I Heart Mash Ups

It's been a while since I did a mash-up but here are a few blogs I've visited lately that deserve sharing.

First up, the fabulous Sarah Duncan, whose blogs on writing craft and the writing life are always full of wisdom. This one, on Networking is a class piece.

Northern Mum can make you laugh, or make you cry, sometimes cry with laughing. This will be familiar to any panicking working Mum who is always two-steps behind Dancing...


Good news is for sharing and I've already blogged about new RIVA author, Charlotte Phillips. Here is her take on getting the the call!

I've just read Barbara O'Neal's amazing new book, The Garden of Happy Endings. She is an autobuy for me, with a lusciousness to her writing that has won her a hatful of RITAs. She's releasing a bunch of her older books now as eBooks, and there are excerpts on her blog. But here's a classic blog post to give you a taste

And then there's the amazingly creative Jennifer Crusie talking about creating a story world on her blog.

Finally, the truly lovely Lilian Darcy will be my guest here on Friday  to talk about the launch of her latest mainstream title, SAVING GERDA. This is a beautifully written, involving story of two families at opposite ends of the social scale in pre-war Germany.

It just dragged me in and wouldn't let me go so my final link is to Lilian's website. I do hope you'll go and read an excerpt and then come back to talk to her here about her inspiration, the research she did and how it feels as a writer to step so far out of your comfort zone that it's like stepping off a cliff.

PS I will be guesting on Romance Book Paradise today - and giving away some books.  

Saturday...

It has been a glorious week here in the west of Wales. Brilliant blue skies, flowers lifting their heads and saying “thank you, God”, swallows dipping and diving and taking advantage of the wide open door of the writing cottage to squat in the rafters if I don’t chase them out.

All my television watching time has been spent drooling over the wonderful gardens at Chelsea. Could I make a clover thatch on the shed roof like the one inspired by John Clare’s woodland walks?

Probably not — I’m a bit wobbly on a ladder — but I’m definitely up for a drift of wild flowers in the corner of my new garden. Foxgloves, daisies, bluebells — I might lift a few from this garden, and pot up a few violets to take them with me — creating a little woodland corner under the silver birch. And lavender, thymes and marjoram for the bees, because they need all the help we can give them.

The brilliant part of the week hasn’t just been confined to the weather. I’m blogging today at Tote Bags and Books about some very special news, so do drop by and share the joy.

As for me, it’s the best beloved’s birthday today so I’m taking him out to lunch. This photograph was taken in Zambia — where we met — a very long time ago. While his hair (still thick and curly) is now, like mine, silver, he is still my hero.

NEW VOICES FINALIST GETS A HARLEQUIN CONTRACT!

Last year I was asked to mentor one of the finalists in the Mills and Boon New Voices competition. A huge honour, an enormous responsibility, a lot of fun.

When Charlotte Phillips made it through the first round, I was the very lucky author who was tasked with the job of guiding her through her second chapter. It wasn’t my job to write it for her, but to show her where her own writing could be strengthened, offer a little advice on what could usefully be left out, give her pointers on what weakened a scene, made it work.

Charlotte, let me tell you, was a joy to work with. Full of enthusiasm, excitement, passion, eager to learn, ready to listen, but with a deep down faith in her characters, their story. We discussed technique. The moment to leave one scene with the reader wanting more. How to add drama. How to bring dialogue to life.

When she made it through to the final four I was as excited as if I’d personally made that huge leap, a seriously champagne popping moment. She didn’t win the competition, the standard was phenomenal, but I never doubted that she would make it through to publication.

Since reaching the final four of the competition, she has been working on a new story with the same editor who does for me, what I did for Charlotte. Flo is a red hot editor who — standing back from the intense involvement that writing entails — brings a fresh eye to the work, picking up on any weakness in conflict, or characterisation.

The ability to accept that your book isn’t perfect, is capable of stepping up another gear, is one of requirements of every published author. We all dread “revisions”, but I’ve never had editorial notes that haven’t made my story stronger.

Meanwhile, if you want to share the advice that I gave to Charlotte, you can download Liz Fielding’s Little Book of Writing Romance from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo or Sony - links on the sidebar.

Follow Charlotte’s journey to publication on Twitter @charlieflips and on her blog Her book, as yet untitled (watch this space!)will be available in Riva in the UK in December (coincidentally, alongside the UK Riva release of The Last Woman He’d Ever Date).

NEW VOICES FINALIST

It's been an amazing week for my finalist, Charlotte Phillips, who made the Top 21 in Mills & Boon's NEW VOICES competition

It's been an amazing week for me, too, as we've worked together on Chapter Two of HONEYMOON WITH A STRANGER (love that title!)  Her heroine is hurting, but she's not lying down and taking it. And her hero doesn't know what hit him!

By tomorrow, the second chapters will all be on line and I hope you'll take the time to stop by the website and read her entry here and cheer her on.

I have been cheering on all these brave souls who've put their work on show for anyone to comment on since New Voices launched. It's a huge step, they will have learned a lot in the process, and that makes them all winners in my eyes.

Pivotal moment? Bring it on!