Marketing and social media...

I get a lot of follows on Twitter and here's the thing, unless it's someone I know personally or professionally, I always check to see who they are before deciding whether or not to follow back..

Often they are brand new tweeters. Often, all I get is a blank header with their twitter name and a one word description - possibly writer. Sometime not even that.

Really?

The single most important role of a writer is to communicate but that's the one thing they have failed to do. I have no idea who they are or what they are writing.

If you're going to set up a new social network page, be it twitter, facebook or instagram, you need to show the world who you are and what you do.

You're a new writer - so far unpublished? You don't need a book cover for your graphic.

Use a picture that represents what you do.

Choose it carefully - it's how the world will see you - and make sure you use a picture you have a licence for. If you can't afford to buy one from one of the many sites offering the kind of pictures you need, you could join Unsplash, where generous photographers offer images for free, or use a photograph snapped on your phone. Flowers, your garden , your cat, dog, gerbil, where you live - or the region you write about. An image that says something about you. Just make sure you take it landscape style, because that's the shape of those headers.

Or you can use the space to show how, or where, you write - do you use a notebook and pen, a laptop? Work in a cafe, the library, at the kitchen table, or in the garden?

And tell me what you're writing. Contemporary or historical romance? Women's fiction.?Crime, erotica, fantasy?

Say if, like me, you're a member of RWA in America, or the Romantic Novelists' Association in the UK. I always follow the RNA's NWS members but I won't if all I see is a  blank header and "@xxxxx hasn't tweeted yet".

Communicate. 

That first tweet should be to introduce yourself, entertain, inform. Make me want to follow you. Show me what interests you. Tell me about your research. If you're a writer it will be good practice - because there will come a time when you'll want me to read your book. If I enjoyed your tweets, the chances are that I'll enjoy your book.

I'm at The Chocolate Box today mourning the death of a computer...

Stephanie London talking about writing her first book

I'm absolutely delighted to welcome Stephanie London to my blog this week as she launches her debut book, Only the Brave Try Ballet. Check out that cover!

Over to you, Stephanie! 

Things I Learnt Writing My First Book

Writing a book for the first time is a fantastic life experience. I learnt a lot about myself in the time it took to write, revise (and revise and revise and revise) ONLY THE BRAVE TRY BALLET.  Here are 5 things I learned in the course of writing my first book:

1.Coffee is (and always will be) my best writing companion

2.Feedback is worth its weight in gold and it’s worth putting up with the discomfort and fear of sharing your work for the first time

3.Secondary characters are like pepper – use lightly to add colour and flavour, too much will detract from the main course

4.50,000 words is actually not as long and daunting as it sounds if you write a little every day. 250 words is the equivalent of one book page, if you wrote that every day you would have a category-length novel written in about 6 months

5.Writing a book is a team effort, you need a support network to keep you going when it all feels to crazy/hard/scary

If you’re writing a book for the first time my biggest message to you is: KEEP GOING! It can be hard, frustrating, insomnia-inducing, but it’s so worth it when you type ‘the end’. It’s honestly one of the best feelings in the world.

Official Blurb for Only The Brave Try Ballet:

Step up, Grant Farley…not your typical ballet student!

Football pro Grant Farley is nursing an injury and needs to get back into shape—fast. Ballet wouldn’t be his first or even his last choice, but he’s desperate. Enter tantalizingly prim teacher Jasmine Bell—one disapproving arch of her eyebrow and Grant knows he’ll enjoy getting her tutu in a flutter!

But it’s not only Grant’s flexibility that Jasmine’s pushing to the limit! He knows she feels the heat between them, so why won’t she give in to it? Time to convince Jasmine that if she’s brave enough to dance en pointe she can certainly handle a fling with him!

Excerpt

‘About last night—’ he started.

‘If you say How was it for you? I’m going to brain you with this mug.’ She waved a coffee mug at him as if to illustrate her point.

‘What?’ A sly smile spread over his lips as he leant against the breakfast bar. ‘You got a problem with giving positive reinforcement?’

She poked her tongue out at him.

‘No matter—I’ll take the fact that you screamed the house down to mean I did a good job.’

‘Do you want this coffee or not?’ Her cheeks flamed, but she couldn’t prevent a smile twitching at her lips. He was cocky, but then again, when you were that good…

She held his cup under the coffee machine and filled it with steaming dark liquid. The scent filled the room. Usually it was the most comforting scent in the world—reminiscent of early-morning ballet rehearsals and catch-ups with Elise—but today it did nothing to quell her morning-after jitters. Weren’t people supposed to feel anxious before sex, not after?

‘I’ve heard of love ’em and leave ’em, but never love ’em and cease all conversation,’ he teased.

‘We don’t need to cease all conversations.’

‘Just ones pertaining to sex?’

‘Yes.’ She filled her own mug and brought it close to her face. Inhaling deep, she willed the curling tendrils of steam to work their magic, but her shoulders remained bunched, her hands in a death-grip around the mug’s handle.

‘So…how about that local sports team?’ He drummed his fingers against the countertop.

Purchase from: Amazon (US | UK | CA | Aus), Harlequin Mills & Boon (US | UK | Aus)

Work, rest and play...

I haven't been doing much in the last week except writing. Wrote 1000 words today doesn't  make for exciting reading so I'm posting a picture of what I'm writing about.  This Hadley Chase,  the house at the centre of the book. 

When I haven't been writing, I've been playing in the garden with the grandbabies.

Sharpening the writing pencil...

Here's Gromit, guarding my writing tools. I'm not entirely sure what the pliers are doing in there - maybe I can use them to extract an plot.

Just as the moment I'm sharpening the my writing pencil - okay, pen - for the start of a new book. While I write straight to my computer these days, I still feel the need for a notebook and a good pen when I'm brain storming. That way I can fly off in whatever direction I want, unconstrained by the "enter" key. A list just doesn't work in the same way as a plot spider.

After a couple of really difficult books, during which I was too distracted by outside goings on (ie, selling and moving house) to concentrate on plotting, I've decided that flying into the mist is just too much hard work and I need to plot like a grown up.

I've done it before. I had a plot when I wrote The Sheikh's Unsuitable Bride and that worked, brilliantly. And I had one when I wrote Reunited: Marriage in a Million, because I was writing it as a trilogy with Barbara Hannay and Jackie Braun and we were assigned an editor who had never worked with me before - and we all needed to know what was going on. I didn't stick very closely to my original plan, to be honest, but a plot is not a straightjacket, it's a  road. The department point is known, the destination is clear, but sometimes the satnav takes you on the scenic route.

It'll be fine. I've got the notebook. I've got the pen. All I need now, is an idea. A story idea - one that asks questions.

• Who are these characters who've turned up in my head? 
• What is the driving ambition that keeps them focussed on the future? What do they have to prove?
• Why are they at this point in their lives? 
• What is going to happen to bring them together?
• Why is he the last person in the world she should fall in love with?
• Why, when she is the opposite of everything his world represents, does he keep coming back?
• What fear will keep them from making a commitment?

The more questions I ask, the more I can see their world.

Mills and Boon Author lunch...

Every autumn, Mills and Boon authors gather en masse in London for lunch. We talk - a lot. We have a glass of something uplifting. We eat wonderful food and get updates on what's happening from the publishing team at Harlequin and Mills and Boon.

We get to hear about new series, see advance artwork for new book cover designs and meet old friends and new. This year I was able to meet Charlotte Phillips. Last year, you may remember, I mentored her through the final stages of the New Voices competition. This was her first lunch as a contracted Mills and Boon author. A very special moment for both of us which, since I forgot to take a camera with me, is sadly unrecorded. I'll just say that she's young and pretty and her debut book, Secrets of the Rich & Famous will be published in December.  You'll be hearing lots more about her.

Instead I'm posting a photograph of the surprise goody bags that were waiting for us this year as a treat from Mills and Boon.

It contained a small bottle of champagne, a gorgeous pink notebook and pen, and chocolates. And oh, what chocolates! They were Kir Royale truffles from my own supplier of choice, Hotel Chocolate and this is what they looked like.

I resisted the temptation to scoff them all on the train home, and shared them with the best-beloved, who is and always has been my supporter. They were fabulous!

Off with the high heels now, and the posh two-piece and back to joggers and a t-shirt while I sweat out the last chapter of the book I've been working on for what seems like forever. (Moving house and writing and book are mutually exclusive activites, I've discovered!)