My Lucky Day!

This morning started off as a pretty average Monday morning and deteriorated... youngest child (nearly 3) was grumpy and whingeing a lot and eldest child (nearly 5) was not helping by winding her up and being a bit of a nuisance... you can probably picture the scene!

Much to my delight, an email came in from one of my favourite romance authors Liz Fielding announcing good news. As part of her 'Black Friday' promotion, I had entered a giveaway to win her Beaumont Brides series published by Mills & Boon; having already read one of the three titles (a freebie on the Kindle!), I knew I would enjoy these if I won. And...

First draft of 'Love in the Aisles' - Chapter Two

If you have arrived here looking for a sneak preview of my debut romance novella, I must report that I have since taken it right back to the beginning to re-work, changing the writing style and switching between points of view.

I have left up my very first workings of my very first draft, which you are more than welcome to read, but they have already changed enormously since...

Chapter 2

As soon as her hand touched his, she felt the same tingle shooting through her arm as before.  Shutting the front door behind him, she enjoyed the close proximity to him as they stood in the entrance, able to smell the lingering scent of day-old aftershave on him.  “Can I take your jacket?” 

“Thanks,” he said, shrugging out of it.  The space was so confined that he couldn’t help but brush against her by accident, triggering a cluster bomb effect of goose-bumps wherever he happened to touch her.

“After you,” she said, ushering him into her front room whilst she hung his jacket up on one of the coat hooks, secretly grateful for having such a small entrance porch.

First draft of 'Love in the Aisles' - Chapter One

If you have arrived here looking for a sneak preview of my debut romance novella, I must report that I have since taken it right back to the beginning to re-work, changing the writing style and switching between points of view.

I have left up my very first workings of my very first draft, which you are more than welcome to read, but they have already changed enormously since...

Chapter 1

Karen’s head was banging, forcing her to concentrate even harder as she navigated the roads that would take her back to school.

“So much for my girl’s night out!” she muttered bitterly to herself. 

Instead, her glamorous fun-filled evening out with her sister and friends now had extra-strong painkillers, meal for one, a huge bar of chocolate and a bottle of chilled white wine stamped all over it.

Her outfit was still all laid out on her bed from where she had started getting everything ready.  She had been looking forward to tonight for weeks, months even, and she was finally going to get to wear her gorgeous new designer shoes for the first time too.  It had been a silly dream of hers to own a pair of ‘real’ designer shoes one day, but she had saved up for months until she had enough to buy a pair in the sale and had just been waiting for the right occasion.  Goodness knows when she’d get to wear them now. 

And it was all her son-of-a-bitch ex-husband Rob’s fault! 

Progress update for 'Love in the Aisles' (1)

I am delighted to say that the words are still flowing freely for my romance story 'Love in the Aisles'. So much so, that I have since abandoned the idea of it being a short story of 15,000+ words, having written over 8,000 already, and am now going for 50,000 words so that I have the option of submitting the full manuscript to Mills & Boon.

If you've been following this blog or my facebook page, then you will have been among the first with the chance of reading my first draft of Chapters One and Two, right here on this very blog (available for a limited time only so get in quick).

A huge thank you must go out to everyone who has already given me feedback. It has given me fresh hope that I can, maybe, pass myself off as a writer after all. My biggest fear before starting this writing journey was that I wouldn't be able to make my characters come to life, or create a scene, or emulate emotions, or write effective dialogue, or... well, you probably get the idea. So...

Oooh la la, Stephen King huh?!

Based on the first 1,100 words drafted for my romantic short story, 'Love in the Aisles', the analyser came up with this...

I write like
Stephen King

I Write Like by Mémoires, journal software. Analyze your writing!

Based on today's blog entry...

I write like
H. P. Lovecraft

I Write Like by Mémoires, journal software. Analyze your writing!

Kindle anyone?

I have never a been huge fan of electronic book readers, despite my love of gadgets, as I love the feel and even the smell of a 'real' book. Six weeks ago, however, I succumbed and asked for a Kindle for my birthday and I have to confess that I love it!

This is the one I went for, a refurb Kindle Keyboard...

So what made me change my mind?

Back in May, my family and I went away for a bargain holiday - only a week in a Eurocamp tent in Spain - but we decided to try and manage just taking hand luggage only. Some feat when you have two children aged 4 and 2, the latter still being in nappies, I can tell you! Anyway, we did it with two trunkies containing all of the kids clothes and toys, a small suitcase and a holdall, phew!

My 50 book reading challenge for 2011

This year I have been taking part in a reading challenge and the idea is to read fifty books over the course of the year. All books count, be it novels, text books, books you've read before, etc. The only rule is that you have to have started and finished the book during the current year.

Here's how I'm getting on...