at the Romantic Novelists' Association 50th Anniversary conference in Greenwich.This has to be extremely bad planning, because while I sit here in my jammies at the crack of a Saturday dawn, all my writing mates are, right now, stirring, groaning and reaching for something to soothe the ravages of a night partying at the Gala celebration dinner.
Of course I am also missing out on the shocking heat in London and remain cucumber cool and headache free in a rather damp Wales.
Which would you choose?
Yes, I thought so.
Next year I'm going to have to plan my deadlines with rather more precision, since I've been roped in to give a talk or something. (I need plenty of notice of these things - a year should be about enough to come up with something interesting.)
Meanwhile my world is bounded by all things ice cream.Elle, the heroine of my story (working title SCOOP!) has just gone for a ride in Rosie with a dishy bloke who's turned up at her door with a 1962 Commer Ice Cream van that is about to turn her world on its head.
(The dishy bloke might have a little to do with that, too!)
Oh, and just so that you know I really was working when I was pretending to be on holiday last week - here's my research photo.
This giant ice cream was spotted on the station at Paignton, where I boarded a steam train to Dartmouth. The sight of it moved me to go inside and buy one, although it wasn't a Whippy but some delicious west country dairy cream ice scooped onto a cone.
The jolly nice young man who served me wrapped it in a napkin (something Mr Whippy never did when I was a kid) and for which I was extremely grateful since it was a hot day.
Some books are just more fun to research than others.
20 comments:
It's pretty impressive to be up at the crack of dawn on a Saturday. I think I would have been tempted to sleep in just because everyone else as struggling to move in Greenwich! I love the working title of Scoop! and I'm really looking forward to it. Ice cream, romance, what more could a girl ask for?
I'm NOT there, too, Liz, even though I was supposed to be. I wasn't up at the crack of dawn on Saturday either, so clearly I'm a slacker of the first degree.
I envy you your ice cream -- and a story, apparently. I currently have a heroine and a royal wedding (not hers) and a nameless hero who had better be more forthcoming SOON!
Hi Liz:
I love the idea of an ice cream theme. I’ve never read a story like it! However, I think you’ll need to show ice cream on the cover or most people are going to think it is a newspaper theme story. (I always think like a marketing guy.)
I just came from a writer’s conference and it was at 10,000 feet and I spent a lot of time with altitude sickness. Be thankful that can’t happen in England.
BTW, when I got back home your two Brenda Novak diabetes auction books arrived: “Christmas Angle for the Billionaire” and “Her Desert Dream”. You have the happiest looking bookmarks! Thanks for your efforts. I’ll be looking for you next year.
Vince
I'm always up at the crack of dawn, Lacey. Love getting up with the sun. Of course if the sun doesn't show... :)
Hi Anne - so glad to see you here. Hope your hero tells you who he is v. soon! Just downloaded your Virgin - looking forward to it.
Hi Vince
I'm so glad the books have arrived. I had a bit of a panic when I didn't get a note who to send them to, then I remembered that I'd sent them direct to the auction months ago.
I'm glad you like the bookmarks. They've nearly all gone so I'm going to have to get the dh working on some new ones.
And I won't worry about my working title confusing anyone. It's never going to make it on the cover of a Harlequin Romance. (And actually I think someone v. famous - E Waugh? - already used it!) But it will be the name of my heroine's company.
You mean you haven't planned next year's talk yet????
We missed you.
Hi Liz:
I wouldn’t be so sure about the name ‘Scoops’! There already is a Susie Scoops and a Scoops in business in the USA. “Great Minds and all that…”
Your heroine isn't named 'Susie' is she? : )
Vince
No, no, no! Sticking fingers in ears, don't want to hear that, Vince! Thankfully she's not Susie :)
Jan, I'm working on it ... er, any ideas welcome :)
Been busy and haven't been around much! Loved that icecream cone. Makes me want to go get one. Just picked up SOS at Walmart last night and am going to dive into it today. Sorry you're missing the conference, but I'm with you on leaving the hot behind... I'm in 75 degree weather with the sun shining and a slight breeze! We could use some rain though as we catch our driking water off of our roofs here. If it would just be sunny all day and rain/mist at night we'd be in a perfect environment :)
Hi Snookie! Thanks so much for buying the book.
75 is about perfect, don't you think, but I do agree about the night time rain. Actually we had that but more in a chucking it down, flower flattening way - not what was ordered.
Just finished SOS. I really liked it! But then I'm not surpised as I haven't read any of your books that I don't really like. One little thing struck me as strange though... did you really mean to say she travelled east? It seems strange to go east from England to Vegas! It was mentioned twice though and you could go east, just think it would be a rather long way around if you were in a hurry. :)
Well done, Snookie - you spotted the mistake. Heaven knows how it happened (maybe getting up at six in the morning to write isn't such a good idea!) I do know you travel west to the States from the UK. So does my editor. So does my copy editor. Somehow, we all missed it.
I'm hoping that since so many people seem to think I'm Australian - I have no idea why - that they'll put it down to that :)
Hi Liz:
OMG!
“I'm hoping that since so many people seem to think I'm Australian - I have no idea why - that they'll put it down to that :)”
Are you suggesting that Australians don’t know east from west? That Australians don’t know that London is west of NY?
Here’s video you might enjoy.
"Come To Australia" by Scared Weird Little Guys
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNEeq5qGh8I
I’m just ‘funning’. I’m a pilot and even I read your East reference to mean that the heroine was flying from the East. After all, an East wind will blow a balloon to the West. If I was your editor I would have missed it too.
Vince
No, Vince - I hoped they thought i was coming from the other way!
Intersting take on reading that she was coming from the east! In my jop we have to use cardinal directions for our reports. An east swell comes from the east, our NE trades come from the northeast. But the stream flows west when it flows in a westerly direction. People travel in the direction they're going. I'm not surprised you and your editors missed it though. I'm sure many people wouldn't have thought twice about it, but since I write and edit it struck me right away as being strange! Regardless, I still loved your story Liz :)
Well... I just commented and lost the comment in cyberspace so here it is again...
LOL on living in Australia... maybe they think you're in New South Wales :)
I'm not sure many people will catch the reference. It stuck out very quickly to me because we deal with cardinal directions all the time at work. Our NE tradewinds come from the northeast, an east swell comes from the east. However, a stream flows west when it's flowing in a westerly direction, a person travels northeast when they go from here to the mainland US. It wasn't a big deal, just something that caught my eye because I write and edit reports using those directions :)
Well, either they will post later or I now have two comments floating around in cyberspace!
Hmmmm not sure why this isn't working...
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