The Pink Heart Society

Male On Monday: Eddie Cibrain plus giveaway!

2012-01-30T00:15:00.000Z

Harlequin Special Edition Author Cindy Kirk explains about why Eddie Cibrain really reflects her current hero and has 3 books up for grabs.

Thanks to the Pink Heart Society forallowing me to guest blog today. I’mreally excited because my latest Harlequin Special Edition, Jackson Hole Valentine,is my 25^th book for Harlequin! And, better yet, my vision of the hero of that book (which is on shelvesnow) is reflected on the cover.

First a little teaser about JacksonHole Valentine so you can get a feel for who the hero is:

When Margaret Fisher’s friends were killed in a tragicaccident, she suddenly found herself co-guardian of the couple’s six-year-oldson. Cole Lassiter was the last man she ever wanted to see again afterhe’d broken her heart in high school, but she’d do anything–even move into hishouse–to be a mother for Charlie.

Successful entrepreneur Cole still felt betrayed byMeg…and couldn’t imagine sharing anything with her, let alone a son. Butwhile adolescent wounds ran deep, so did their very grown-up attraction for oneanother. And as they learned to be good parents to Charlie, themismatched pair were also learning about forgiveness–and the power of foreverlove.

Like most authors, I’ve had covers wherethe hero looks NOTHING like I envisioned him. Growing up I was an avid romance reader. (I started out readingHarlequin Presents) I can’t tell you howmuch I hated it when the hero on the cover didn’t match the way I saw him in myhead. Back then I thought the man on the cover was how the author saw thehero. Now I know that’s not always thecase. J

Anyway, back to Cole Lassiter. I love dark-haired leading men with blue eyes. But while Cole may have blue eyes, the manwho most accurately reflects my vision of Cole is Eddie Cibrian (who has browneyes). Still, I think the cover godssmiled on me this time.

Take a look at the cover of JacksonHole Valentine:

Then, take a look at some photos of EddieCibrian:

Of course, it’s not an exact match but it’sclose enough to make me happy.

The thing about a hero is, although what’son the outside fuels the initial attraction, it’s what he’s like on the insidethat makes the heroine (and us) fall in love with him. Cole is a great guy. He’s a man who has overcome many obstacles tobecome a successful business owner. He’sa person who knows what it’s like to struggle in school and feel stupid, eventhough he’s very intelligent. Mostimportantly, he’s not afraid to look at where he’s fallen short in the past andattempt to make things right.

Out of the twenty-five books I’ve writtenfor Harlequin, there are some leading men who hold a special place in myheart. Cole Lassister is one of them.

In celebration of my 25^thbook for Harlequin, I’m giving away three copies of Jackson Hole Valentine.

All you need to do is comment on thispost and tell me what quality you like to see in a heroto be entered into the drawing.

Let me also shout out a big THANK YOUto everyone who’s bought my books and posted a good review. I appreciateyour support!

To read more about Cindy Kirk and her books, visit her website http://www.cindykirk.com/ . Jackson Hole Valentine is available wherever good books and ebooks are sold.

Writer's Workspace: Beth Cornelison

2012-01-28T00:15:00.000Z

PHS visits Romantic Suspense author Beth Cornelison and gets a sneak peek into where she creates her books!

Hi everyone!

Thanks for letting me share myworkspace with you all. As you can see in the photo, my desk and surroundingspace is a bit cluttered. But then, what writer isn't a little messy? I mean, isn'tclutter a prerequisite for creative people? Well, that's my story and I'm sticking to it...that and I'm on a shortdeadline!

You'll notice that my screensaverand several of the knick-knacks around my computer are Snoopy. Snoopy is mymuse, a fact on which I've blogged previously. You may also notice the fuzzy cutie-pie in my chair. That's Zeke. He's amama's boy and will always hang out close by while I write. As I write this,he's napping on the window perch next to my desk, exhausted from his rigorousphoto shoot.

The gold and black fleur de lispainting in the background is something I picked up at a writer's conferencefund-raising auction for almost nothing. It says Louisiana to me. Our state's French heritage, Cajun culture...andof course Saints football!

The big black chair was anindulgence. Or maybe a necessity. Asmany hours as I spend in that chair, it needed to be comfortable and have goodback support.

The calendar in front of my keyboardkeeps me organized and keeps my life on track. It is Cornelison family central,where I log deadlines, doctor appointments, reminders, to do items, and dailyword counts. I would be lost without mycalendar!

My workspace is one corner of theguest bedroom, which includes my husband's closet. (I hog all of the masterbedroom closet.)

So...nothing earthshaking here. I dream of the day I can have a whole roomfor my office where I can spread out. I'll have whole walls that are full of mykeeper novels by my favorite authors, research books and a chronological supplyof all my backlist books. It's a beautiful dream that smells like a freshlyprinted manuscript and sounds like the clickety click of a keyboard goingninety to nothing!

What am I currently working on inthis office space? I'm putting thefinishing touches on my contribution to a new Harlequin Romantic Suspensecontinuity about the Coltons of Eden Falls. This has been a fun story to writewith a Hollywood starlet with toddler twins as the heroine and a traumatizedwar veteran as the hero. I'm also working on edits of SOLDIER'S PREGNANCYPROTOCOL, Book 1 in my upcoming Black Ops Rescues series. When school teacherErin Bauer gets entangled in the danger surrounding his search for his missingblack ops partner, Alec Kincaid makes it his personal mission to keep Erin andher unborn child safe from the men hunting them. Look for SOLDIER'S PREGNANCYPROTOCOL starting in May and on shelves in early June 2012. Book 2, THE REUNIONMISSION, will be out in August.

Happy reading!

Beth Cornelison

Rita Award finalist Beth Cornelison made her first sale to SilhouetteIntimate Moments in June 2004 and has gone on to publish many more books withHarlequin/Silhouette as well as other publishers. Cornelison has presentedwriting workshops across the United States, and she currently lives inLouisiana with her husband and son. To learn more about Beth's books visit http://www.bethcornelison.com/

On Write Support: Donna's Monthly Check-Up!

2012-01-27T01:00:00.001Z

It's PHS columnist Donna Alward's first ON WRITE SUPPORT COLUMN of the year! A year in the life of a romance writer struggling for balance (joining columnist Mira Lyn Kelly with that one!) with a few triumphs and victories and probably a few fall on the face moments as well... here she is with January's report: the month of resolutions and renewed goals.

January's Symptoms: Well, doc, after the first few days of January I managed to clear the house of kids and husband and got back to work after a few weeks off. Glad I had the break because a Feb 6 deadline was coming up and I have a lot of writing plans for 2012 that mean no falling behind. I must have been full of energy and creativity, because I finished and handed the book in 3 weeks early.

I also ended up getting another opportunity to write a short story for a digital antho coming up soon, which I couldn't have done without having the first project finished, so hooray! Progress on that story ongoing with a send-in date of first week of February (ack!).

Managed to read more than expected - the resolution to read whatever I damn well want is working out great! I have plans to do a January reading sum-up on my personal blog first week of February. So far I've read Unveiled by Courtney Milan, Letters From Home by Kristina McMorris, Igniting The Third Factor by David Jensen, The Birth House by Ami McKay, and The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.

Diet and exercise could have been better (sheepish grin). I worked out most days by doing Ten Minute Trainer with the husband (we do 2 segments, so with warm up etc works out to 24 min). Food wise I had better intentions than execution. Need to be better and it'll take tweaks, not an overhaul. Have joined 2 week kickstart group to whip me into shape. Hope to have better report next month as I have put on holiday weight. Also the 24 min is not enough. I think I need P90X. A friend is also going to lend me TurboJam to try.

Doc's Diagnosis: Not a bad start to the year, missus! Work-wise you're on point, but what is up with the chocolate cake? I know you had it. Tweaks indeed. I bet you told yourself one piece won't hurt, right? Not One Piece a Day, young lady! You're borderline Expanding Butt Syndrome, and I know you don't want that after last year's hard work.

Prescription: Just say no to cake and starch. And get off your bottom and get moving more! You know what works, so get your head right and get at it. No excuses.

Gee, thanks Doc. I think. I'll try to do better. *shuffles out*

Donna's next book is the UK release of HOW A COWBOY STOLE HER HEART - head back to Larch Valley and see what happens when breast cancer survivor Megan Briggs goes head to head with sexy cowboy Clay Gregory! You can can find it on amazon.co.uk and catch up with Donna at her site at http://www.donnaalward.com/

Secrets to Being Fit and Fab: Secret 1 Find Your Ideal Weight Zone

2012-01-26T00:15:00.000Z

In August 2010 PHS editor Michelle Styles weighed 200 lbsand a US size 20 (if not wearing elastic in the waistband). She decided tochange her lifestyle. In October 2011, she weighed 137 lbs and was a US size2/4 (UK 6/8) and knew enough was enough but how to maintain the weightloss? Could she even maintain it?

The sad truth is that about a very high percentage of peoplewho lose weight end up regaining and in fact regaining more than they lost.

I am determined NOT to become part of thatstatistic which regains. It was that determination that led me to TracyAnderson in August of last year when I feared I was starting to head towards 200 again. The determinationenable me to lose 35 lbs very rapidly, going from a US 10 (UK14)to a US 2/4 (UK6/8) in a matter of about 8 weeks.

Last October when I suddenly realised that my size was getting downthere, and that I didn’t want to become underweight, I started looking aroundto find out what came next. How do you maintain your weight? And you know there isn’t a lot out there. Loads about how to lose but maintain -- not much. Suddenly all the support goes. And if you lose a lot quickly, you have to deal with a suddenly changed body image and the different way in which you are treated. Plus there is always the spectre of regaining hanging over. This column is an effort to readdress the balance and provide some of the information I learnt.

The first thing you need to know if you want to maintainyour weight — is what is your ideal weight? And are you ready to make themental leap from *I need to lose a few more pounds* to *actually I am happywith the way I look and how clothes fit me*? It is a huge mental leap and ashift in gears and it is not an easy one to make.

First finding your ideal weight: BMI tables are often usedbut the weight range is huge. For a woman who is 5’ 6” (okay 5’ 5 ½” but Iround up!) a healthy BMI weight is somewhere between 118 lbs and 153 lbs. You could use a ready reckoner of 100 lbs for the first 5 feet plus 5 lbs forevery inch and then +/- 10%. I discovered this ready reckoner in Nancy Clarke's Sports Nutrition Book. Using 5’ 5½” it gives me 127 lbs +/- 13 lbs.

But where on therange? 26 lbs is better than nearly 40 lbs but could be several dress sizes. I wanted to narrow it to about 10 lbs.

Frame size does play a part. Ihave a medium frame which means if I ever got down to 114 - 118 lbs, I’dlook way to thin. You must trust me on this.

The easiest way to tell if you have a small, medium or largeframe is to your thumb and index finger around your opposite wrist bone. If youcan overlap, you are small framed. If they just touch, you are medium and ifyou have a gap, you are large. Smallerframes should be at the lower end of the scale and large frames at the top. Ihave a medium frame.

You can also look at clothes size and your lifestyle. Howmuch effort does it take to be a certain size? I also enjoy my food and while Ilike exercising, doing one hour of cardio and a half hour of muscular structure6x a week is enough for me. I prefer to eat more liberally and exercisemore. Other people have different preferences and that is fine.

Being between a 2/4 US( 6/8 UK) is small enough for me. Anysmaller and it is difficult to find clothes to fit. Even when you are down at 4(UK 8), stores tend not to stock very many clothes.

But why a weight zone, rather than a specific target weight.

People’s weight does not stay the same. Your weight can go and up down by 5 lbs in a day. The time of the month can factor in. That iswhy it is best to have an ideal zone rather than a specific number. My idealzone is between 130 -140 lbs. And it was not easy for me once I decided I hadreached the zone. Suddenly I had toadmit to myself that I was comfortable with my weight.,,after a lifetime of being uncomfortable. My life had not suddenly changed but my outlook had.

The other thing to remember is that your ideal weight ispersonal and a function of your lifestyle and how you look to you. You need tolove your shape and embrace it. Write down a list of the reasons why you likeyou at this weight. Put it somewhere where you can see it. Add to it. When youlook in the mirror, look for the things you like about your body, rather thanthe things that need fixing. Repeat that list while looking at your body.Embrace your imperfections as they make you you.

Once having decided you are at your ideal weight, you dohave to decide on a plan for maintenance and what will you do if the weightstarts creeping up. Having a plan means that you can start to own your weight,rather than fearing that your new body is just a loan, ready to be whisked awayat midnight by some fairy godmother.

That is next month’s topic — traffic lights,zoning and adjusting your diet and/oryour exercise. In other words using your scale as a tool rather than as TheEnemy.

Michelle Styles writes warm, witty and intimate historical romance for Harlequin Hisotrical.Her next book, His Unsuitable Countess will be published in August 2012 in both the US and the UK. You can learn more about Michelle's books on www.michellestyles.co.uk

Call Story: Judy Lynn Hubbard

2012-01-25T00:15:00.000Z

The Pink Heart Society is delighted to welcome debut Kimani author Judy Lynn Hubbard who tells her Call Story today. Take it away Judy!

I wrote my first book in 1988. It was a 500-page jumbled mess of descriptionand dialogue, but it proved to me that I had the commitment, attention anddedication to actually write a book, so I kept writing and submitting any andeverywhere I could think of. To behonest, I was nowhere ready to be published until around 1999 when I hadwritten my third novel, but I kept submitting and the rejections interspersedwith much-appreciated words of encouragement kept coming. I never gave up hope though; I knew in myheart I was a writer and one day if I persevered, I would be able to say I wasa published writer—well, that day has finally arrived.

On November 10, 2010, at exactly1:40 p.m. (I know becauseI was anxiously staring at the clock), I received “the call” I hadbeen waiting for my entire writing life!

I had been corresponding, submitting, re-writing andre-submitting to Harlequin Kimani Romance for the past 6 months, hoping againsthope that this was finally it—my big break, and luckily it was. During one of our E-mail sessions, theEditorial Assistant, Alex, asked if I would be available for a call later inthe day. My heart jumped into my throat and my fingers started shaking,but I managed to type out a reply stating that I definitely would. “Good. Expect a call,” I wasinformed.

EXPECT A CALL???!!! Oh my goodness—would this be "THE CALL"?

A few hours later, when my phone range and the caller IDlisted a New Yorkarea code, I knew this was it. I quicklysnatched up the phone after a fewminutes of pleasantries while I nervously chewed on my lower lip and silentlyadmonished myself to remain calm and professional (advice I had to repeat onceI realized this indeed was "the call"), I was happilyinformed Harlequin Kimani wanted to buy not one, but two of my novels!

Even though I was jumping 10 feet off the ground screamingin joy (in my head of course), somehow, I kept talking and making somesemblance of sense for the remainder of that wonderful conversation. Whenwe rang off, I was told to expect an email with further clarification of whatwould we had talked about—a good thing too, because all I remembered was that I HAD GOTTEN A PUBLISHINGOFFER FROM HARLEQUIN!

Finally all alone, I allowed my joy to erupt—jumping up anddown, screaming at the top of my lungs for several satisfying minutes andtwirling around like a happy idiot. Boy do I wish I had a video of thatmoment—well, maybe not! When I had somewhat calmed myself (not really), Ipicked up the phone and began calling everyone I could think of to spread thegood news. The first two callswere to my sister, Norma, and my cousin, Trina—the two people I forcedproofreading and critiquing duties on frequently (sorry guys). Further screaming ensued along withcongratulations and when I had told everyone I could think of, I sat down at mydesk with an ear-to-ear grin plastered on my face.

I was supposed to be working on my "real job”—you knowthe one that pays the bills and puts groceries on the table; however, Icouldn't bring myself to do anything but smile at my computer screen as Iwaited for my official offer letter to materialize. Within 30 minutes, myE-mail from Kimani arrived (don't you just love technology?) listing specificsof my two-book deal. I printed the pages out, handled them gingerly likethe awesome treasure they were and naturally another bout of screaming andjumping followed.

Somewhat exhausted for the moment I settled down in mychair again and realized that I hadreally received a publishing offer from Harlequin; I held the evidence inmy hands. I couldn’t stop smiling andwaiting impatiently for my contract to arrive (I assumed by snail mail,but it showed up in my E-mail spam folder (YIKES!!) three weeks later and afterI quickly retrieved it from certain deletion (WHEW!), I signed and mailed itback via snail mail. My first advance checkwas delivered about five weeks later just in time for New Year's 2011—and yes, I was still smiling!

Judy's debut These Arms of Mine is out now and can be bought from Amazon.com, Harlequin or wherever Harlequin books and ebooks are sold. It is even out as an ebook in the UK. You can learn more about Judy and her books at her website www.judylynnhubbard.com or connect with her on Facebook

A Writer's World - Summer Temptations - Annie West

2012-01-24T00:00:00.008Z

Hi everyone, and welcome to the first of my posts about 'A Writer's World'. Each month I'll share some aspect of my personal writer's world. It may be an aspect of the writing life I'm dealing with, a part of the world I'm in or my characters are (!) or something you're interested in discussing. If you have any suggestions or requests, just email me at annie@annie-west.com and I'll do my best to cover the topic.

So first off, since I live in the southern hemisphere, this January it's all about summer and the temptations it brings. I know some of you are in the chilly north but I figure you can use your imaginations to remember that long distant summer.

For me summer is pure temptation. It's cherry season for a start (YUM). Summer fruit is about in abundance, and having cooked and eaten my way through Christmas and New Year, it's an effort to rein in the expanded appetite (and waistline) and try to remember healthy eating. After all, it's the season for BBQs here and there's nothing more tempting than the smell of outdoor cooking. Days are long and it's the time for catching up with friends, for picnics, trips to the beach, or getting out with the family.

In Australia there's the summer tradition of test cricket. There's nothing as relaxing as pottering about to the sound of a cricket ball plocking against willow then racing to the TV to see what the fuss is about when someone hits a six or is clean bowled. There's also the Australian Open Tennis and the possibility of nail-biting matches to distract. There are books to be caught up on. That sense that, since it's summer we should find a little 'down time'.

Then there are the energetic things - setting goals for the year, plotting the calendar, tackling those things that have bugged you all year and you never had time for (what IS in the depths of the cupboard in the spare room?). Plus, living in a warm, coastal area, the garden is growing so fast I can almost see it rise. The weeds threaten to choke the place and I need to assert control.

For me, summer should be a mix of family time, relaxation and judicial tidying and catching up. In reality? Well, you may guess when I tell you the photo of the beach is one I took some time ago and I haven't been to the beach at all yet this summer.

So here comes the Writer's Summer Reality Check. My book is due at the end of the month. It's great to feel it's almost done, but to get to that stage, summer has been, for me, a matter of resisting temptation. OK, OK, so I didn't resist nearly enough of the food temptations. But I haven't treated myself to a week of lazing by the water, book in hand, or watching the stars of tennis battle it out on TV. I've been slogging away trying to make my story the best it can be. Hard to do when the rest of the family is on holidays. I want to join them, even when it comes to tackling the rampant weeds threatening my roses. Gee - that DOES sound desperate. Then there was the added complication of getting a passing flu virus and still needing to write. Than another virus hit the family. Sound familiar? The downside about being a writer is you don't get time off from your work just because of illness.

Of course there have been breaks between the work. I've still had a lovely summer so far. One of the treats was two days away in Sydney. I got to see the Picasso exhibition and then lunch just across the road from the art gallery in a pavilion looking over the domain (I've posted the view for you above). It was lovely sitting there, having a relaxed lunch and knowing those city buildings were full of people working when I wasn't! I spent time by the harbour, saw a terrific production of 'The Magic Flute' which made me laugh with delight, went to the movies and generally treated myself.

So, now I'd like to know: what does summer tempt you with? Does summer mean something special to you? Does it conjure special childhood memories, or are their more recent temptations that summer brings? Do you resist them or do you give in and enjoy? And if it's too much of a strain to remember summer, by all means tell me about your winter temptations.

As this is the first of my new columns I'm celebrating. I'LL GIVE AWAY TWO COPIES of my recent US release THE SAVAKIS MERGER. The books will go to two people, chosen at random from those who leave a comment.

If you want to catch up with Annie's books here are two up and coming releases to check out. GIRL IN THE BEDOUIN TENT has already been released in the US and Australia but is a North American release in March. Meanwhile, Annie's just learned her story THE GREEK TYCOON'S UNEXPECTED WIFE is part of an anthology called GREEK AFFAIRS: TEMPTED BY THE TYCOONS, available in February in kindle edition and in March in paperback in the UK. Isn't it the most delicious cover? To find out more about any of these books, drop by Annie's website.

Male On Monday :: David Beckham

2012-01-23T00:58:00.093Z

The Pink Heart Society editor Jenna Bayley-Burke shares the hero inspiration for her latest release, the ever ogleable David Beckham.

This week H&M released posters of the magficent David Beckham. Just like when his Armani ads came out, women everywhere took a moment to appreciate and fantacize about such a gorgeous example of what we love in our fantasy men.

The thirty-six-year-old father of four became a professional athlete at just seventeen. He quickly became a star, and when he began dating Posh Spice, a superstar. Their combined followings provided the perfect storm of celebrity publicity, and they've been steadily riding those waves ever since.

Even though he is beyond sexy, the most attractive thing about David Beckham may be that he is happily married, devoted to his wife and children. Most paparazzi candids find the Beckham crew together, doing what most families with young kids do - grocery shop and play outside.

And then there is the glamour factor. He goes to all the best parties with the other famous celebrities, lives on an estate he bought for a cool twenty-two million, and travels the world. He must smell amazing because he has his own cologne. He dresses well, probably contractually obligated to look good as part of his endorsement contracts. The thoughtful tone of his autobiographical books, his work with UNICEF, and even his bad-boy tatoos representing his wife and children all add to the mystique.

Definitely Male On Monday worthy.

Is it any wonder Jenna let David inspire the hero of her latest book? For Kicks releases tomorrow, January 24th. To celebrate Jenna is holding a Twitter contest and skipping around the internet on a blog tour. Stop by each blog post for a chance to win a $5 egift card for Amazon, B&N or a bookstore of your choice. If you've already picked up For Kicks, use it to snag another of Jenna's titles.

Do you want to win? The winner will be posted around midnight tonight in the comment stream. Be sure to check back. Just comment on this question...

What is the sexiest thing about a man? For me it's not about his ability to attract a woman, but how he keeps her interested in him forever. Now that is a skill.

Writers Workspace: Allie Plieter

2012-01-21T00:30:00.000Z

The Pink Heart Society would like to say a huge welcome to Allie Plieter who writes for Harlequin Love Inspired.

Anavid knitter, coffee junkie, and devoted chocoholic, Allie Pleiter writes bothfiction and non-fiction. Theenthusiastic but slightly untidy mother of two, Allie spends her days writingbooks, buying yarn, and finding new ways to avoid housework. Allie hails from Connecticut, moved to themidwest to attend Northwestern University, and currently lives outside Chicago,Illinois. The “dare from a friend” tobegin writing has produced two parenting books, fourteen novels, and variousnational speaking engagements on faith, women’s issues, and writing. Visit her website at www.alliepleiter.comor her knitting blog at www.DestiKNITions.blogspot.com

Allie is here today to talk about her workspace. Take it away Allie!

Where do I write?

Everywhere. Kitchen counter, couch, coffee shop, back deck, everywhere. I do have amessy desk,but it mostly just holds papers.

My favorite place is on a big comfy pillow, infront of the fire, with a cup of coffee and my dog. It’s hard not to love a job you can do socomfortably in your pajamas.

Chad Owens, my hero in FALLING FOR THE FIREMAN,probably wouldn’t approve of my laid back approach. He’s a fire marshall who used to go out oncalls, but his current scars run so deep they keep him pinned to a boring desk.A very neat, very tidy desk (totally unlike mine). He’s so busy being dark anddreary that Jeannie Nelworth can’t believe the tender guy she discovers underall that grumpiness. Don’t you justlove--as one reader put it--”the hard shell heroes with soft centers?”

I love my dog, so I figured it’d be fun to put adog in this story, too. Plug is nostandard issue firehouse Dalmatian. He’sno cuddly pup, either. He’s a big, fat,lazy, endearing hound who becomes a crucial ambassador for the firehouse. Sure, he looks slow, but Plug manages to getboth Jeannie and her troubled son Nicky firmly entangled in Chad’s life.

Jeannie and Chad take a long time to figure outwhy they’re good for each other. Likemost great love stories, each can’t stand each other for all the reasons thatmake them a perfect match. They gettheir happy ending, but not before a whole lot of healing takes place. Healing is never easy--as a matter of fact,it’s usually a very messy business. Adda sullen teenage boy to the mix, and both Jeannie and Chad have their handsfull.

Does this unlikely family-to-be get their happyending? Well, what kind of romanceauthor would I be if they didn’t? Ofcourse they do. Just because I write inunconventional places doesn’t mean I don’t understand all good love storiesmust have their happy ending.

And, oh, by the way, did I mention thatchocolate covered salted caramels are involved? Because who could resist puppies andfireman and chocolate??

Fallingfor the Fireman

HarlequinLove Inspired February 2012

ISBN#978-0-373-87725-6

Back Cover Copy:

There's something achingly familiar aboutthe look in fire marshal Chad Owens's eyes. Widowed mom Jeannie Nelworth knowsfirsthand what it is: loss, hurt and yes—bitterness. Ever since the fire thatchanged their lives, Jeannie's young son has borne that same look, pushingeveryone away. So she's grateful when Chad tries to get through to the boy withthe help of his trusty fire station dog.

But the man who's all about safety andprevention keeps himselfprotected—from loving and losing again. Seems as if Jeannie will have to addhis kind, guarded heart to her rebuilding efforts.

MUST WATCH FRIDAY: Attack the Block

2012-01-20T01:00:00.001Z

Mills & Boon Riva/Harlequin Presents Extra author Heidi Rice takes a walk on the wild side with this brilliant little indie sci-fi thriller which features a gang of 'Sauf London' hoodies as the good guys!

Attack the Block is one of those surprising little gems that has it all — comedy, adventure, blood-thirsty aliens, insightful social commentary and a young and engaging cast of unknowns in the leads! Now, while I consider it a great movie for teenagers as well as their parents it is a little rough around the edges (and if you don't like to hear kids swearing like troupers that might be something to keep in mind before showing it to younger teens!). But to be honest, this is a movie that tells it how it is (with added aliens!), so I wasn't too bothered by the colourful language.

What I found so endearing about this movie, was that it didn't take any easy options with its cast of young characters. They belong to a gang on a South London housing estate. And while their lives are blighted by poverty, lack of opportunity and eventually by an invasion of furry, glow-in-the-dark alien marauders, at the start, they are NOT heroes. In fact, they're exactly the opposite. What we see is what we expect. A gang of tough kids who mug a hard-working nurse and don't feel a single moment of remorse. These are the 'hoodies' gleefully demonised by the tabloid press during the London riots (one can't help thinking this movie was a bit prescient in that respect) and there are a lot of things about them to dislike.

But then when the aliens start beaming down, it's the nurse (played with a fabulous mix of outrage and compassion by Jodie Whittaker), a pot-growing local pothead (the inimitable Nick 'Shaun of the Dead' Frost) and the teen gang who are the only thing standing between South London and anilihation - and so they are forced to team up to survive.

Suddenly, we see these kids in a whole different light. They're brave, resourceful, remarkably loyal to one another and their lives are much tougher than we could have imagined - there's an absolutely heartbreaking moment when the leader of the gang (the electrifying young actor John Boyega) has to walk through his flat to draw the creatures out and we see how destitute his life really is.

I adored this movie! It was fun, fast-moving, edge-of-your-seat exciting, riotously funny at times, terrifyingly hard-hitting at others and had a compelling message lurking beneath the entertainment. And I defy anyone who watches it not to be rooting for these kids by the end of it, even though they are little buggers who would probably mug you as soon as look at you... And you can't say that about many movie heroes, now can you!

Heidi is currently beavering away to finish her 12th M&B novel. Her newest Riva, The Good, The Bad and the Wild, is out in March in the UK and Ireland, and her latest Harlequin Presents Extra, Cupcakes and Killer Heels is also out in March in the US. She loves to hear from readers on her blog, her Facebook page, her website or Twitter (@HeidiRomRice).

The Learning Curve of the New Author

2012-01-19T00:30:00.000Z

I was really delighted to be invited to be an Editor withPink Heart Society and write a monthly column for them. Not least because I’ve spent the last fewyears reading this blog and hopefully learning from it.

Almost exactly one year ago I got The Call. On 21^st January at 1.34pm. Not that it is engrained in my brain oranything. The chance to join the medicalauthors that I’d always read was a dream come true. And so started my life as a published author.

For the last year I have been on a steep learningcurve. I’ve learned a whole host ofthings that I didn’t even realise I needed to know. And that’s what I plan to share.

So where to start? Let’s start at the very beginning…a very good place to start. Are you all singing yet?

What happens when you get The Call? Well, one of the first thing that happens isyour editor wants to know what name you’re going to publish your story under.

Lots of people use their real name, many others publishunder a pseudonym. I hadn’t given it alot of thought. Some other would-beauthors have already picked their pseudonyms and set up their websites andblogs. I had done the obligatory googlesearch and amazon search under my own name and found another author publishedin the US – and unfortunately she wrote romance! I spoke to my editor about this and sheinvestigated a little further and came back and told me I’d need to pick apseudonym.

Easier said than done.

Why? You have tocheck no-one else is published under the name. Another author signed before me had to add an initial into her name todifferentiate her from someone using the same name. The name has to be acceptable fortranslations as Harlequin Mills & Boon stories are sold all over theworld. Should you pick a name that putsyou at the beginning of the alphabet? How close is the name to your own – because people might actually callyou that name and you have to remember to answer to it! And more importantly your editor has thefinal say! They might tell you theyalready have too many other authors with the same first name. One other Mills and Boon author told mesuggested 11 pseudonyms before they finally agreed on one!

So I drew up a shortlist and my family and workmates votedon it.

Poppy Wilson

Scarlet Bain

Reese Elliott

Suzanne Wilson

Ruby Bain

Where did they come from? Don’t ask. No, honestly don’t. Some of the names I just liked. One is the name my mother wanted to call mewhen I was born. Another is anamalgamation of my children’s names. Onesurname is my own, the other my partners.

And do you see a theme emerging? Scarlet, Ruby, Poppy – yes, I’m a big fan ofthe colour red.

And the winner was?

Scarlet Bain. And wasI allowed to use it? No. It apparently sounded like a lady of thenight. I was asked to use my own surnameWilson as it sounded more ‘wholesome’. So I became Scarlet Wilson. Andnow I quite like it. I’ve liked becomingScarlet and it means I have an excuse to wear a lot of red at any author thingsI go to.

So think carefully about your writing name. It can also become the name your work iscopyrighted under.

And remember, even though you might have a shiny blog underyour chosen pseudonym you might be asked to change it!

So, do you write under your own name? Or have you already picked a pseudonym andwhere did it come from? And would you bewilling to change?

Fiona Harper On Writing: Let's start at the very beginning...

2012-01-18T00:00:00.000Z

I have to Iadmit it, I'm a bit of a structure junkie. Okay, I'm a lot of a structure junkie. I’ve always been that way. Don’t just show me the detail, show me how itfits into the big picture. Don’t get me wrong – I love those close-uplittle details too. I just get even more excited when I see those deliciouslittle nuggets in context.

Anyway, I thought I would indulge my love of structure in my new monthly columnfor the PHS! For the next few months I’m going to be talking storystructure – but not just story structure on its own. Romances arecharacter-driven stories, so I’m going to be chatting about all the yummythings I’ve been reading over the last couple of years about how story structureand character development go together.

Let’s start at the very beginning…
Okay, so let’s jump right in with the basics! I tend to plot in a classic three-act structure. In a nutshell:

Act one – sets your story and your characters up, and introduces a thread of conflict.
Act two – sends them on an adventure or course of action, with escalating stakes and intensifying conflict.
Act three – sees the climax of the story, which brings about the resolution of that conflict

TodayI’m going to be looking at the very first part of the first act. Althoughthis might seem like a pre-amble to the main action of the story, it’s a veryimportant part. I see this as the seed plot of the story. Everything that happens in your story should have its beginnings here: theplot, the characters, the conflict… Sometimes these things might be hintsand shadows of things to come, buried so deep we hardly notice them, but theyneed to be there.

Ordinary World
This is what ChristopherVogler, author of The Writer’s Journey calls The OrdinaryWorld section of the story. I think that’s a great description. I basically see this as the ‘before’ shot of my characters. They’re goingalong, minding their own business, doing things the way they’ve always donethem, but little do they know change is coming, and it’s going to rock theirworld!

But before they get that jolt into the adventure of the story, it’s good to seethem in their natural habitat, indulging in their customary behaviour. Why? We’re not going to understand the significance of where they end upat the end of the story, why those hard-fought battles were so important, if wedon’t know where they’ve come from.

The ‘before’ picture
Sometimes this ‘ordinary world’ or ‘set up’ stage can last a few chapters;sometimes only a few pages or paragraphs – it will all depend on the needs ofthe individual book – but how ever long this introductory section of your storyis, we should see where your character has room to grow, how they need tochange, and be able to spot the seeds of their coming conflict.

Flaw? What flaw?
Dara Marks, in herexcellent book, Inside Story: The Power of the Transformational Arc,describes what she calls the fatal flaw. Some people see this asbeing a characteristic or trait of the protagonist that will need to be workedthrough, but I love Marks’s take on the subject. She defines the fatalflaw as a method of behaviour, a survival system, that the character has developedin order to cope with life.

I like this idea. It allows for more depth than a character who is justborn stubborn or has a naturally short fuse. If the fatal flaw is asurvival system and not just a trait, it means the character themselves is theauthor of that flawed behaviour, it wasn’t just something handed out to them byGod at birth. Whether they have realised it or not, the character hascreated their own problem, and they are going to have to delve insidethemselves if they are going to solve it. See what I mean? Juicy. Instantly, we’re talking about internal conflict.

Basically, the protagonist has been behaving a certain way, and that method ofliving has served them (sort of) well until now. They may not be joyouslyhappy, but they aren’t in the depths of despair either – it’s a trade-off thatallows them to keep the status quo. But once the plot gets going, thatsurvival system is not going to measure up. It’s not going to work inthis new situation.

To help me get a handle on my character’s fatal flaw, I like to sum it up in aphrase – a motto, if you like. The silent subconscious drumbeat thatinforms their every action.

I'm going to use the film French Kiss as an example:

Kate, ahistory teacher, is engaged to Charlie. Kate is a warm, loving woman, but shehas a flaw: she’s scared of everything! She won’t fly, she won’t eatcheese and she doesn’t like foreigners (especially the French). To Kate,the world is a scary place and she hangs tight onto everything to try and keepherself safe. She plans, she worries, but she doesn’t really live. If I could sum up Kate’s motto, it would be: Safety first!

Can we see where Kate’s going to have to grow? Of course we can! She’sgoing to have to let go of those iron reins of control and learn to live alittle, because who wants to live a narrow, neurotic, clenched life?

We can also see the seeds of the coming conflict: as lovely as Kate is, evenCharlie is having a little wobble. She’s got their whole life planned outfor the next sixty years and it’s starting to make him twitchy. Not alot, but there’s a hint of it there, even though we see he clearly loves Kate.

It's all there: character traits, conflict, an idea of where the plot might begoing, but in seed form. It's going to take something out of the ordinaryto germinate that sucker and see it grow...

Next time: catalysts, triggers, calls and inciting incidents!

FionaHarper's latest release The Ballerina Bride (US title)/Dancing WithDanger (UK title) is available now at Harlequin,Mills&Boon and Amazon.

Ballerinaon the run!
Prima ballerina Allegra's spent her life on stage. But now there arewhispers that the superstar's lost her sparkle… So when she's offered a week ona tropical island, for survival expert Finn McLeod's TV show, she leaps at it!

Finn's frankly unimpressed—how will this fragile-looking girl survive life inthe wild? But for Allegra, it's not the island that's the problem, but herall-consuming crush on the unavailable Finn! Gorgeous on TV, close up he'sdevastating—and Allegra's hours of disciplined dance practice are useless whenit comes to resisting temptation….

Destination Life : : The Writer’s World

2012-01-17T00:01:00.000Z

With this post Anne McAllister embarks on a year-long journey through places, experiences, emotions and everything else that goes into creating a fictional world. She hopes you’ll come along for the ride.

Even though this series is called “Destination Life” I’m not so sure life is about a destination.
I think it’s more about the journey.
And for writers that journey really is a lifetime project.
You begin to work before you even know that’s what you’re going to do.
When I was five, for example, I fell in love with a cowboy. I didn’t know that forty-odd years later I’d be dragging up that memory and making a book – or a dozen – out of it.
When I was seven and spent part of a summer in Colorado with my grandparents, I walked miles (or maybe a mile) alone along a parched, cracked dirt road and up a mountain. Lots of years later a ten year old fictional girl in my head did exactly the same thing at a turning point in her life. It gave her a new perspective. Who knew?
When I was twenty and stared starry-eyed into my beloved’s eyes at our engagement dinner at the Biltmore Hotel in Santa Barbara overlooking the Pacific, I didn’t have a clue that my 64th heroine would be at the Biltmore staring across the table at a hero she was ready to strangle and yet, thirty pages later and half a world away in Bangkok, she would fall into his arms. (Incidentally I borrowed Bangkok from a friend. That’s another cool thing – the experiences don’t actually have to be your own!).
I didn’t know that adopting children would be grist for the mill or that breaking my foot could, under the right fictional circumstances, be laughable. At least my editor thought it was laughable. My hero, he of the broken foot, still doesn’t see what was so funny.
I didn’t know seasickness could have an up-side or that bodysurfing would be a metaphor. I didn’t know that the old man who lent my daughter a horse would lend me a fictional one or that he would make a cameo appearance in my first book. So it’s not true that what’s real is real and what’s fiction is fiction and never the twain shall meet.
They meet.
Once upon a time I cut out the photo of a drop-dead gorgeous man in a long-sleeved dress shirt in the Penney’s catalogue and sent it to the art department, hoping to get him on the cover of my book.
Amazingly, there he is. And because of that one action (combined with a whole lot of others), my whole series of Savas-Antonides exists. Parenthetically, so does my book Imagine, because upon discovering that I’d sent his picture to the art department, Mr Gorgeous said to the cover artist, “I’d like to meet that woman,” and a few months later, he did.
So . . . you never know.
A writer’s life is like a great recycle bin. You sit down to create a story and you don’t make it out of nothing. You bring to it pieces of everywhere you’ve been, everyone you know, all the books you’ve read, the movies you’ve seen, the feelings and experiences you’ve had. And all the things that everyone else you know has done, thought, hoped for, dreamed about or refused to do, too.
You can try to find just the things you’ll need and line them up, ready to stick in your story. But the fact is, you never know what you need until you’re writing it.
And then life provides it.
You bring your perspective to all of these things, you imagine and you embroider and you shape. You discover patterns and possibilities. You stick things in, you take things out. You look at them from one point of view and then another.
It fits – or it doesn’t. And if it doesn’t, you do it again. That’s called rewriting. We all do it.
And then when it works, when it looks right, when it resonates with something inside you that says, “Yes!” you stitch all of it together – the odd bits and the old pieces – and you make something else out of them – something that wasn’t there until they all came together: something real and beautiful and, above all, emotionally true.
That’s the joy of the writer’s world, I think – that we not only get to experience life the first time around, but that we can re-discover it, re-use it, re-imagine it in a million different ways.
We take the old, the used, the experienced, the stuff that happened not just to us but to others, too, and we find new life in it. We think about it, re-imagine it, twist it, turn it, and in doing so, we capture new visions and old truths. And if we do our job well, those truths – our books and our characters -- will resonate with readers all over the world.
How much fun is that?
Anne’s next book, coming in April from Harlequin Presents Extra, is Savas’s Wildcat, the emotional truth that came out of piecing together memories of Balboa Island, grandmothers, babies, large interfering families, cats, librarians, San Francisco, real-life Greek heroes, and men who wear long-sleeved dress shirts from Penney’s -- though not in this book (although, come to think of it, is that a long-sleeved dress shirt she sees on the cover? Hmmm.)

Male on Monday: Benedict Cumberbatch

2012-01-16T00:15:00.000Z

PHS Editor Michelle Styles discovers a new obession Benedict Cumberbatch

Okay by rights, Benedict Cumberbatch shouldn't be sexy. He is more of a younger brother type or possibly a boy next door who is a mad scientist. His looks are regular. He is tall but not commanding. I didn't understand why certain authors thought him wonderfully sexy. These authors I should mention are drawn to awkward but cerebral men.. I did understand that he is a fantastic actor and capable of playing really interesting and intriguing characters really well. However then I saw him in Sherlock or more specifically in the first episode of second series and I could understand the fuss. Against the odds, he is unbelievably sexy.
There is just something about him and his bold blue eyes. And his voice. Or maybe it is just the coat.

Benedict Cumberbatch is the son of 2 actors. His father acts under the name of Timothy Charlton and his mother is Wanda Ventham. Orginally Benedict was going to use his father's acting last name but was convinced by someone in the business that Benedict Cumberbatch stood out more. he has joked that the last name sounds like a fart in the bath. However it sounds, he has acting talent oozing out of his pores.
Born in the very hot summer of 1976, Clumberbatch went to Harrow and eventually to LAMDA. He was won a number of awards as well appearing in films such as War Horse, Amazing Grace and Atonement and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. Besides Sherlock, he has been in Spooks, Small Island and the bio docudrama about Stephen Hawking where he first really came to the public's attention. He also acts in the theatre. Dr Frankenstien with Jonny Lee Miller was a recent triumph. GQ named him their actor of 2011. He will be in the Hobbit as Smaug. He will also appear in the television drama Parade's End.
He ended a 12 year relationship in 2010 and keeps his private life private.
If you are looking for someone who can make science sexy, look no further.

Michelle Styles writes warm, witty and intimate historical romance for Harlequin Historical. You can read more about her books on www.michellestyles.co.uk.

Writer’s Workspace :: Heidi Rice + Giveaway

2012-01-14T00:15:00.000Z

The Pink Heart Society is excited to peek into the office of one of our favorite Harlequin Presents authors, Heidi Rice! Not only is she letting us voyeur, she's giving away a copy of her latest book. Read on...

I have a terrible confession to make here, especially to all those published authors and soon-to-be-published authors who manage to write at kitchen tables, on their alpha-smart or iPad while doing the school run and in any available corner or snippet of time they have… I dare say they’re a lot more productive than I am, because I have to have total calm, a designated desk (although it doesn’t have to be tidy) and a lockable door (especially if teenage children are in the vicinity) to get anything done at all.

You may have already guessed that my work ethic isn’t quite as focused and prodigious as I’d like it to be. Plus I have the added handicap of being a master procrastinator. As a result it took me many years after I got the general inkling that I would like to write a book (which let’s face it pretty much everyone in the world has had at one time or another) before I actually got down to attempting to finish one of those half-finished projects in a tidy but mostly unopened file on my Apple Mac.

Now that’s not to say that I hadn’t been writing stuff. When my oldest son was three I left my full-time job as a journalist on a TV magazine and started writing film reviews for a newspaper on a computer in a tiny desk in the corner of our bedroom in our two-bedroom flat. It was cramped and rather crap – having to write in a space that was distressingly close to a nice big double bed — but this wasn’t a problem when writing 100 word reviews. Your attention span doesn’t have to be that great, you can stop and start at will and weekly copy deadlines keep you remarkably focussed. But when it came to writing my ‘great romantic novel’ that slap-dash & panic work habit didn’t really fly. So I never seemed to find the time to actually open that damn file and finish a story.

Then after my second son was born two years later we moved into a four-bedroom house! Suddenly I had my own study, my own work station. And no more excuses. Because I was still writing film reviews, it took me four solid years to finish that first manuscript, because despite my lovely new workspace, my work ethic hadn’t really improved. But that said, when I did find the time between kids and husband and film previews and coffee dates and generally mucking about, I discovered that I loved the actually business of creating my own characters, having conversations with them in my head and getting their story down on paper right to their happy ever after.

That first manuscript got rejected by Silhouette Special Editon…. But I’d learned so much not just about the craft of writing and how to develop my own unique voice, but also about my own particular process. I learned that I don’t do particularly well spending long hours sitting at a keyboard… That for me putting in time each day just day-dreaming about my characters and their journey is important too… And I can do that anywhere.

My second manuscript got accepted (which I managed to write in a Speedy Gonzalez fast for me ten months!!) and I was offered a two-book contract. And I have to admit then panic set in. Somehow or other I managed to write another book, and not only that but I did it in six months… But now, whenever I’m struggling at my desk, I give myself permission to get on my bike (literally!) and cycle down to the gym, or even just pop downstairs and make a cup of tea, while I mull over my latest problem.

But I still love my workspace. I have all my film books and my favourite romances on custom-made shelves — not to mention my own books, to remind me I can do it when I’m doubting myself. I have a sofa when I’m reading through my AAs and rough drafts, etc. I stick a sign on my door when I’m under the deadline cosh to tell my now teenage sons to bugger off or I’m canceling Christmas/Holidays/Pocket Money, etc! And I have posters of my three muses Marlon, Jimmy Dean and Paul Newman looking down on me. For those moments when you just need that added incentive of gazing at super-hot bad boy tottie to inspire you.

Well, it works for me – most of the time!

Now, I also have rather a lot of free copies of the US edition of Cupcakes and Killer Heels (out in March as a Harlequin Presents Extra) currently cluttering up my workspace… So I’d like to give a copy away to one lucky commentator.

Keep up with Heidi on her blog, her Facebook page, her website or on Twitter (@HeidiRomRice).

Fill The Well Friday :: The Fun Plan

2012-01-13T02:41:00.000Z

As The Pink Heart Society looked toward a new year, editor Michelle Styles thought to set aside her Fill The Well column. Jenna Bayley-Burke picked it right up, deciding she wanted a turn. Be sure to check back the second Friday of each month to see what she's done to Fill The Well.

I made a list. There is something so exciting about putting down a plan, especially when you're thinking about having fun and not what to pick up at the grocery store. I had a bit of a health scare at the end of last year, so this year I'm going to do all those things that wind up in the 'someday' file.

I'm talking things I can do, if only I make the time. As much as I'd love to say that this year I'll see Paris, Anguilla and the Northern Lights, those aren't in my budget - with time or money or ability to bribe babysitters.

I'm thinking more in terms of going to a comedy club for the first time, getting a henna tatoo, riding in a hot air balloon. I'm going to have to work hard to top last year's thrills -- zip-lining, rafting, kayaking, Las Vegas, New York, pole dancing, the Highland games & a makeover.

Having adventures, big and small, is a wonderful way to refresh the creative spirit flowing through us. I'm of the mindset that most any experience will eventually resonate with my art - whether that be cooking, crafting, photography, or writing. And so it is important to have as many positive experiences as possible to keep my well from going dry.

What did I do this month, besides make my list? I got a massage for the first time ever. It was at my health club, so wasn't as quiet and relaxing as I'd hoped (I could hear the men's locker room). I liked having to focus on myself for the entire time, even when my mind wanted to wander to dinner prep and character maneuverings. I found it strange to have a stranger's hands on me, but not in a creepy or sexual way. It was just, odd.

As much as I tried to focus on relaxing and the muscle groups being soothed...I came up with a great plot idea for a follow-up to the story I am working on. Who knows...maybe I'll wind up with a masseuse story. Wait, would that make my massage a write-off?

Check in with Jenna Bayley-Burke the second Friday of each month to see what she's doing to Fill The Well. Keep an eye out for Jenna's next release, For Kicks, available January 24th.

"This was very entertaining read with an uber hot ex-athlete with an inventive use of chocolate. This is a great book to spend a cold afternoon absorbed in." - Night Owl Reviews

Setting the Scene with Christine Johnson

2012-01-12T00:01:00.021Z

Welcome and thank you for joining me today at The Pink Heart Society! This is my first appearance here, and I’m thrilled to meet fellow lovers of category romance.

Ever made the wrong turn in the road?

I’m not speaking figuratively here. Rather, have you ever ended up somewhere you didn’t intend to go? I, for one, have made quite a few wrong turns and have traveled many miles out of the way before realizing my mistake. If I hadn’t been so focused on the end destination, I might have discovered something truly amazing on that wrong path, but more often than not, I just turned around and went back the way I’d come.

In my new release, All Roads Lead Home, the heroine travels by automobile from New York City to Montana in 1922 and takes a wrong turn that leads to an unexpected encounter. Like me, she’s intent on reaching her destination. Unlike me, she stops long enough to look around, talk to the people she meets, and learn something about where she mistakenly ended up. That decision ultimately changes many lives.

I should learn from her!

In my travels, no place has touched me more than the “big sky” of Montana. The vastness of the prairie and the enormity of the Rocky Mountains remind me how small I am, something that’s easily forgotten when immersed in everyday life. The magnificence of God’s creation never fails to awe me. I wanted to share my love for the area in this book.

I have a copy of All Roads Lead Home to give away today. Just leave a comment and tell me if you’ve ever made a wrong turn and where you ended up. The coffee is on. Let’s chat.

Christine Johnson

http://christineelizabethjohnson.com

All Roads Lead Home

Love Inspired Historical

January 2012

ALMOST PUBLISHED: Abbi Goes for the Gold

2012-01-11T04:15:00.000Z

The Pink Heart Society proudly brings you a writer we predict will be the next big thing. Join us in welcoming aspiring author Abbi Cantrell as she shares the wild ride of the ALMOST PUBLISHED.

"Almost there . . . "

Remember that scene in Star Wars where Luke Skywalker sits in his X-wing fighter zooming through the trenches of the Death Star? After two failures, he’s the only hope to defeat the Empire.

Luke sure had a lot of people gunning for him – the Rebel Alliance, several star systems, and entire movie theaters as viewers sat on the edge of their seats.

Sitting in the seat as an ‘almost published’ writer kind of makes me feel that way. All the writers and authors I’ve met since I started this journey now look at me to join the world of the published. Why shouldn’t I?

“What if I don’t make it?”

“What if I miss that tiny window of opportunity no bigger than a Tatooine wombat?”

So over the next few months, two things are going to happen: We’re going to party like Han Solo or do the Grand Moth Tarkin shuffle in condolence.

Isn’t that how publishing goes? The upswing: You get a request for that full mss you’ve been working on for 6 months. You’re feeling good.

Then you get this e-mail from the Dark Side.

While we love your story, it doesn’t fit our needs at this time.
P.S. I am your father.

Back to square one. Or something like that.

But, in my mind, if you keep holding on, you’ll get there. Persistence will get you everywhere.

So who’s going to be around to remind me and others of this roller coaster ride never ends? The friends and family who've been around since day one. That's what important. That's what counts.

There’s two things about being a writer I tell myself:

1) It’s all about being positive
2) It’s not a competition. It’s about being yourself and achieving your goals.

So, I’ll be here once a month sharing my ups and downs (with more ups than downs hopefully).

I’d love to how other writers feel about the ‘almost published’ phenomenon. What are your thoughts?

Til then,

Abbi ☺

Check back the second Wednesday of each month to share Abbi's journey. In between, be sure to check out her website, @abbi_cantrell and group blog, Seven Sassy Sisters.

WRITE AT HOME MOM: Talking 2012

2012-01-10T00:01:00.007Z

USAToday Bestselling author and mom to four, Mira Lyn Kelly, is kicking off her new column and the new year with one resolution that covers them all… Balance.

In a perfect world, I would be the kind of mother who joyfully gave my family everything I was, every second I had… and it would neither suck the life out of me, nor turn my children into a lot of spoiled psychopaths. My house would be immaculate. Dinners, healthy and delicious every night. My husband, family and friends would have my undivided attention, as long as they desired it. I’d be totally fit and I’d have five to eight books releasing every year. Oh, and it would all be effortless.

Yeah, yeah. This, is not a perfect world. I am not a perfect mom, an effective housekeeper, or a prolific writer. And my jeans are too tight. As for giving everyone the time they want…with four kids, I could dole out my attention twenty-four-seven and it wouldn’t be enough.

Essentially, I’m a perpetually busy mom with a million responsibilities, a passion for a career I can’t seem to find enough time to really get going, and a life that seems to forever be just a bit beyond my control.

I want to do better.

Notice I didn’t say I wanted to do it all. I can’t. There aren’t enough hours in the day, enough of me to go around, or even enough slots available in my line to handle all those books, lol. But better I think is possible.

Which means this year I’m all about making a better balance my resolution.
I’ll be taking a look at my priorities, seeing what room there is to wiggle, and then making some tough choices. Checking out techniques to maximize my effort/output ratio. Working toward a healthy mind/body goal. Testing tips on ways to keep my home from becoming a hovel. Basically trying anything and everything to turn out the books while making sure my highest priorities know they are number one… and, ideally, not losing my mind in the process.

So if you are like me, a determined mom trying to squeeze out as much of IT ALL as you possibly can, please join me the second Tuesday of each month to share tips, advice, experiences and maybe even the occasional consolation as we take a Write-At-Home-Mom’s journey toward a better balance.

Mira

www.miralynkelly.com
Facebook http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000747420386
www.twitter.com/MiraLynKelly

THE S BEFORE EX
There's one thing even the tabloid hounds haven't managed to dig up about celebrity Ryan Brady: he is married! He may be one of America's most desirable men, but his secret wife has just filed for divorce.
Since their separation six yeahttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifrs ago, Claire has turned her life upside down: new business, new friends, new life. But when she sees Ryan to hash out a settlement, her body tells her one thing hasn't changed—he's still the only man who really does it for her. With all other guys guaranteed to be totally meh, she's in last-chance saloon: it's either an X-rated fling with her ex, or straight to chastitybelts.com!

Male On Monday with Merrillee Whren

2012-01-09T00:15:00.007Z

Please welcome to The Pink Heart Society, Love Inspired author Merrillee Whren as she takes a different view of our Male on Monday, looking at the heart of a hero.

When I get ready to start a book, I look through the collection of pictures I have accumulated over the years. They come from magazine, catalogues and calendars. The picture above came from a calendar that featured pets, and it became the inspiration for the physical description of Parker Watson, the hero for Montana Match, my January 2012 book from Love Inspired. Not only was the picture the inspiration for my hero, but it inspired part of the story. I’m an organic writer and start with the barest of outlines for my books. I never planned to include a dog in the story, but one day I pulled out the picture to remind myself about the hero’s appearance. While I studied it, the idea of including the dog blossomed, and it fit seamlessly into the story.

There is definitely more to a hero than what he looks like. I want my hero to be someone my readers care about as much as the heroine does. Some of my favorite heroes are guys with troubled pasts. Parker is no exception. If he is going to win the love of the heroine, he has to forgive the people who hurt him and made him a near recluse on his ranch.

The idea for this story came about because I wanted to write the stories of the three teenagers who were secondary characters in a couple of my earlier books, Love Walked In and The Heart’s Forgiveness. Brittany Gorman, the heroine of Montana Match, was the petite red-haired cheerleader who captured the interest of the heroine’s son, Max, in Love Walked In. I knew when I started to write Brittany’s story that she wasn’t going to wind up with Max, so I had to come up with the guy who could help Brittany get over the recent breakup of her eight-year relationship with Max and a guy who would make her think again and reconsider the things she wants out of life.

Who would bring them together? And why would this troubled man capture her interest?

Brittany’s best friend brings them together for a fun ski weekend in a Montana resort, not far from Parker’s ranch. He is a single dad, and his love for his adopted twin girls makes it hard for Brittany to say no when he offers her a job as nanny for his children. She sees him as hero material when she learns the story behind the adoption.

What is your favorite kind of hero?

Merrillee Whren is an award-winning author who writes for Harlequin Love Inspired. She is married to her own personal hero, her husband of thirty plus years, and has two grown daughters. She has lived in Atlanta, Boston, Dallas and Chicago but now makes her home on one of God’s most beautiful creations, an island off the east coast of Florida. When she’s not writing or working for her husband’s recruiting firm, she spends her free time playing tennis or walking the beach, where she does the plotting for her novels. Please visit her Web site at http://www.merrilleewhren.com connect with her on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/merrillee.whren.

Penny Jordan -- An Appreciation

2012-01-08T00:15:00.002Z

From Diane Gaston's blog

The Pink Heart Society was very saddened to hear of Penny Jordan's recent death. She lost her fight with cancer on 31 December 2011. She had known for awhile but chose to keep the news quiet, instead she concentrated on living her life, including continuing to write. Penny's work ethic was legendary. Her like will not be see again.

Several authors who knew her well agreed to write a few words in appreciation.

From India Grey Harlequin Presents Author:

On December 31^st the romance world didn’t just say goodbye to 2011, but also to one of the biggest, brightest and most beloved stars in its galaxy. Penny Jordan had been privately holding her own against cancer for a long time, even when she knew it was a fight she wasn’t going to win. She finally submitted to it last week, with the grace and dignity that were the cornerstones of her character.

It’s impossible to know where to begin to sum up her life and her achievements as she was so many things to so many people, and she accomplished so much. In that respect the figures speak for themselves – in the 32 years since her first novel Duchess in Disguise was published under the pseudonym Caroline Courtney, she wrote over 200 novels under 5 different pen names and sold in excess of 100 million copies across the world. (Gosh. I wonder how many hours of reading pleasure that equals?)

Numbers like that don’t stack up by themselves: Penny was jaw-droppingly hard-working and the romantic imagination that enabled her to create her glorious stories was coupled with a steely professionalism. In 1985 alone she had 17 books published, written on an old typewriter balanced on a card table in the sitting room of the home she shared with her husband, Steve. (She said he always used to be able to tell when she was writing a sex scene as the clicking of her fingers on the keys would become even more frantic.)

Beth Kendrick admiring one of Penny's fabulous shoes

The essence of Penny the person is harder to encapsulate. It would be impossible to talk about her without mentioning elegance and glamour – both of which she had in effortless spades – but if she could hear me say that she’d wave a dismissive hand and tell me not to talk rubbish. Because the second thing you noticed about her was that she was incredibly down to earth. Given how phenomenally successful and well-loved she was, she could have been forgiven for being just a tiny-weeny bit complacent, deep down. But she wasn’t, not one bit. There was an undercurrent of insecurity and vulnerability in her that was as endearing as it was incomprehensible. Her success only made her more conscious of her responsibility to her readers, and she had a genuine and generous desire to share it with others. She devoted considerable amounts of time and energy to encouraging and mentoring aspiring authors, as Susan Stephens and I – amongst many others – can gratefully attest. Like a modern-day Fairy Godmother, she changed things for the better.

During even the toughest times in her own life her capacity for hard work didn’t desert her – perhaps it even kept her going. But not only did she keep writing, she also managed to keep on top of the market (and the bestseller lists) by adapting her stories and her characters to suit the mood of the times. She did this quite naturally – by reading newspapers and magazines voraciously, collecting snippets to spin into stories. She did it by people-watching – whether it was on the elegant Via dei Tornabuoni in her beloved Florence, or in a coffee shop in the small Cheshire market town where she lived – and just by engaging in conversation, both in real life and online, which she did with irrepressible interest. She adored fashion and could shop for Britain (especially with the Mses Stephens or Kendrick as her partners in crime!) and her love of clothes and shoes and jewellery echoes through her books.

From Lucy Monroe's photo album

And of course, it’s her books that are her greatest legacy – her lasting gift to us all. Through them she has touched millions of lives; brought numberless hours of joy to women around the world and immeasurable comfort during dark days and long nights. They will endure, as will the memory of Penny’s warmth and wit and generosity in the minds of those who were lucky enough to know her. She will be missed so much, by so many.

Sandra Martin Harlequin Presents:

We've lost a wonderful writer and a true friend. If you knew Penny through her books, you probably imagine her as feminine, beautiful, elegant, determined and strong. That's exactly what she was like in person. Penny never let life defeat her. She kept to that to the end, by leaving this world with amazing dignity and grace.

Michelle Styles Harlequin Historical author:

Penny Jordan has been a huge influence on me. First of all I loved her books and they provided an escape from university reading, work and then a lifeline to home when I first moved to the UK. It may seem strange as she was from the UK but Harlequin (Mills and Boon) made those first few months bearable as they were familiar. Later when I lay sick in hospital with gall stones, a lady in the next bed told me you couldn't go wrong with A Penny Jordan and I knew the sort of books I wanted to write books you could turn to in times of trouble or need and somehow find the strength to carry on after escaping. Still later, I got to know Penny via several yahoo loops and even had the pleasure of meeting her on occasion. She was unfailingly kind and patient. In short she was the sort of author any young author could look up to. She set a very high standard and her like will not be seen again. I feel very honoured to have known her.

Please feel free to add any personal thoughts or remembrances of Penny.

Writer's Workplace: Jeannie Watt + Giveaway

2012-01-07T00:15:00.000Z

Writer's Workplace is a sneak peak into where series romance authors create their books. First up Superromance (and new PHS editor!) Jeannie Watt shares where she works!

For many years I dreamed of having adedicated place to write—a place where I could have references at myfingertips, files in a file cabinet, stacks of fresh legal pads and new typewriterribbons…did I mention that I started writing a long time ago?

It took a while to achieve my dream.Every place I lived was too small, too crowded, too cramped. When my husbandand I finally bought a larger house (or perhaps I should say a slightly largerhouse) we instantly had kids and all available space was given over to Lego’sand other kid paraphernalia.

At that point in time, I had atypewriter, and a pretty good one at that—a correcting Selectric. I would set themonster up on the kitchen table and during naps and the occasional Disneyvideo, I’d work on my stories. When I needed the table for other things, suchas eating, the Selectric and my legal pads would go onto the floor until it wastime to write again.

Eventually, after the Selectric gave upthe ghost (or maybe the ribbons became impossible to find) I progressed to a smallword processor, which I set up in another high traffic area of the house—mybedroom. It wasn’t until the kids graduated high school that I finally achievedmy dream of having a dedicated Lego-free writing area. I bought a computer and adesk, which I set up in an office-like room that had once been my daughter’sbedroom. That wonderful place was where I wrote my first Superromance, whichdidn’t sell, and my second Superromance, which did. It was too good to last.

Shortly after I sold that first book, wedecided that we had to get the TV out of our small living room. The solutionwas to make the office into a TV room and move the computer downstairs into thebasement bedroom. It sounded wonderful in theory. The basement has windows andsunlight and was quiet. I splurged on a better computer desk and an actual filecabinet, but in spite of that, when I sat down at the keyboard, it just didn’tfeel right. Too quiet. After a few weeksof trying to write in my new office, I gave up and moved back upstairs to thekitchen table and started to write. The words began to flow. I decided to stay.

My writing laptop, which I recentlyreplaced with a tiny netbook, needed a bit of a home, so I bought a smallcomputer stand which I wedged between the wood cook stove and the buffet. Myhusband swore the stand wouldn’t fit in that space, which was really code for “it’lllook bad,” but I didn’t care. I shoved the desklet against the wall and startedwriting books.

The kitchen is now my dedicated writingarea. When I get stuck, which is often, I sometimes turn my chair around and movethe netbook from the computer stand to the kitchen table. For some reasonfacing the opposite direction helps me when I hit a creative wall.

Every morning before I go to my day job,I unplug my netbook and pop it, along with the legal pads on which I keep notesas I write, into a tote bag for the 45 minute drive to work. If I’m ondeadline, I’ll often write on my way to work while my husband drives. When Iget home in the evening, the netbook goes back onto either the kitchen table orthe computer stand and I’m ready to write.

After several productive years spent atthe kitchen table, I’ve decided that dedicated writing spaces are great—and perhapsI’ll have one again— but right now I’m more than happy to move my netbook whenit’s time to put dinner on the table. It just feels right being where I am.

My question to you is where do you feelcomfortable working? Do you have a dedicated area? Or do you shift thingsaround like I do? I’m giving away a complete set of my Superromance trilogy TooMany Cooks? to a randomly chosen commenter. I hope to hear from you.

To learn more about Jeannie Watt and her books please visit her website www.jeanniewatt.com/

Date With Kate - Starting Again

2012-01-06T00:00:00.002Z

Happy New Year!

I hope you had a lovely holiday, plenty of rest, relaxation and fun, and that having seen the new year in in whatever way you choose, you are now ready to take on whatever 2012 might bring. You might even have decide on some new year resolutions and are determined to put them into action.

If so, well, congratulations – and good luck. I’m not a great person for resolutions. The whole idea of ‘paying for’ the fun and indulgence of Christmas by launching into a period of dieting, detoxing, denial, all seems a bit puritanical to me. After all, how many of us really need to do much more than just ease up on the eating/drinking/inaction we’ve enjoyed over the holidays, which we would have done anyway, simply because we (well OK, I know I can’t!) can’t keep this up for much longer without feeling ill.

But I do think that it’s a good time to draw breath, to take a look at where we’re going/how we’re living, and whether it’s the best way for us. And if anything is really wrong and damaging us or blocking the way forward then to change it, rework it. But I also think it’s a time for looking at just what is good and right in our lives and planning how to keep those – get more of them if necessary. And as a famous astrologer said on January 1^st, we can do that any time – and at some far more auspicious time than the arbitrary date decided long ago as 1 – 1 – 2012.

What has this to do with romance writing? I’m not going to write about plans and projects, goals and ‘must try harders’. I’m not even going to declare the need to lose X pounds or write XXX words. What I’m thinking of goes deeper and is far more essential than that – at least where we as writers, and our characters are concerned.

It’s most important though when we are looking at our characters. When we write romances we are going to give our hero and heroine the best of all possible chances to start again. We start them out on a journey where everything seems stacked against them, when they are in conflict and possibly even hating each other – seeing no way out of the situation into which they’ve got themselves - and show them how to take the necessary steps to the ending we have planned for them – that Happy Ever After ending that all good romances have. Just as at the start of the new year – or any other date – we can set out on the road towards the changes we would like to see in ourselves

But new year, new you? Well no, not really. I’ve never truly though that I needed to create a ‘new me. That implies that the ‘old’ one was not worth having. But a few tweaks here and there, a fresh approach, a bit more discipline – more hope, more belief . . . that’s what can be implemented. And it’s just the same with our characters. They don’t come to their HEA by total transformation. I’ve never been a real believer in the total ‘redemption’ approach of a happy ending – one where the hero (it’s usually the hero but it can be the heroine )has to ‘grovel’ in order to win his lady’s love. Where he has to refute all he ever was, how he has behaved, his thoughts, his beliefs, his actions, in order to deserve to love her and have her love him. In a short novel, these transformations have to be so dramatic (I’m tempted to say melodramatic ) as to be verging on the miraculous, unbelievable, unconvincing – and I’m inclined to think that they’ll never last.

But a steady, strong-rooted change that comes about gradually as bits of their characters change and adapt, see things through a new perspective, consider different ways of thinking, those are the developments that lead to a HEA that convinced me and makes me feel this one really can be ‘ever after.’ And those changes, those ways of thinking need to be there in the characters right from the very beginning of the book so that they each can bring the ‘new’ – the best out of each other as they get to know each other and grow closer. Personally I don’t want to see, say, a dramatic declaration that ‘I hated all women, thinking they were shallow, promiscuous, and money-grabbing’ but now because of you I see I was wrong,’ as a declaration of love – for me that’s like an alcoholic declaring he will never touch a drink again when so many times they go back on their word and are not to be trusted, no matter how forcefully they vow to be different. A man who has lived with such a low opinion of woman isn’t likely to be converted overnight - and stay that way. The changes that come in our characters need to have strong foundations, to be there in their characters from the start – they just need a little digging to bring them out. So we need to show the potential for the ending has been there all along and not suddenly spring it on the reader at the very end in a flash of lightning and explosion of enlightenment.

Just as at New Year, if we’re not careful, we can rush into the self-improvement with a range of resolutions that can make us seem as if we’re too fat, too lazy, too untidy, too . . . too everything that’s possibly wrong. . . so we need to make sure that, even with the most alpha of males, the most conflicted of couples, there is something in there, something to be unearthed, that can make the hero or the heroine – the hero and the heroine – into two people who can actually fall in love with each other, and stay that way for the rest of their lives.

So just as when you are considering possible New Year resolutions, you need to consider what is already in you that is fine, that just needs a bit of tweaking or polishing to be everything you can be proud of, not uprooting , reworking and totally transforming, so too with your characters. You need to start the story with the end in mind – knowing how these people are going to change, adapt, how they are going to bring out the best nits of each other and bring them to the fore – not totally create another persona who is not the hero or heroine we started out with. Only then will you convince your reader that these two truly will be happy ever after.

One way of looking at it is perhaps to consider giving your hero and heroine their own personal set of resolutions for the new book, just as they might make them for a new year. Does she need to trust a bit more? Have more confidence in herself? Does he need to lose the cynicism a past relationship left him with and realise that applying it to all relationships now just doesn’t work? Or can he accept that because one woman broke his heart it really doesn’t mean that everyone else will do the same? Not – I must trust everyone I meet – but I must learn to let trust into my life more. Not I need to stand up to everyone I meet and defy them – but I should accept that I am worth better than this and make sure I don’t let people walk all over me. If you think about the resolutions they need to make to change their way of thinking, their mistaken beliefs at the start, then you will see the way they need to grow and develop -to become someone who can fall in love – and someone with whom their hero or heroine will fall in love. Because that, after all is the emotional journey that a romance novel tells, the story that a reader is looking for.

So what about you? Are you a great resolution maker – wanting to aim for the new you? Or are you like me, more likely to think I’m doing OK as I am - just a bit of dust and polish will bring out the best?

And what about your hero and heroine? Can you list the resolutions they want to make - or, perhaps more importantly, the resolutions they need to make but are not yet able to see or are running away from right now and need to be brought face to face with them before they can head towards that Happy Ever After?

I hope 2012 is a wonderful year for you.

Kate Walker’s next title - The Devil and Miss Jones - is out in the UK in March and published on April 3rd in Presents Extra in America or Sexy Romance in Australia. You can find out more details over on Kate's Web site – with all the most up to date news on her blog.

Setting The Scene with Linda Style

2012-01-05T00:15:00.004Z

This year at The Pink Heart Society we're inviting your favorite authors to share with us how they create those settings that take us away from the every day. First up is SuperRomance author Linda Style.

THE MONSTER UNDER THE BED

The best scenes are those that pull us in and make us feel as if we are there seeing the sights and feeling the action for ourselves. Right?

I recently watched a Stephen King movie, “Bag of Bones” and was struck by how masterfully the scene was set. But it was more than just scene setting. The director gave us a quick glimpse of what the place looked like, then went directly to the main character who, after hearing a noise…a scratching sound…awakens from a nightmare. He reacts by sitting up. The room is semi-dark and ominous. My heartbeat quickens, not because of the dark, but because of the sound. The man, still groggy from sleep and reliving the nightmare about his dead wife, listens and hears nothing. He begins to relax. I relax, too, but not completely. And just at that moment, a rustling, snuffling, deep breathing sound comes from under the bed. My heart leaps to my throat, a cold chill runs up my spine, and as the man slowly leans down to look under the dust ruffle, I instinctively cover my eyes. In setting the story up this way, the writer/director has immediately tapped into one of the greatest childhood fears…the monster under the bed.

And I felt the same fear I did as a child.

In that one scene, he’s set up far more than a simple description of the setting could ever do. He sets the tone. He lets you, the reader, know…this is going to be a scary story…and you will be afraid. There’s no question that the hero is going to be in deep and scary trouble. We know little about the story, but already, we’ve felt the character’s pounding heart, the sense that he’s not alone. We know that fear first hand and we can empathize…and because we do, we want to know what’s going to happen next.

Like movies, setting the scene in a novel is about so much more than telling the reader where the character is and what the place looks like. It’s about tapping into the reader’s psyche so he not only visualizes the setting, he “feels” it. He relates.

Using emotion to set the scene is one of the most powerful ways to make your setting do double duty…and hook the reader at the same time.

Holy Sedona by Dennis Mojado

The setting my new book, A SOLDIER’S SECRET, was inspired by my fond feelings about a place in my home state. The story is set in the small town of Spirit Creek, Arizona, near Sedona, a setting that rivals the Grand Canyon in its magnificent landscape. Arizona is my adopted state and I frequently go hiking in the red rock mountains near Sedona, so it seemed natural to choose that as a setting for my three connected books. (A SOLDIER’S SECRET is the last ) But I was truly inspired when I realized how much more I could do with it. It isn’t the magnificence of the setting that’s important to my heroine, it’s how living there makes her feel. The eons-old rock is a testament to longevity, a symbol of stability, and gives her a sense of permanence, something she’s never had. She feels as if she’s finally found her place in the world…that she belongs, and I use those emotions to help set the scene.

Photo by Linda Style

Setting the scene with emotion was especially important since the setting plays into the heroine’s internal conflict. Hiding the fact that she has PTSD, she’s careful not to expose herself to things she knows might trigger an episode. Something as simple as a car backfire or the evening news can set her on that path and when she feels the first signs of an episode, she focuses on her surroundings--her physical reality--to bring herself down. In writing from this perspective, I focused more on the surroundings than I ever have and in doing so, I added another layer and made the story and characters more complex.

When I begin a scene, I orient the reader to time and place. Sometimes that’s all I need to do, but 99 percent of the time, I want the setting to do double or triple duty. I want the setting to come alive for the reader. The most powerful way to do that is through my character’s emotions…and I get to his emotions through his senses…what he sees, hears, smells, touches and tastes. Whenever I find myself simply describing the setting, I stop and ask, ‘what is my character feeling…and why does he feel that way?’

When your protagonist sees something, he has an instant, visceral reaction based on his unique experiences. Maybe he winces at seeing a mother slam her child into a wooden chair in the corner of the spare, dingy room …because in the back of his mind he remembers how his mother used to beat him. Or maybe he smiles at seeing a cluster of childish drawings on the wall in his doctor’s otherwise sterile office, the same kind of pictures his dead son used to like to draw. The scent of cinnamon in a modern stainless steel kitchen might make him think of his grandmother, the only person who ever cared about him. Maybe the bitter taste of chicory coffee served at the 1950s style all-night diner with posters of iconic movie stars plastered on its walls and juke boxes in every booth jacked up the exhilaration he felt he night he killed his first victim--and recreating that feeling is why he goes there after each kill.

When tempted to simply describe a place, try using your character’s emotions to convey the setting and see how it changes things. Try it on any kind of description and see what happens.

When reading, do you pay attention to descriptions of the setting or to what the character is thinking and feeling?

When writing, what techniques do you use to set the scene?

I’d love to hear your thoughts, and if you leave a comment, you may be the one to win a copy of A SOLDIER’S SECRET.

Happy New Year and Happy Writing!

Linda Style
A SOLDIER'S SECRET - JAN 2012

THE PROMISE HE MADE and
THE MISTAKE SHE MADE, still available online
4.5 Stars Top Pick RT "...an original story with wonderfully compelling characters."
http://www.lindastyle.com/ http://www.bootcampfornovelists.com/

A side note: Writing this book gave me a special interest in the issue of PTSD and made me realize how many of our heroes now returning from Iraq will be affected by this debilitating disorder. My interest led me to the Wounded Warrior Project, to which I’ll be donating a percentage of the profits from this book. You can learn more about the project at www.woundedwarriorproject.org.

Writer's Wednesday: Beyond the Word Count – finding Balance in your New Year Resolutions

2012-01-04T00:15:00.000Z

Riva and Presents Extra Author Natalie Anderson explores goal setting.

I just couldn’t have the first Writer’s Wednesday post ofthe year and not mention the RESOLUTION word, now could I? Did you make anyresolutions for 2012? It’s not too late you know, you don’t have to wait awhole year before setting some goals and plans in place!

I’m sure you all know about setting goals and the SMART wayto do it (specific, measureable, achievable realistic, timely) – just Googlefor more info and you’ll find a wealth of how-tos – but today I wanted to writeabout what kinds of goals to set.

As always, I made some resolutions. Usually I set a fewgoals for the upcoming year and write them into my diary – kind of plotting outwhat I’d like to have achieved in each month etc. But I think we writers canget too fixated on those things like word-count or weight-loss – well, I know Ican! For 2012 I wanted to make some goals that would enrich my life as a writermore, and help achieve that very difficult thing known as ‘balance’ while stillcontributing to my long-term overarching goal of writing for a living andloving it!

picture by Pixomar, www.freedigitalimages.net

2011 was a hard year for me, we had over 7000 earthquakesand they’re still going (we had 48 last Monday alone) – so our housingsituation has been disrupted, my children needed more support – as did I! And Ifound I struggled to write and much of what I did write didn’t have my usualtone – it was all a bit gloomy! I just got worn down and really needed to restand refill. So that’s something I’ve planned for in my New Year’s goal settingexercise. I also didn’t want to burden myself with a ton of un-meetable goals,so I’ve kept the aims on the light side – more is a bonus, but I’m not going toset myself up to fail, especially not when life is literally still rocking!

Here are the topics I’ve been setting goals for:

Writing

I do believe in the ‘write every day’ school of thought. Iknow it can be really hard, especially if you’re working a day job or runningragged round the house after your kids, but even 500 a day keeps you on theway. Writing daily keeps your head in the story – you think on it in quietmoments during the day. And 500 should be achievable in an hour’s quiet time.You’re allowed at least an hour to devote to something so important! Of courseif you have more hours to write – then use them! But if you struggle to findthe time, here are some ways to find it: turn off the telly, get up an hourearly, use a portable wordprocessor when you’re on the train to work, require a‘half hour silent reading’ time for the kids – they read, you write. Rewardsfor all at the end!

Don’t put too high a word count pressure on yourself, keepit achievable, enjoy meeting it, enjoy beating it even more!

My goal is a simple 1k a day. But in term time, that’ll bemore!

Reading.

You can’t be a writer without being a reader. Reading issomething I’ve missed so much this year. I love to lose myself in a book forhours at a time but life pressure just wasn’t going to let that happen. I’vebeen reading a lot of my daughter’s middle/grade early YA books for fun becausethey’re often a quick read and there is some phenomenal literature out therefor kids. Also, I get to talk to her about the stories. I think it’s wonderfulto read outside your own genre as well as in it. Reading for pleasureis just a must.

My goal is to read at least 1 new book a week.

Refilling.

Yes reading does help refill the well, but I want to huntout other sensorial experiences as well. I want to go to a gallery, a concert,travel somewhere, visit a garden… something like that. That’s a bit tough inChristchurch at the moment as our main Art Gallery is still being used as theCivil Defence/Council headquarters, and so many others are shut. But in theface of disaster, creativity abounds. We have these amazing ‘gap filler’projects where artists put in installations in the ‘gaps’ where buildings oncestood. There are gorgeous gardens on the outskirts of town and in the nearbycountryside to visit, and there are towns not too far away with galleries andpottery shops. The theatre has just reopened, concerts are happening… it’s justa matter of being organised and keeping an eye on what’s going on. My goal isto ‘do’ something ‘culturally enriching’ at least twice a month.

Records.

Ugh. Whether you’re paid to write or not (yet), you need tokeep up to date with your tax records. Says me, the woman who was up til beyondmidnight the other night entering in all her expenses for her overdue return.Many of us loathe having to do it, but its so much worse to leave it all ‘tilthe last minute. (trust me). We’re businesswomen, right? My goal is to keep ontop of my paperwork – I now have a designated ‘filing’ day once a week tomaintain spreadsheets and put away the papers.

Promo.

It’s just a part of life for writers now. The trick is todecide what you’re going to do, how much time you’re going to put into it andwhen that time is going to be. A website is a must, more is up to you. But I dosuggest you designate a certain amount of time a day (or week) and ringfenceit. It is so easy to spend too long on social networking sites instead ofwriting! Make a plan and stick to it!!! The day after my records day is now mypromo day for writing blogs etc.

Revising.

I’ve written 20 books and still make stupid mistakes! I wantto revise aspects of craft – re-read seminal texts, go to conferences, do acouple of online courses, get together with other writers and talk craft.

Retreat.

Linking in with revising, I’m planning a weekend retreatwith a fellow writer. We’re going to an alpine village where there are thermalsprings and we’re going to submerge our bodies in warm, restorative water, talkbooks and writing and maybe even drink wine! I’ve been longing to do this foryears and in 2012 it’s finally going to happen J

Health.

Oh yes, we can’t ignore the weight thing. Deadlines, stress,Christmas indulgence… I’ve got a sugar addiction that I need to kick! And a fewkilos could take a hike from my frame too… Plus there’s the sedentary aspect ofthis job – hunching over my laptop in my beanbag probably isn’t doing brilliantthings to my spine and arms. Some daily exercise and eating well are my aims. Irefuse to use the D-word, I go on auto-rebellion at the mention of it! Butfeeling fit and healthy helps in so many ways to finding balance.

Holidays.

I’m so planning for these this year! I’m setting aside somenon-deadline time to spend with my family. Too many times I’ve had revisions oredits come in around the school holidays, while some of that is beyond mycontrol, much I can try to manage better.

Of course I’ll revisit these goals through the year but Ithink most are achievable and *should* help me regain a better balance. I adorewriting, I know I am so lucky to be able to write and have my stories publishedand I want to keep doing that as long as I possibly can.

So, do you think I’ve missed any important ones – in whatother areas in life do you plan for come New Year and how to you help toachieve balance in your writing life?!

Natalie Anderson’s current release – an Antarctic-setnovella titled MELT – is available now through Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Melt-ebook/dp/B006O59TDO/ref=pd_rhf_gw_p_t_1

while her nextM&B Riva FIRST TIME LUCKY is on the shelves in the UK this month.

For more info, head to her website: http://www.natalie-anderson.com andbe sure to sign up to her newsletter as she has a signed book offer forsubscribers only running at the moment!

Kate's Kitchen: Carrot, Ginger and Sweet Potato Soup with home-made bread

2012-01-03T01:00:00.004Z

I’m thrilled to be starting a new column on the PHS – Kate's Kitchen. Thanks very much to the PHS editors for indulging my foodie side!

Foodwise, January’s an odd month. It’s just after the holiday season, which tends to come with too much rich (not to mention time-consuming to prepare) food, so you need something simple and quick to balance you out again. Early January is the time of year when everyone’s still sticking to a new year resolution to eat more healthily/lose weight. And in the northern hemisphere it’s usually cold and damp or icy, meaning that comfort food is the order of the day (which would probably scupper any good intentions on the diet front!).

How do you get something that fits all three?

For me, it’s soup. This one is warming, comforting and yet light (and I love the scent of fresh ginger).

The colour is just glorious on a dull January day.

Carrot, Ginger and Sweet Potato Soup
Ingredients:
500g carrots, peeled and sliced
1 medium onion, peeled and sliced
1 sweet potato (about 200g), peeled and diced
25g fresh ginger, peeled and sliced
750ml water or vegetable stock

Method:
Place everything in a pan, bring to the boil, and simmer for 30 minutes or until the carrots are soft.

Cool, then put through a blender.

Heat through to serve (though, in the southern hemisphere, it’d work nicely as a chilled soup).

Alternative:
If you’re not a fan of ginger, replace the ginger with the grated rind of an orange or lemon at the start, and add the juice of the citrus fruit to the blended soup just before serving.

Now, it wouldn’t be me if I didn’t add a little naughtiness. What better to serve with soup than warm home-made bread? (This lasts about 5 seconds in my house.)

Bread

Ingredients:
500g strong white bread flour
25g butter
1 tsp fast-action dried yeast
1 tbs sugar
1 tsp salt
320ml warm water

Method:
Rub the butter into the flour until it resembles fine breadcrumbs, then stir in the yeast, sugar and salt.

Add the water gradually and mix until you get a soft dough.

Knead on a floured board for 10 minutes, and leave in a warm place to rise in the bowl for about an hour.

Knead again, place into a 2-lb loaf tin, and leave to rise for another half an hour.

Bake at 230 degrees C for 25-30 minutes or until golden brown and sounds hollow when you tap the base.

In the UK, you can get a copy of The Doctor’s Royal Love Child (from the first Penhally series) as part of a four-in-one book, ‘Secrets in the Village’; in the US, you can still get a copy of her ice cream book, ‘A Moment on the Lips’, from the eHarlequin website.You can find out more about these books, and Kate, on her website (http://www.katehardy.com/) and her blog (http://katehardy.blogspot.com/)

Male on Monday: Polo Players

2012-01-02T00:15:00.001Z

Harlequin Presents Susan Stephens explains why polo players always set her pulse racing.

Tan, buff and cover boy pretty - or dangerously different with a knowing look in the eyes? Well, I know which I prefer, ladies. Things rarely stop me dead in my tracks - a handbag did that once - I couldn't sleep until I went back to the shop and bought it. It was the wrong colour - the wrong shape - and DEFINITELY the wrong price - but it was MINE MINE MINE and I went straight back into town the next day and handed over my money with what could only have been a slight mad gleam in my eyes.

So it was with my humble submission of a red hot polo player for the Male on Monday slot.

Already with Nacho Figueras in my mind as I began writing my polo series, this man knocked everyone else out of the picture for me. I'm not a fan of dreads - or particularly a fan of men who look as if they could crush a rock in their fist (they scare me aaaargh!) (only joking) But yes, I'm more than happy to make an exception in this case. Plus the photo raises so many questions...

Who tied that little ribbon on the pony's bridle? I'm guessing not the hunk sitting on its back that light to fire in his eyes? The man's eyes, not the pony's. And how big is he exactly??? (Wouldn't it be disappointing if he dismounted and only came up to my shoulder) But enough of that! I based my latest polo player, an American called Luke Forster, known as The Enforcer, on the polo circuit on this man, so he'd better be six foot four tall (we can see the shoulders wide enough to hoist an ox and we can guess what's in the breeches)

And if you want some more polo playing action I have my four polo playing brothers coming out in 2012 - and I promise you, none of them will disappoint in the Male on Monday departments. Diego Acosta in The Argentinian's Solace Luke who gets it together with the boys' sister, Lucia Acosta Nacho Acosta, the oldest brother and finally, Kruz Acosta, the baddest polo playing thug of the lot And if you want something to ease you into the New Year, I have Working With The Enemy coming out in the US in January with my bare knuckle fighter, Heath Stamp.

What is it with these tough guys, Susan?

Heck if I know, but let's have some fun! Happy Monday, everyone.

You can read more about Susan Stephens and her inspiring polo players on her website. http://www.susanstephens.com/ Be sure to look out for her latest Working with the Enemy.

Here's to the Pink Heart Society 2012

2011-12-31T00:15:00.002Z

The editors would like to thank you for reading The Pink Heart Society blogzine in 2011. We had a great time putting it together and hope you enjoyed it.

Next year, there will be a slightly new look to The Pink Heart Society. Some of the best authors of series fiction have agreed to write columns for The Pink Heart Society, and even more have agreed to stop by with the occasional post. We've invited authors to share a picture of themselves when they post to make things more friendly.

With so much going on in their blossoming careers and personal lives, Donna Alward and Mira Lynn Kelly have had to opt for less editorial involvement, but after some arm twisting have agreed to stay on as columnists. Mira will write about the struggles of juggling her various different roles author, mother, wife, chief bottlewasher and a few more besides. Donna will be checking in monthly and giving us her wisdom.

Medical author Scarlet Wilson has agreed to come aboard as an editor and will also write a column entitled the Learning Curve about what it like to be a new Harlequin author. Jenna Bayley-Burke and Michelle Styles are both very glad to have her. Jenna is trying her hand at the Fill the Well Friday column, while Michelle will be sharing what she has learnt about maintaining your weight in The Secrets of Being Fit and Fab.

We have a new feature planned on the weekends -- A Writer's Workspace which is a sneak peak into where various authors create the books we all love. Every month we will be featuring a debut author in our Call Story segment. First up is Kimani author Judy Lynn Hubbard and her story is great. And the very popular Male on Monday will be back.

Unpublished author Abbi Cantrell will be along every month to share her triumphs and trials on her individual road to publication. Fantastic cook and all around foodie, as well as being a multi-award winning author, Kate Hardy has agreed to write about food. Annie West and Anne MacAllister, both travellers par excellence, will be sharing places near and far that inspire them. Kate Walker will continue the very popular Date with Kate column and Heidi Rice will keep on with her film reviews. Fiona Harper has agreed to share her thoughts about writing and if you have ever attended one of her talks, you will know how much she knows about the craft of writing and how pleased the editors are that she agreed to do this.

We have sneak peeks into upcoming series by some of your favourite authors and behind the scenes looks at various books along with a few giveaways and other treats.

In short, here at The Pink Heart Society we have a banner year planned. We hope you will continue to read and comment on The Pink Heart Society where we celebrate series romance and the series romance author!

Must Watch Friday: Tangled and Once Upon a Time

2011-12-30T01:00:00.002Z

Beth Cornelison returns with our last Must Watch Friday of the year to chat about some recent fairy tales on the big and small screen!

What makes the must watch list for this romance writer? Happily ever afters of course! Or the pursuit of them...

Tangled is Disney's take on the Rapunzel story, complete with a handsome hero, great music and the sigh-worthy happily ever after. As a writer, I love analyzing the character development, motifs, character goals, motivations and conflicts in Disney films because the Disney writers are so good at crafting these story elements. Tangled didn't disappoint.

The premise of Tangled is pretty simple. The infant princess of a kingdom is kidnapped by a selfish old woman who wants control of the magic healing and youth-inducing powers of the princess' long hair. Rapunzel grows up trapped in a tower. Her only wish is to go to the kingdom on her birthday to see the awe-inspiring display of lights that fills the sky on that night each year. The old woman, whom she believes is her mother, refuses to let her go.

Enter Flynn, the hero, who stumbles across Rapunzel's tower as he is fleeing the kingdom's guards after stealing a valuable crown and then double-crosses the thugs he's working with. Rapunzel manages to tie up the intruder in her tower and strikes a deal with him. She'll release him if he promises to take her to see the magical lights. And off they go on an adventurous journey together with the old woman, bad guy thugs and the king's guards all in pursuit.

A thieving and conniving bad boy hero falls in love, learns to view the world differently and not be selfish, and ultimately makes a grand sacrifice for the heroine's sake. The heroine transforms from a naive, sheltered girl to a savvy young woman— a true coming of age story as Rapunzel learns who she is and finds her place in the world.

I was saddened to learn that Tangled is the last animated fairy tale Disney plans to make. I grew up watching Cinderella, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty. Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast were put on my keeper shelf as an adult. I believe Disney's adaptations of classic fairy tales are a big part of why I became a romance writer. For me, Tangled is a sweet, clever story with plenty of magic moments to make it Must See material.

The second Must See show I recommend is Once Upon A Time, ABC television's new Sunday night offering. In this modern twist on all the old classic tales, the evil queen has cast a dark spell on the magic kingdom where all the characters of fairy tales lived long ago. Snow White, Prince Charming, Jiminy Cricket, Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, Hansel and Gretel, and the evil queen herself are all living in Storybrook, Maine, in current day.

None of the characters, save the evil queen and her adopted son, know who they really are or why they are in modern times. The only person who can break the spell and help the character's find their HEAs is Snow White's and Prince Charming's daughter, Emma. Emma, now an adult, grew up in modern times without her real parents, not knowing who she was. She was summoned to Storybrook by the little boy to break the spell and give all the character's their happy endings. Emma stays in the little town but isn't convinced of her role in changing fate. And of course the evil queen, a.k.a. the witchy mayor of Storybrook, is always thwarting any progress toward breaking the spell. The dastardly Rumpelstiltskin is around, as well, to lure unwitting innocents into deals with the devil. Each week we get another little peek into the past lives of the fairy tale characters and see the ripple effects in modern times as Emma and mayor's adopted son work toward breaking the dark spell... in pursuit of the lost happily ever afters!

Once Upon A Time is a surprisingly good saga with adventure, star-crossed lovers, and magic. Check it out! If you haven't been watching, you'll want to catch up on episodes online, then tune in for the next new episode on January 8th.

Wishing you all happy endings,

Beth Cornelison

Rita Award finalist Beth Cornelison made her first sale to Silhouette Intimate Moments in June 2004 and has gone on to publish many more books with Harlequin/Silhouette as well as other publishers. Cornelison has presented writing workshops across the United States, and she currently lives in Louisiana with her husband and son. For more information about all of Beth’s books visit www.bethcornelison.com. Check out her latest release, Trust in Me.

Kevin Fuller believes he must rescue damsels in distress, and Claire is decidedly out of her element in small town South Carolina. When trouble inevitably finds Claire, Kevin's white knight protection and heroics are exactly what Claire doesn’t want. But his kisses...that's another matter. Available as Kindle, Nook and other ebook formats

Pink Heart Picks: Hotly Bedded, Conveniently Wedded

2011-12-29T01:00:00.001Z

For the final Pink Heart Picks book review, PHS editor Donna Alward curled up with a glass of wine and Kate Hardy's Hotly Bedded, Conveniently Wedded
...

One of the great things about Christmas break is more reading time, and on Boxing Day I settled in with a glass of pinot noir and one of Kate's backlist - Hotly Bedded, Conveniently Wedded. It was ten o'clock, I figured I'd get a start on it and and finish it on the 27th.

Instead I turned the last page at just a hair past midnight, only breaking to refill my glass.

Alex and Bel are some of the most likeable characters I've ever had the pleasure to "meet". It's very hard to make a marriage of convenience plausible in this day and age and so Kate bolstered the initial reason with family involvement - both families were very behind the marriage and with Alex's mom being ill, neither of them wanted to disappoint everyone by confessing it wasn't "real".

Alex's reasons for not wanting to fall in love aren't perhaps the strongest - but the reader doesn't care so much because it's so obvious that despite his assurances, Alex is ready to settle down and start a family. He's a workaholic who's getting clucky and it's pretty adorable - and he's also pretty good to Bel, too. He treats her so well - they don't just say they are best friends but they ACT like best friends. They share interests, and their professions were different enough that it gave the book a very fresh feel and made it interesting.

Bel's reasons for being afraid are much stronger and I really felt for her...at first it's easy to believe that she's focused on her work because she's dedicated but as the layers are peeled back we see how wrecked she is every time she sees babies and happy families. When Alex promises to try to give her everything she dreams of, that was it. I think *I* wanted to marry him. And when he ends up starting his new job and working late and travelling, I really felt Bel's loneliness, because at this point she knows she loves him and is fairly sure he'll never be in love with her the same way.

Without giving more spoilers, I will say that the black moment had me in tears but Alex showed what a good man he was and the ending was lovely.

If you're looking for a sexy, feel-good, emotional read that's like a breath of fresh air - snag this one for your e-reader (or find a rare print copy online).

This is the first time I'm not announcing a new pick for the next month. Thanks for hanging out with me the last few years as I read and reviewed some fanastic category romances.

In 2012 my role here at the PHS is changing - after several years as editor I'm stepping into a columnist role - and a brand new monthly column called ON WRITE SUPPORT: DONNA'S MONTHLY CHECKUP. Each month I'll be popping in and sharing what's going well, what's not, what I'm working on....it should be fun! And maybe along the way I'll find ways of refining my process...

In the meantime, Happy New Year to you all, and see you in January!

You can catch up with Donna at her website: http://www.donnaalward.com/

Call Story :: Tina Beckett

2011-12-28T00:15:00.006Z

The Pink Heart Society is happy to welcome three-time Golden Heart finalist and new Mills & Boon Medicals author, Tina Beckett.

If you’d asked me a year ago what the craziest thing I’d ever done in life was, I’d have said taking barrel racing lessons in a foreign language. Dashing around a trio of fifty-five gallon drums at breakneck speed—on the back of a horse, no less—seems pretty adventurous, right? Yep, I thought so too. Until May 19, 2011, when I received a telephone call that would change my life.

We want to buy your book.

I think I may have screamed. Or cried. Everything about that moment is a bit foggy. You see, I’d hit the send button on my computer just one day earlier, emailing my manuscript to the lovely editor who’d requested it.

Oops, did I say manuscript? Make that revised manuscript...times two.

That’s right. My call story didn’t happen overnight, although things moved pretty fast there at the end. Kind of like my barrel racing days. During those lessons, my instructor taught me in stages. First I took those barrels at a walk that seemed to take forever. Then I graduated to a trot. Next came an unhurried canter. And then the day I’d both longed for and feared arrived: pulling together everything I’d learned and taking those barrels at an all-out gallop. It was awesome. Fantastic. There’s no feeling quite like it in the world. But without those early baby steps, I’d have careened off my horse before I finished that first turn.

My call story is a lot like barrel racing. Each step took time. A long time. Six years, in fact—much longer than it took me to reach that final gallop. And with every step, I longed to race like the wind, to join the ranks of other authors I’d admired through the years. But I wasn’t ready.

My final lap took less than a year from start to finish. Here’s an abbreviated version:

· July 2010--Mills & Boon announces they’re looking for new Medical Romance authors and offers a Fast Track opportunity: send them a chapter, partial, or full manuscript and you’d receive a response by the end of August. I decided to be conservative and sent a single chapter.

· August 2010—The editors ask for a partial (which means the first three chapters). I sent those in September.

· November 2010—my future editor, Lucy Gilmour, emailed me, saying she loved the partial and could I send her the full. Oops. The book was only halfway done, and I was in the middle of moving from the United States to Brazil that very month. I wrote like crazy while shoving all my worldly belongings into boxes, kept writing as I flew across the Atlantic Ocean, and was still writing while boxes lined the walls of my new living room.

· January 2011—Lucy nudged me. Had I received her request for the full manuscript? Yikes. Luckily I’d finished the book by that time and was giving it a final polish. I sent it to her at the end of the month.

· March 2011—An email from Lucy arrived. In the subject line were three small words: Matt and Stevie. The names of my hero and heroine. My eyes watered, and I stared at those two names for several minutes before opening the email. It was a revision letter. Suddenly this felt very real. And very scary. I asked for a month to complete the changes. I sent the revised manuscript to her on April 13^th.

· May 6, 2011—A second revision letter arrived. These felt less like major changes and more like tightening and refining. I asked for two to three weeks to make the changes. Lucy asked if I could get them back to her any sooner. One of my critique partners immediately emailed me and said, “This is the one!”

· I finally get to gallop—I turned those revisions in on May 18^th. Lucy called me the next day to offer me a two book contract. I’d made it! Those two books, Doctor's Guide to Dating in the Jungleand Doctor’s Mile-High Fling, both come out in 2012, and I couldn’t be happier.

All that endless walking, trotting and cantering finally paid off. And as exciting as it is to reach this stage, I know it doesn’t end here. Not by a long shot. Because just like barrel racing, I need to keep growing and honing my skills, hopefully making each book a little better than the previous one. I’ll be forever grateful to Harlequin, Mills & Boon for giving me the opportunity to write for them. I also have to give a big shout out to my barrel racing instructor. His insistence on perfecting each stage (before allowing me to move on to the next one) taught me skills that go far beyond the realm of horses and barrel racing. I’ve learned that a solid foundation is crucial, whether it’s in horsemanship, writing...or life.

For more on Tina, be sure to check out her website and her latest release, Doctor's Guide to Dating in the Jungle.

Deadline Recipes: Formulaic, Cookie-Cutter Books?

2011-12-27T00:01:00.008Z

Laura Vivanco joins the Pink Heart Society to talk about a favorite romance "sweet", it's packaging and production...

Since I’ve been given the slot usually occupied by the Deadline Recipe, I thought I’d talk about biscuits/cookies.

One of the common misperceptions of romances, and particularly category romances, is that they’re written to a very specific formula, churned out as though onto an assembly-line, shaped by cookie-cutter guidelines and packaged as a cheap, escapist product. As a reader of category romances, I knew that wasn’t true: I could tell the difference between the various Harlequin Mills & Boon lines and I also had favourite authors whose writing styles and characters particularly appealed to me. As an academic, I set out to demonstrate precisely why it wasn’t true, and the result is For Love and Money: The Literary Art of the Harlequin Mills & Boon Romance (Tirril, Penrith: Humanities Ebooks, 2011).

The literary theorist Northrop Frye managed to divide all of literature into just five different literary “modes.” It’s proof of category romances’ diversity that they exist in four out of five of them. They range from the dark-chocolate fantasy romances of the LUNA and Nocturne lines, through the sugar-rush inducing lifestyles of many of the heroes and heroines of the Presents/Modern/Sexy line, to the everyday oat-based settings of many of the Superromances and on to others which have the ironic citrus-peel tang of chick-lit. Some may be “escapist” but many Harlequin Mills & Boon romances have dealt with very serious issues, sometimes even very directly, like Sally Wentworth’s Broken Destiny (1990) whose heroine is diagnosed with breast cancer: its sales helped raise funds for the Imperial Cancer Research Fund. Marion Lennox’s The Doctor's Rescue Mission (2005) depicts a remote island community hit by an earthquake and a tsunami: the back cover of my copy has been hastily altered by the addition of a sticker reading “On behalf of the publisher and the author of this book (written prior to recent events) a donation has been made in support of the Tsunami relief operation in Asia.”

Of course all category romances focus on a love story which ends well and it’s also true that category romances often return again and again to story-types derived from myths, legends, fairy tales and chivalric romances. They may also allude to a wide range of literary texts and works of popular culture. The range of basic ingredients from which authors choose can therefore vary widely, and even novels which have basically the same flavour can demonstrate significant amounts of variation. The IT consultant heroine of Fiona Harper’s Invitation to the Boss's Ball (2009), for example, may be a Cinderella-type heroine, but she’s very different from put-upon Bertha in Betty Neels’s A Christmas Proposal (1996), and neither actively pursues her hero like the heroine of Constance M. Evans’s Second-Hand Cinderella (1937). These are not authors who slavishly drag out an overworked heroine, a wicked stepmother, two ugly stepsisters, a fairy godmother, a prince and a special pair of shoes. Rather, they carefully select and rework particular motifs and themes from the fairy tale. The end results may all be Cinderella romances, but they’re not made to exactly the same recipe.

Dr Laura Vivanco usually blogs about romance at Teach Me Tonight. Her For Love and Money: The Literary Art of the Harlequin Mills & Boon Romance is available from the publisher as a pdf. A Kindle edition is available at Amazon .at .com .de .es .fr .it and .uk . HEB has teamed up with Lulu so that paper copies can be printed on demand.

The biscuit-making images are the property of Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums, who have made them available via Wikimedia Commons. The first shows “One of the workers topping up the mixture for the production of Wright's Biscuits” and the second is of workers on one of the production lines at the same factory.

Merry Christmas From the Pink Heart Society!

2011-12-24T01:00:00.000Z

Wishing a very Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to the wonderful authors and readers at the Pink Heart Society! We hope you enjoy the season with family and friends and of course, a good book!

Must Watch Friday: The Sound of Music

2011-12-23T01:00:00.017Z

PHS Editor Donna Alward waxes nostalgic about Christmases past this Friday, with memories of The Sound Of Music.

When I was a kid, the CBC played The Sound of Music every Christmas. It was usually on a Sunday afternoon, and because of commercials it took the WHOLE afternoon to watch it. It was something I watched with my mother, because we both loved the music, Julie Andrews, Georg, and the little finger that got caught in Frederick's teeth.

This was the late 70's - were VCR's even around then? If not then shortly after they hit the market with the question: Beta or VHS? We bought a VHS and we bought the video. Then we didn't have to worry about commercials or the fact that it was only on tv once a year (especially as we only had 2 channels).

When I moved away from home, The Sound of Music went with me. I don't know if I got Mom's copy or if she bought me my own, but the love of it is hereditary because when my first daughter was a baby she adored it. She would play it over and over again. If she were having a terrible two day, in would go Maria and the nuns and she would park herself on the floor in blissful happiness. Then tragedy struck.

Spring cleaning is almost never a good idea but this particular day it was really not good. I had a scrub bucket of water and being eager to help clean, my eldest held out the tape and it slid out of the cardboard sleeve and plop! Right in my scrub bucket of Mr. Clean water.

By this time dvd's were on the scene, so we replaced it with a dvd. And we still watch it every Christmas, usually with hot cocoa and fresh cookies and a fire in the fireplace.

We sing along, because we can. It drives the husband crazy. We begin with How do you Solve a Problem Like Maria and our favourite line is throwing the whirling dervish out of whirl. There's I Have Confidence and Sixteen Going on Seventeen and Do Re Mi of course. And there are the quieter songs - My Favourite Things and Edelweiss and Must've Done Something Good are all songs I sang softly to my babies as I rocked them at night.

And other than the music, there is the plot. Goodness me! A nanny and a Captain! Romance central! Throw in seven children, the church, the Nazis and young love and oh my! And don't forget Max and the Baroness, the schemers. And Rolph - that heartbreaker and betrayer.

We never really get tired of watching it, and it's one of those traditions that I hope we'll carry on for many years to come. Maybe when they've flown the nest, they'll come back and have a Sound of Music afternoon with their old mom.

I might even make cocoa.

Donna's latest release is BREATHE from Samhain Publishing, out in print this month. You can find out more about it, and her upcoming Harlequin Romance releases, at www.donnaalward.com

What Are You Reading...Michelle Styles?

2011-12-22T00:15:00.000Z

PHS editor and Harlequin Historical author Michelle Styles reveals what she has been reading this Christmas.

Every Christmas I re-read A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. This is the book which basically invented (helped to popularise) Christmas as we now know it. Cromwell had basically killed Christmas but with Dickens' help Christmas came roaring back. There are reasons why we often think of Christmas with Victorian scenes.

I also always re-read Clement Moore's Twas The Night Before Christmas A Visit From St Nicholas. I love the whole visions of sugar plums dancing in their heads and the moon on the breast of the new fallen snow.

Every year I bring up the Christmas books we have collected so that the children (and me) can re-read various Christmas favourites. Otherwise long ago these books would have been thrown out. But by doing it this way, it means that the children are able to revisit the picture books from their childhood. it adds to the excitement of unpacking the Christmas ornaments. The Wild Christmas Reindeer is a constant favourite. I love the Jan Brett's illustrations. The story of Tikka and how she learns to work with the reindeer rather than against them always charms me.

This Christmas I have also been reading Robyn Carr's Bring Me Home for Christmas. I had read her earlier A Virgin River Christmas in July and thought it wonderfully Christmasy. She does Christmas very well. And this one does not disappoint.

And as soon as I get my mansucript done, I have a variety of Christmas books to read including the Governess offering from Annie Burrows and Marguerite Kaye.

Michelle Styles writes warm, witty and intimate historical romance. Her next book His Unsuitable Countess will be published in August 2012 in both the US and the UK. To read more about Michelle's books visit her website www.michellestyles.co.uk

Writers' Wednesday - Writing Through Distractions

2011-12-21T00:00:00.008Z

Our columnist, Annie West, ponders on how to write through life's distractions.

When I was unpublished, before I knew anything about being an author, I had a lovely daydream about how fantastic an author's life must be. You know those authors you read about who follow their routine of getting up at a certain time, perhaps getting to the gym or starting the day with a brisk walk, then locking themselves away in a gorgeous book-lined study with an inspiring view and working solidly till lunchtime when someone else (of course) brings them a beautifully prepared meal. Alternatively perhaps they 'lunch' with writerly friends, enjoying a glass of bubbly or two and a good laugh before returning, invigorated, to the pleasant solitude of their sacrosanct study. They end the day satisfied with the knowledge they've put in a good day's work on their next masterpiece.

Cue real life. Sigh. While writing is a wonderful profession in many ways it's rarely quite so simple. For starters most romance writers are women and like women everywhere seem to bear the burden (and joys) of child care, elder care, husband care, house and pet care, community obligations etc. Not to say our men are slouches but facts are facts and the stats continue to show that working women still tend to do more of the 'work' in families.

Then of course, most of us work from home. That means we're there when the telemarketers call, or the lonely relatives with problems and before you say 'switch off the phone' there are times when I've been glad for the call because it meant I could be there in a genuine emergency.

Working from home also means you're the one who's there when the tradesmen come (or don't show up) to give a quote on work or possibly even do the work (with maximum noise and disruption), when the dog needs to go to the vet or when for some other reason someone has to be home.

Then there are the other distractions - like Christmas. Much as I love it there's no denying that in the lead up to my fave celebration of the year I know my writing output is going to plummet. Most writers I know continually juggle distractions - either time stolen from their writing or time spent brooding on how to deal with the issues in their 'other' life.

So, how do you write through the distractions? I can't pretend to have the answers. I'm still working that out myself but I do have some thoughts. Here goes:

Set your goals knowing you're going to be disrupted. Add extra time for birthday celebrations, Christmas, school holidays or just the unexpected. There's nothing worse than staring down the barrel of a looming missed deadline and feeling guilty that you didn't meet it. Better to be sensible when setting those deadlines in the first place than lose faith in your ability to keep working (even at a snail's pace).

Say NO. I'm getting far more ruthless at saying no to things people want me to do (and even to things I want to do) if it means I'm not going to be able to get words down on the page for a week or more because of other commitments. It might seem like a small commitment of time, but added to your other commitments the effect could be fatal on your output. Which leads me to:

Write down what you want to achieve AND plot all the major things you know you'll also have to do in what is usually your writing time (x days for Christmas shopping, y hours for writing those articles you promised for the school/library/volunteer group). Having some feel for what you've taken on can help you prioritise (if it doesn't make you run screaming for the hills).

Treat your writing time as precious - otherwise others won't. Shut the door to your writing room, or lock it if need be or even take off to the library or a cafe or park with a notebook and no phone.

Tell your family/friends/community groups that you're working (when they want you to take on more). DON'T explain. The magic word 'work' is usually all it takes. It doesn't matter if you're working in your pjs at home or in a business suit in the city. It's your job!

Take advantage of the times when you can write. If you're going through a rough time (family illness for instance) broken sleep patterns are common. Rather than lie in bed knowing you'll stew on problems you can't solve maybe get up and force yourself to focus on one of the problems your characters have. Even deciding where and when the next scene will take place is an achievement and may just help you relax enough to put aside your other worries and sleep.

Practice writing in places where you think you couldn't possibly write. We all love the comfort of familiar surroundings but sometimes the only time you get peace and relative quiet to think about your writing is surrounded by strangers. I've written in hospital waiting rooms, while waiting for children to finish after school activities and while 'minding' rambunctious children at a massive indoor play centre. I've jotted down ideas for a black moment after deliberately getting to a coffee date 15 mins early because I knew I'd have time alone. Before you tell yourself you couldn't possibly write without your scented candle, fave music or personal writing space, give it a go. Don't expect miracles, but you can achieve something.

Think about the story. If you can't get a block of solid writing time, try to think about it in your down time and work out the next scene or your characters' feelings. No matter how busy your life you'll usually get some time alone - in the shower, cooking a meal, driving to an appointment. Use that time and jot down the ideas that come or even use a recorder.

When you've only got small snippets of time and you know you won't get into your story properly use it to write blogs, articles, get your diary up to date or do any of the other writing-related tasks you have to finish so when you do get some solid time alone you can concentrate on the writing.

And now for a confession. I'm writing this because I'm facing several weeks of almost non-stop distractions, after a week where I produced almost zero pages because of a range of interruptions I couldn't say no to (sometimes you really don't have a choice). I'm thinking about the words I need to write and fighting a faint sense of panic. Five minutes ago my son walked by and asked what I was writing. On hearing my topic he grinned and asked if I was going to mention him. He even offered to interrupt regularly so I could get in the swing of things...Argh!

I'd love to hear how you deal with interruptions and distractions - either in your writing time, or if you're not a writer, in just coping with the other things you need to get done. Do you make lists? Do you get up extra early? Do you say no? Any suggestions gratefully received. I think we can all do with a few more ideas on how to keep our focus amongst all the distractions.

As it's the festive season (almost) and because Annie's celebrating some lovely news she's giving away signed books to 2 people chosen at random from those who comment.

Her good news? PROTECTED BY THE PRINCE has recently been nominated for the prestigious Romantic Times Reviewers' Choice Awards and her current release THE SAVAKIS MERGER has been gathering a slew of fantastic reviews and reader feedback including 5 blue ribbons from Romance Junkies and 4 stars from Romantic Times. If you want to find out more visit Annie's website.

One commenter will received a copy of PROTECTED BY THE PRINCE and the other a copy of THE SAVAKIS MISTRESS.

Male on Monday: Antonio Banderas by Kate Hardy

2011-12-19T01:00:00.004Z

I’m going to copy Anne McAllister’s stance from last week and choose to repeat my all-time favourite Male on Monday (obviously with the exception of my husband). Those of you who know me well will be rolling your eyes, but hey – it’s a Christmas treat, and if I get my way I will be hearing him in the cinema this week.

Hearing? Yup – Puss in Boots. I’m trying to sell it to my eldest as good to dissect from an animation point of view, and to my youngest as a way of making her mum very, very happy.

Antonio was on the Graham Norton show in the UK recently with Salma Hayek to publicise the film, and I fell in love with him all over again. Why? His sense of humour. His smile. His warmth. The way he didn’t mind getting up and giving a quick fencing lesson. And the way he included everyone else on the show instead of being egotistical and expecting all the attention to be on him.

Wait. I might be describing the kind of hero I write :)

So. Just to remind you of why he’s been my heartthrob for more than 15 years (I remember seeing Evita at the cinema when I was pregnant, and clearly the baby picked up that his mum was a bit excited because he kicked like mad every time Antonio was on the screen), I give you…

The Mambo Kings. (When he could barely speak a word of English. Yup. Gorgeous.)

Desperado. (The fact he plays the guitar in this, and the long hair, and… sigh…)
Zorro. (The fencing. Oh to be Catherine Zeta Jones.)

Take the Lead (now, as the book I’m going to start writing in January involves ballroom dancing, this film - or to be precise the tango scene - will really help. I loved the character he played and the way he gave people hope and really changed their lives).

I could go on. Spy Kids, My Spy, Philadelphia (it’s the scene where he kisses Tom Hanks’ hands in hospital – stunning emotional portrayal), Interview with a Vampire…

Sigh. Antonio is the epitome of Male on Monday. Just gorgeous. Happy Christmas!

In the UK, you can get a copy of The Doctor’s Royal Love Child (from the first Penhally series) as part of a four-in-one book, ‘Secrets in the Village’; in the US, you can still get a copy of her ice cream book, ‘A Moment on the Lips’, from the eHarlequin website.You can find out more about these books, and Kate, on her website (http://www.katehardy.com/) and her blog (http://katehardy.blogspot.com/)

Wildcard Weekend : Favorite Category Romances of 2011

2011-12-17T00:01:00.000Z

The Pink Heart Society celebrates all things category romance. We asked some of our favorite contributors to share with us the best category romance they read this year.

Cort Mason - Dr. Delectable by Carol Marinelli Combines loads of heat with heart-warming medical drama. Amy Andrews

Sarah Mayberry's HER BEST FRIEND ... because BFF-to-lovers stories are my fave! Mira Lyn Kelly

HER SINGAPORE FLING/RED-HOT RENEGADE by Kelly Hunter, Nicola Marsh says electrifying!

The Power and the Glory by Kimberly Lang, Heidi Rice says 'Obama's not the sexiest guy in DC anymore!'

Tempted by Trouble, Liz Fielding - if I can hyphenate the one word description it's "ice-cream" :) (otherwise it's a real fangirl comment of "fabulous dialogue, fabulous characterisation, and this is why Liz Fielding is my favourite category author of all time") -- Kate Hardy

What the Librarian Did by Karina Bliss...Annie Burrows

Here Comes The Groom by Karina Bliss FABULOUS! -- Jenna Bayley-Burke

WHAT WAS YOUR FAVORITE CATEGORY ROMANCE READ IN 2011??

Jenna's stuck in the hospital, trying to write while on pain meds. It's comical. Be sure to check out her latest release. Private Scandal is ripe with secrets, sass, and sensational sex. Jenna's ode to retail, For Kicks, will be out in just a few weeks to help everyone through their post holiday shopping haze. Keep up with Jenna's spin on things on her website & blog.

Date With Kate - Countdown to Christmas

2011-12-16T06:00:00.001Z

So are you ready for Christmas? Are you one of those efficient people who’s made a list, checked it twice, planned the perfect gifts, bought them – wrapped them? Have you written and posted all your cards? Decorated the house? Bought in all the food and planned menus for meals for the 5000 – well, the dozen or so - visitors you’ll be having all over the holiday period?

You have? Well congratulations – though I’m not sure if I believe you! And really, what would Christmas be like if it wasn’t for those last minute dashes out to the shops for something you’ve forgotten, the replacement present for the one that you accidentally dropped, the ingredients for that special dish that your DH has said he’d love to eat . . .and while you’re out there, will you pick up a gift for his mother . .. ? Christmas is wonderful but it makes for a lot of work – and let’s face it, most of the work is done by the women in the family.

I was reading Trish Wylie’s Wednesday post before I wrote this ( Welcome back Trish! It’s great to see a new book with your name on the cover) and I was nodding along at so many of the points she made. There are times when life just seems to run along so smoothly – and times when it turns into a mad whirling tsunami of events that turn you upside down and inside out and leave you wondering if you have chance to snatch a breath before something else happens to hit you in the face. I’ve had one of those years – ill health ( family, fear friend, myself) bereavement (we lost my Mother in Law suddenly and unexpectedly) the loss of two dear cats, including the wonderful Sid the Cat who has done such a brilliant job of picking the winners of my prizes winners for so many years. Every time I’ve thought that was ‘it’ – something else happened to prove it wasn’t.

So what has this got to do with writing romance (apart from the fact that it’s been a struggle to do much of that ‘writing’ bit? ) Well, the thing is that thinking about this and about Christmas reminds me of one of the most important reasons why I do what I do – why I write romance – why I read romance – why I love these novels that the late great Charlotte Lamb called those complicated little books. It’s because they are precisely what the critics often call them dismissively – short, easy reading, aimed at a female audience. And they are about love. Love that means something to everyone no matter what colour creed, age or nationality you are. And isn’t that what Christmas is about too - about telling the people we love that we do love them, showing it with cards, gifts, hospitality . . . And that is so important – believe me, having missed one last chance to tell someone very important in my life that I loved them – and just barely getting away with not having to do that more than once this year, I ‘m saying that with real feeling.

At various points in this year the chance to escape into a book - and particularly a romance novel – has been a vital, almost life-saving – certainly sanity saving time in a stressful year. And there have been times when I’ve appreciated a that short, easy-reading nature of these novels when I didn’t know if I wold soon be interrupted or couldn’t concentrate on some long, complicated twisting plot. And most of all when I wanted the reassurance that in this book at least things would turn out all right and there would be that happy ending that we promise our readers.

It gave me a whole new appreciation of what we offer our readers – and how great it is when we get it right – when we offer them that little bit of relaxation, of switch-off, of me time in the middle of a year that seems to have had so much gloom and doom in the headlines every day.

So now, with the run up to Christmas in mind, I’ve been thinking about that – and about a way that perhaps I can pass on that feeling to someone out there who might need a break right now. Over on my blog I’ve been running a Countdown to Christmas with a book giveaway every day . I’ve asked readers to come over and chat with me, tell them about themselves – about the way they’re celebrating Christmas. So today’s PHS post is part of that - but with a difference.

Today I have a copy of my 3 in 1 collection Claimed By the Sicilian to giveaway. It contains 3 of my bestselling novels with hot Sicilian heroes - The Sicilian’s Wife, Sicilian Husband; Blackmailed Bride and The Sicilian’s Red-Hot Revenge. And just as on my personal blog, I’m asking you to post in the comments to win – but not to win this prize for yourself but as a special Christmas gift for someone else. Do you know someone who’s had a tough year? Someone who has spent more time looking after others rather than themselves ? Someone who just deserves a treat? Well – let’s face it, that just about describes most mothers .

So why not post and tell me about them – you don’t have to go into too much details if you don’t want to - but tell me who you think you’d like to give this prize to. And then I might not have Sid the Cat to pick a winner – but he did train up his apprentice, young Charlie the Maine Coon who will now take over this task in the future. Charlie has already put his training into practice by picking all the winners of my recent Big Blog Tour giveaways – and he will be picking all the winners in the Countdown to Christmas too if you want to join in with that. And Charlie will pick a winner here today too – though I'll have to get him down from the Christmas Tree first! - and I’ll send the book to you to give to your chosen ‘heroine’.

Happy Christmas to all the Pink Hearters – and I’ll see you in 2012

Kate is Celebrating the fact that her April 2011 novel The Proud Wife - has been nominated by Romantic Times Reviewers' Award of Best Presents Extra 2011. Looking forward to 21012 she has a new title coming out soon. This will be The Devil and Miss Jones and will be out in March (UK) and in Harlequin PresentsExtra in April. This will be her 60th title for Harlequin.

Sorry that I didn't get back to comment yesterday - it turned into one of those crazy too much to do days. I was so happy to see that there were these lovely nominations and as it's Christmas and as I have some spare copies of this book - and as Charlie was feeling particularly greedy! I'm going to send a copy to each of your nominees, Mary, Rita and Kaelee. I think I have some addresses but please email me again kate AT kate-walker .com with the address to be sure

Writers Wednesday: When Something's Gotta Give

2011-12-14T08:17:00.000Z

This week Trish Wylie, one of the founder members of The Pink Heart Society, returns to discuss some of the things she discovered during a particularly rough writing patch.

I can’t tell you how good it is to be back! I could call it ‘taking a break’, I could say I was suffering from writers block, but the simple fact is there’s an eighteen month gap between my last book and the new one because for a couple of years my life went to hell in a hand-basket. As I attempt to make a come-back I’ve talked with other authors who have hit bumps along the way so I thought I’d discuss what I’ve learnt and pass it on in the hope it might help others.

Authors are individuals and what works for some won’t necessarily work for others. There’s a very good chance you may disagree with some of the points I make. You may also have things to add which I haven’t mentioned. Naturally all comments are welcomed and I’ll be taking notes.

Prioritize:

Your writing has to come first and that means things like online loops, Facebook, Twitter, Blogging and everything else you feel you have to do to promote your work doesn’t matter a damn if you have nothing to promote. Readers want books, we need to eat, so if it means being brutal with the editing in this department, then so be it. Ask yourself how much good it’s doing, whether or not it has an impact and at the very least ease off when working on a story and then, when the book is released, make time in your schedule for promotion. Personally I’ve become a passionate fan of Twitter. It limits my word-count which means time-wise it only takes minutes. I also love things like Tweetdeck which allow me to be in two places at once but at the end of the day if it’s a choice between an hour spent online and an hour spent writing...

Remember the best form of promotion is your work. Consistently produce well-told stories and the reader will return to your books again and again. I know I do with the writers whose books I love. Don't you?

Pace Yourself:

Presumably you’re in this for the long haul, not a sprint to the finish. Like any artist you need time to grow and stretch your wings. In business terms you could call it product development. Like all authors I had to discover what worked for me, how I could continue to grow as a writer and I had to stop worrying about how many books my peers were producing in a year compared to me. Yes, there is a correlation between books and income, but it may not necessarily be as much as you may think when related to the time you spend working on a book. What you have to decide is how many books you are comfortable producing without risking burn-out while still making time for things like promotion or doing talks or updating websites or any of a dozen admin tasks. If you don’t make time for those things you have to do them while writing and it can have a knock on effect on the quality of your work. Obviously if you can delegate some of the tasks it frees up writing time and good organization can relieve a lot of the pressure, but there is a reason publishers don’t look for six books in the first year of a new author’s career. Their investment is long term and allows the time you need to discover what you can handle. My suggestion would be to look at your career in the same way.

Mental & Physical Health:

The latter may seem more obvious than the former but apart from the obvious dangers of RSI’s, back pain, eye strain and lack of sleep close to deadline, writers are also in danger of suffering from work related stress and depression (It was even listed as one of the top ten professions in danger of suffering depression). We work in an isolated environment, more often than not surrounded by people who don’t understand the nature of our work or how delving into characters feelings may lead us to take the emotional rollercoaster ride with them. We also have to survive on an irregular income and the difficulties which can result from that in real life; often experiencing extreme highs and lows. As a result some of the down time we schedule between books needs to be solely for us, so we can take care of our mental and physical well-being.

This may mean the simplest of things like spending time with family and friends, taking a walk, a weekend spent doing something you love or curling up with a tub of ice-cream and a pile of DVD’s-but regardless of how it is spent that time has to be yours. This is also important from the point of view of refilling the creative well. The seeds for story ideas are sown everywhere, but there are more of them outside the writing cave than within those closeted walls.

Communication:

It’s all fine and well for a single girl who writes full time to say you have to be selfish with your writing time, but for those with other jobs, families and children it can be quite the juggling act. What you need to do first is admit when there is a problem, start seeking solutions and talk to others to see how they can help. This may mean sitting down with members of your family to explain why you need them to work with you until a book is finished; offering to allow them time of their own when you are done. It may mean delegating tasks to others who are either willing volunteers or people you can afford to pay. It may mean talking to your editor about adjusting your schedule or the possibility of an extension on a deadline. Obviously the latter can be avoided with realistic time-frames but good communication skills are vital and an editor would rather know what is happening than find themselves under the kind of pressure which will ultimately be passed down the line to you. I’m not suggesting you make it a habit, but we all have times when things don’t go according to plan or life throws us a curve ball we weren’t expecting. The thing to remember above all else is professionalism and a big part of a successful professional career is the ability to communicate with others. When it comes to personal relationships not only is that same communication essential (as all Romance authors should know from their work), you also have to be honest with yourself. Many of us make the mistake of feeling we have to do everything but we all have moments of weakness. It's OKAY to admit you need a helping hand or to re-prioritize when something has to give, so before you do anything else, give yourself a break. None of us are machines.

Learn From Your Mistakes:

Last but not least you have to remember you are on as much of a journey as the fictional characters in your books. There will be times when things go well and you experience highs. There will be times when you hit a low point and it may seem all is lost. As is the case with all heroes the successful ones are those who don’t stay still but continue moving forwards; seeking solutions to their problems, learning from their mistakes and fighting for their reward. It’s up to us to be the heroes of our own stories and turn the next page.

Trish’s long-awaited new release The Inconvenient Laws Of Attraction is available now as a Riva in the UK and Ireland and can be purchased through the Mills & Boon Website, Amazon or ITunes. It will be released as a Harlequin Romance in the USA & Canada in March 2012. To find out more you can visit her Website or follow her on Twitter.

Meanwhile a signed copy of The Inconvenient Laws of Attraction is up for grabs. Trish will select a random winner from the comments on Friday so come tell us what you thought of her tips, let us know if you have tips of your own for coping with tough times or simply say 'hi'.

DEADLINE RECIPES: Grandma Polly’s Recipe for Many-Ways Cookies

2011-12-13T00:01:00.003Z

Harlequin Presents Extra author Mira Lyn Kelly shares a favorite short cut recipe, and a little about the woman who used it.

Anyone who knows me in real life, knows about Grandma Polly. Though she passed away a few years ago, she remains one of the most special and influential people in my life…and she pops up in casual conversation fairly regularly. Reason being, in addition to all the hugs and kisses and her general grandmotherly knack for making everyone feel like they were the most special person on the planet, Grandma Polly was a woman with whom I had much in common.

Our affection for card games. That quiet competitive streak that most often revealed itself during heated games of Scrabble. Our appreciation of Mother Nature’s majesty. And our propensity to use the wrong word in a sentence. And of course, our deep and abiding love of the hard earned, leave me breathless through the journey, HAPPILY EVER AFTER. Yes, it was GP who traumatized me at 14, by shipping a crate of her old romance paperbacks!

But more significantly in my adult life, our families. When I found myself overwhelmed by the prospect of having four children within three years, Grandma Polly (mother of four sons within four years) assured me that it could be done. That I would be able to do it, just as she had. That it was a matter of remembering my priorities. Making smart choices. And above all, it was about love…something she’d had for me in abundance…even after raising those four wild boys!

Sadly, Grandma Polly didn’t get to see me become a romance writer for Harlequin. It would have tickled her like nothing else. But she did get to see me loving my family and learning to juggle a life that often leaned toward chaos. It made her smile and laugh, and of course, offer up more of those hugs and whispered assurances that I could handle anything. She was full of advice, tips and recipes whenever I needed them. And here is one recipe of hers that I make with my kids… and usually have to wipe a tear or two away while doing it…

MANY-WAYS BUTTER COOKIES (for the busy mom who wants a special cookie plate, but doesn’t have time to whip up a zillion batches of dough)

1C Butter
1C Sugar
1 Egg
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp vanilla
2 2/3 C sifted flour

Cream butter and sugar. Add egg, salt, and vanilla and beat well. Blend in flour. Divide into 4 parts and shape as directed below. Bake at 375F for 7-10 min.

Shapes:
1. Drop cookies (rounded tsps.): Flatten slightly with a glass, buttered and dipped in colored sugar.
2. Spritz cookies
3. Molded peppermint cookies: Shape into tsp balls. Roll in a mixture of 1Tbs finely crushed peppermint candy and 1Tbs sugar before baking.
4. Cut-out cookies: Roll on flour surface to 1/8 inch thickness

Male on Monday : : Hugh Again

2011-12-12T03:01:00.002Z

Anne McAllister went to New York City last week. She’s still recovering . . .

Yes, yes, yes. I know Hugh Jackman has been our Pink Heart Society Male on Monday before. I think he was our first. I just don’t have time to go back and check because I’m writing this right before it goes up on Monday in New Zealand and Fiji and other places far to the west of me. Or east as the case may be.

Doesn’t matter. He could be the PHS’s Male on Monday every week as far as I’m concerned. He’s been mine since back in 1997 when Lucy Gordon and I were sitting in a café in Bath, and I was casting about for inspiration for a book I was going to be doing next. And she said, “You know, you should use that Australian actor who’s playing Curly in Oklahoma in London right now.”

And I rolled my eyes, unable to imagine an Australian playing an Oklahoman in London.

My mistake.

Turns out she was right.

So, Mr Jackman has been on my radar for a long time, and I’ve appreciated him vicariously in various books, including the one I’m currently working on.

But I don’t think I ever appreciated him quite as much as I did last Wednesday when I went to see him on Broadway.

In case you aren’t up on all things Jackman at the moment – and if you are a regular reader of this blog, I find that hard to believe – there is a one-man show, starring Guess Who, currently enjoying Standing Room Only status in New York City.

Called “Hugh Jackman: Back on Broadway” it gives those of us who have appreciated his turns as Wolverine and as a song-and-dance man and as an emcee of such things as the Tonys and the Oscars and as a dramatic actor a couple of hours to just bask in his extremely well-rounded talents.

Granted that this show, by virtue of its venue and the lack of cinematic special effects, allows the ‘song-and-dance’ man and the emcee more sway, I suspect those who only know him as Wolverine might also enjoy it. And they’d certainly have their horizons broadened!

We were in the fourth row, so we got a good look at the sweat on his brow as he sang his way through Broadway medleys, tap danced his way through Gene Kelly, and channeled all eight salesmen on the train at the beginning of The Music Man.

We got to enjoy his engagement with the audience, and it isn’t hard to imagine that every show is a bit different depending on who’s there, who he coaxes up on stage, and who he mercifully leaves unsummoned because they would clearly be overwhelmed.

He admits to the self-indulgence of the one-man show. At the same time he so genuinely obviously enjoys what he’s doing that you can only be glad he’s doing it – and regret that he’ll only be doing it for three more weeks. Then he’s off to play Jean Valjean in the big screen musical of Les Miserables. And then Wolverine. Again. Ah, yes. Did I mention he’s got a lot of strings to his bow?

To say that he’s taken Broadway by storm is not really to overstate the matter. I talked to several dozen New Yorkers, many more than a little cynical in their outlook on life – and entertainment. And every single one of them was either gushing because they’d gone to see him and had been blown away, or was regretting that they hadn’t, and now they couldn’t get a ticket.

While most of the reviews have been lavish in their praise and enthusiasm, one, in the LA Times (that west coast bastion of cynicism regarding east coast events) said that it was all well and good, this one man show, but it really was just a very splendid song and dance and witty repartee routine which, while it was entertaining, didn’t allow us to ‘really know’ Hugh Jackman.

Er, well, it is entertainment, isn’t it?

He wasn’t up there to bare his soul or let us in on all the details of his life. He did, in my estimation, communicate some pretty clear details about what matters to him (good Male on Monday stuff).

Briefly, he’s devoted to his wife and his kids, he loves his work, so it really isn’t work at all. He admires and respects his father and his father’s commitment to and love for his family. He has pride for his Australian heritage, and values all the people and cultures who make up that great country.

He is amazed and delighted by the opportunities life has brought his way and he’s open to ‘giving it a go’ whenever he can.

Also, by late last week he (by auctioning off t-shirts he wore in the production and the gold lame Peter Allen belt from his Boy From Oz production segment) had raised over $1,000,000 for Broadway Cares, Equity Fights Aids.

I don’t need to know any more than that.

As far as I’m concerned, he’s a Male on Monday worth celebrating again. And again.

Definitely worth the trip to New York -- even if I hadn’t been able to get a lot of research done as well.

Anne is back with her nose to the grindstone. Her most recent book was the Harlequin Presents Extra, The Night That Changed Everything.

She has another Presents Extra, Savas’s Wildcat, coming sometime in the spring. When she finishes the current book, she’ll take the time to figure out when.

Wildcard Weekend - So Long, Farewell...

2011-12-10T01:00:00.001Z

Brigid Coady bids the Pink Heart Society a fond farewell

I hate goodbyes. I hate the thought of anyone leaving. I'm choked up and angry. I even get really stroppy with the person going and as a result they can't wait to see the back of me. Those calm and stoic types that tell their lovers they are leaving unless they straighten up are an anathema to me. Yeah, so pretty much I'm saying, saying goodbye sucks.

But that is what I'm doing today. After *does quick mental calculation* four years as a columnist (blogmist) at the Pink Heart Society I am hanging up my keyboard. I have had a blast here for all that time. I started off writing a monthly column about my journey to be published as a Harlequin Mills & Boon author. What a rollercoaster that was! Sadly it was not to be but I learnt a lot. I also had such great support from people on here to keep me going.

Things moved on. I spent a long time trying to work out what I should be writing. Lots of heartache and brainache. And now I think I know what it is. I want to write YA Fantasy. In fact that is what I am writing and have quite a bit of interest. But the problem, as always, is time. I have an almost revised manuscript, a killer day job and other stories bashing against my door. Something has to give.

So here we are. For me it is the end of an era. I'll miss my monthly missives but I will still be hanging around like that annoying relative who doesn't know when to leave. And maybe, if the stars align and pigs fly, I'll be back with my first call story.

So farewell Pink Hearters. I've had a blast. Thanks!

Brigid Coady has left the building...

MUST WATCH FRIDAY: Drive

2011-12-09T01:00:00.002Z

Rive/Harlequin Presents Extra author Heidi Rice finds a compulsive and compelling romance in the wreckage of this violent action drama.

Now, before we get started I should warn everyone that Drive is at times an extremely violent movie. There are sequences in it that literally made me hide my eyes - and I'm a professional film reviewer so not usually at all wussy about screen violence. IMHO, the violence here is depicted to shock, not to excite or titilate, so it isn't what I'd consider gratuitous. And that violence is also in keeping with the shadowy, twilight world in which the film's characters exist.

Ok, public health warning aside, I have to say that this film really moved me. It's beautifully shot, and the faltering romance - between getaway driver Ryan Gosling and prisoner's wife Carey Mulligan - manages to be both subtle and yet wildly erotic, despite the fact that in the course of the film all these two actually have is one kiss. But boy, is that some kiss.

I have to admit, until I saw this movie Ryan Gosling wasn't an actor particularly on my radar. But he's certainly on it now. From the nail-bitingly tense opening action sequence - when he makes a slick getaway from the scene of a botched warehouse robbery - to the burgeoning romance between him and his next-door neighbour I've rarely seen such a controlled and yet compelling performance. This guy is the epitome of the anti-hero, not just a bad boy, but a bad man (verging on a sociopath) who's only really redeeming feature is his loyalty - but as we all know what he really needs in his lonely life is love. Carey Mulligan is the perfect match for him as the young vulnerable single mother who is drawn to this strong, silent man, while also being a little scared of him.

I won't go into the thriller plot, but needless to say it's grim, gritty and does not end well. These are two people adrift in a violent world who's connection comes too late, for both of them. But I've gotta say I was totally mesmerised. And I did at times think of Ryan in this film as a bit of a Presents hero — particularly those dark, brooding and emotionally damaged men that writers such as India Grey and Abby Green and Lynn Raye Harris do so well.

A film I would definitely recommend, if you don't mind a not-so-happy-ending, and you've got a cast-iron stomach!

Heidi's latest book, On the First Night of Christmas, is currently out in the US, the UK and Oz simultaneously. And she's doing a happy dance about that. Come have a chat on her blog, her Facebook page, her website or on Twitter (@HeidiRomRice).