional and business like.  Through all the workshops, it was wierd for me to realise (and I don’t mean this in a boastful sense) that I knew a lot of the answers already.  The theme of the Conference was, for me, you’ve come a long way, baby.  Now get writing.

I hope I took the message to heart.  This week I wrote over 10,000 words.  Woo Hoo!

I have to say Kudos, to the organisers, staff and volunteers.  GREAT job, folks.

My social secretary    Brigid Coady (who was also basically the Best Ever Room Mate – click the link and scroll down for her take on the conference), was clever enough to arrange for me to get in to the Harlequin party as Heidi Rice’s guest (a thousand thanks, Heidi and Biddy!)  

We met up with Sharon Kendrick and Abby Green at the Top of the Mark.  How’s this for a view?

Another fine view is this bevvy of beauties – from left, Heidi, Sharon and Biddy.

The Harlequin party was quite simply the best party I’ve ever been to.  Why?  Because when I go to a party, I want to dance.  And I get frustrated with people standing around through the first dozen songs or so, looking down their noses at the handful of nervous dancers on the floor.  I get to dance maybe twice a year!  I want to dance!

At the Harlequin party, when the music starts, the dance floor fills.  Immediately.  And it stays full ALL NIGHT.  After thirty or so, breathless, sweaty moments, I was in sheer heaven.  And stayed that way until my leg muscles seized up, about the same time my feet bruised.  Ah, fabulous.  It’s possible I burned up all the alcohol calories for the entire week in that one dancing session.  Bliss.

(Heidi in blue, Abby in green, Sharon in pink, unknown in kilt, but good man… and the guy in the grey suit is, Randal Toye, a Harlequin VP.  Who I once shared a table with at an awards ceremony, and inexplicably talked about my house’s higgledy stairs….)

And finally, for the Harlequin Party, the World Most Unflattering Photo of me, purely for the purposes of recording a seminal moment in time. 

Because that arm on the right in the background, boogying away, belongs to none other than Nora Roberts.  Yes, Nora Roberts.  Greater happiness knows no romance writer than dancing next to Nora Roberts at the Harlequin Party.

We rocked.

All in all, I have very fond memories of San Francisco.  I won’t even mention the shopping.

Finally for this post, all best wishes, good luck, blessings and congratulations to Ali and my brother P-J, who are currently honeymooning in Marrakesh.  You did good, folks.  You did great.

… but it can be persuaded to prevaricate.

I had so much fun! 

Well, okay, not in the first ten minutes, and not when the photographer wanted me to walk towards the camera in a certain way, but after that I channelled my inner diva and had a ball.

At one point he said:

“I think we’ll go outside and take a few shots out there.  The light’s good.”

“You want me to go out in public and do this?”

“Don’t worry, there’s no-one there.”

Pause

“Apart from those builders up on the scaffolding overlooking us.”

“That really did not help, you know.”

We did dozens of shots in three tops, hair up, hair down, standing, sitting, leaning, lying on a sofa and hanging off a post (long story).  Fingers crossed the pics will be good, though I have the utmost trust in the expert.  I should be getting a CD next week sometime.  He’s currently editing the shots he took on photoshop.

I am supremely glad of that.

This is a momentous occasion! I have just sent off my MS of RUN AMONG THORNS to Medallion Press, correctly formatted in house style.

I have done this… *drum roll*… OVER SEVEN MONTHS EARLY.

THIS NEVER HAPPENS!!! I’m EARLY for a deadline!!!

Granted, the deadline’s set to their production schedule, not how soon I can do something, but still. I’m going to enjoy this rare, and wonderful moment…

And all this remarkable, unheard of achievement is created in THAT chaotic space. Scary, eh?

(Note Cleo (tortoiseshell) and Chrissy (ginger) curled up together on top of the in-tray stack. They’re wondering why I’ve been dancing round the office going, “booo-yah!”)