And, as I’ve been able to throw away my glasses, lose a stone and meet my deadline, a couple of weeks ago I decided it was time. I knew the lovely Marte L Rekaa, who takes such wonderful photos of the RNA events, so I collared her for a chat. It wasn’t so much that I knew what I wanted – more that I had a clear idea of what I didn’t want.

I didn’t want to look as if I came from the pages of a bank’s in-house magazine (OK, I used to work for a bank, but that doesn’t have to count); I didn’t want to look like a secretary, either (and yes! I used to be one of those, too! But I’m not now.) I wanted images that were relaxed and creative. And flattering, obviously. And not to be always wearing a huge horsey smile. Photographers seem to  want to catch me with a massive smile, in the same way that hairdressers can’t resist sending me out looking like a country-western star’s poodle.

Marte spent loads of time with lighting and different coloured backgrounds, because those two things can make an enormous difference – it’s no coincidence that I bought none of the images with the white background – and we just talked and laughed and she took photos.

It all sounds simple, but it worked so well. No chance to set my face in that rictus of just-get-it-over-with. No this-feels-as-artificial-as-plastic-flowers. The whole experience was fun.

What do you think?

Even though two were spoken for, they all made themselves available for cuddles. In fact, one climbed into my bag – obviously deciding he loved me enough to come home with me.

I discovered a new accomplishment – walking with puppies swinging by their teeth from the hem of my coat and the laces of my boots. There’s quite an art to it. (No puppies were harmed, in case you’re worrying.)

And I took away five tiny pawprints in my heart. Aww.

My study mid book, notes to right of monitor, timeline draped across filing cabinet, filing system largely on floor. It's tidier now! If I could only just find my camera, I'd show you ...

It’s a lovely feeling, to get your book finished and in to the publisher on time. I feel all end of termish, Christmas Eveish and ‘it’s nearly my birthday!’ish, all at once. This Utopia will fade as time for the edits draws near but, meantime, I can work through a To Do list that I’ve been compiling since October, when the deadline seemed to be approaching at an unpleasantly rapid trot considering that I had an eye op and Christmas to work around.

So I thought I’d reproduce my To Do list, here, with progress:

1. Do accounts for the year ended 31.12.11 (scheduled for the weekend)
2. Send books to accountant (scheduled for shortly after)
3. Scan through inbox and answer unanswered emails Unfortunately, new emails have appeared
4. Sort through intray and deal with anything that can be dealt with Ditto, with bills etc
5. Filing (hate it. It hasn’t reached the rim of the tray, yet, so it can’t be time to do it)
6. Write three columns for Writers’ Forum (one of these now drafted and research done on another)
7. Write three guest blogs and update own blog
8. Type up invoices and deliver
9. Update website and send update to webguy  (webguy now busy and says he’ll try and get onto it next week)
10. Write Romance Matters Q&A column (Qs received – the As are my bit)
11. Write 2x Choc Lit Author blogs and schedule/sent to person collating contributions
12. Read my half of Choc Lit short story comp entries
13. Order curtains
14. Bring in a couple of pots from garden before the first frost. (Um. Oops.)
15. Update website. (As this appeared on the list twice, I obviously understood the urgency of doing this in October when Love & Freedom won the Best Romantic Read Award 2011. Actually sent update off last night …)
16. Make appointment for eyebrow plucking (tried, but my plucker is on holiday)
17. Have hair cut (One has to have some standards! Of course I had it cut!)
18. Call people who supplied woodburning stove to tell them paint is coming off
19. Update my ALCS payment records
20. Attend RNA Leicester Chapter Lunch (will be crossed off later today)
21. Attend RNA Cambridge Chapter Lunch (will be crossed off on Wednesday)
22. Smile more
23. Tweet more
24. FB more

So, that’s quite a lot of progress!

(I’m not the only one to have a To Do list, am I? And to put things on specifically to be able to cross them off? see entries 22-24.)

PS I can see my desk. Achievement in itself.

It’s like end of term, birthday and Christmas all rolled into one. I’m now entering a wonderful period, when the book is finished but the edits and revisions haven’t yet arrived. But I have a mega ‘to do’ list,  waiting to take my attention: student assignments, competition entries, three columns for Writers’ Forum, do my bookkeeping for 2011 because my accountant has already written asking where my books are, update my website, write some guest blogs, judge my share of the Choc Lit short story competition, get my invoices up to date, write my Q&A column for Romance Matters, and buy new curtains for the landing. I also have several events to attend, at least two of which are thinly disguised meals with friends, and have new author pix taken. Oh, and pick up my new glasses.

But, yeah, even with that mammoth list, I’m still in a happy place! Dream a Little Dream is complete. It’s a Middledip book and my other Middledip books, Starting Over and All That Mullarkey have drawn a lot of positive feedback, recently, so I hope that everyone who enjoyed those books will enjoy Dream, too.

And I can’t end without a little boast – All That Mullarkey is number 42 in the Top 100 paid Kindle chart, and has spent 72 days in the top 100, in total. I think I feel a glass of wine coming on, this evening …

Jared Leto

Martyn Mayfair, from Love & Freedom, is easy. I stole him from a single shot of actor and musician Jared Leto. Jared doesn’t always look like this, but this is the image I had in my head.

Starting Over’s Ratty is less easy because he came from watching Kevin Kline in the 1983 production of the Pirates of Penzance. I’m no opera (or operatta) buff but I love the Pirates and watching KK as the pirate king, leader of his gang, doing things exactly his own way, I mentally stripped off the Errol Flynn moustache and gave him blue eyes. And Ratty was born. For a flavour, see this clip.

Bryan Brown

Justin, from All That Mullarkey, is definitely a pastiche of a young Bryan Brown and motor cycle legend Carl Fogarty. You have to scale both of them back age-wise, but I can do that …

So, any of these images resonate with you?

Carl Fogarty

I’m not even certain how writing a hero works. I mean, just because I fancy someone, it won’t mean you fall for him, too. I might go for a toughie and you for a smoothie. Me for tall and you for cuddly. So how does the alchemy work? How can what’s in my imagination transfer to someone yours, and become a man you’d get gooey over?

It must be that the reader’s imaginary hero is just right for the reader. It doesn’t matter if I say he’s tall, if the reader prefers cuddly, that’s what he becomes. To them. I’ve been through this process myself, as a reader, and been quite surprised to note, part way through the book, that the hero has blond hair – because I’d simply seen him as dark. That’s how I’d pictured him, ergo, that’s how he was!

The writer’s imagination didn’t come into it.

So, how about you? Do you think you share a writer’s vision of a character? Or do you identikit your own?

Who’s your hero? Is he conventionally phwoarrrr! or do you go for someone different to the fancy of all your friends?

Do you like to fall between the covers of a book with an adventurous rogue, but married a boy-next-door accountant?

Do tell me. (I won’t tell anyone else …)

I had eye surgery in mid-December. It was an amazing success and the only regret I have about it was that I didn’t have any photos taken when my eye was a funny shape, one part of the white was scarlet, and the pupil dilated to almost the full extent of the iris. I looked wicked and weird, and I would love to have shown you.

Instead, I thought I’d bring you a few photos of me doctored on Photo Booth on my iPad. I’ve had (and lurved) my iPad for some months, but it wasn’t until I had to take an extended Christmas break that I took the time to ferret into programmes I didn’t really know I had a use for. So here are the results:

This is particularly fetching, I think. A weird eye quite pales, in comparison!

Is this how your hangover felt, too?

Whoo! Cheery!

In a negative mood ...

Not just that he finds me scary, but that ‘all men do’! I said, ‘Fancy you being the only one who’s brave enough to tell me.’

But I thought about it, afterwards, and wondered why a 49-year-old man, 6’4″, sound of body, would say that. Does he genuinely find me scary? Did he think it was a good chat up line? (It’s not.) Did he think it was an amazingly witty thing to say? Did he think I’d like to consider this guy, more than a foot taller than me, scared of me? Did he think it would put him in a good light, in some mysterious way? (It doesn’t.)

I asked the question on Facebook and received an interesting selection of replies. All from women.

Out of twenty:

Nine said that they have been told they’re scary, too. Wow! Now I’ve gone to the thread and established that ratio – nearly half of us are considered scary. Now that’s scary.

Seven were pretty scathing of a man who’d say it. (So, guys, it really isn’t a good chat up line.)

Two said that I’m not scary, I’m supportive and assertive (thanks!).

One said I’m terrifying. (Hmm. Thanks.)

Two thought it was plain rude/rubbish.

And just about everyone interpreted ‘scary’ as a strong/confident woman. I’m not going to go all coy and say, ‘Who? Me?’  And I don’t see why I should. All kinds of less admirable traits like impatience and impetuousness, go with it, of course, but, yes, basically, I’m confident, outgoing etc.

So, what I’d really like to know is: does that make me scary?

WHY?

And please do tell me. I won’t bite.

But now the news is out!

We’re going into North America!

Here’s the press release:

Brand-led, commercial women’s fiction publisher, Choc Lit expand into North America with effect from 1st January 2012, represented by International Publishers Marketing (IPM).

“North America is a key market for our expansion. We already have a loyal following in the USA and constantly receive great reviews. Finding the right partner, who believed in our brand and could offer the right support was critical. We believe we’ve found the perfect match with Jane Graf at IPM,’ states Lyn Vernham, Director, Choc Lit.

Since launch, Choc Lit has published a string of novels that regularly hit the Nielsen’s Top 20 Small Publishers Fiction List. In the last few months, they have picked up three awards – Best Romantic Read Award from the Festival of Romance, The Big Red Reads Fiction Award and Best Historical Fiction Award. Never Coming Home, a debut from Evonne Wareham (to be published March 2012) was a finalist in the American Title competition, run by RT Book Reviews Magazine & Dorchester Publishing of New York.

Jane Graf of IPM says: “We are delighted to add Choc Lit to our portfolio of clients. The quality of the writing, as well as their high production values, and stunning covers will make them stand out as a romantic fiction publisher. Their brand and great strapline ‘Where heroes are like chocolate – irresistible!’ are unique and a strong selling point. We’re excited to see how we can grow and develop this publisher in North America.

So, that’s wonderful news for us to take into 2012. Yeah, yeah, happy dance, happy dance.  Happeeee …

When Choc Lit wanted to put All That Mullarkey on special offer as a Kindle download to celebrate National Chocolate Week at the beginning of October, I was all for it.

I knew, from other writers, that to have one book at a superduperspecial offer could improve rankings all round. So All That Mullarkey went on sale for the princely sum of £0.86, and, to be honest, I went to Malta on holiday, and forgot about it.

Although I’d meant to stay off the Internet during my week away (! yes, really!), it turned out that the hotel had free Internet access in the lobby and so I found myself checking my emails after breakfast, as you do. I was pleasantly surprised to receive a couple congratulating me that All That Mullarkey was in the top 200 of the Kindle Paid chart. Whoop!

Back to work, azure seas and fabby snorkelling a thing of the past, I found All That Mullarkey just outside the top 100 and Choc Lit of a mind to keep the superduperspecial offer on for another week or so. And we made that decision again. And again. And All That Mullarkey continued a slow and graceful slide up the charts until, as I write, it’s at number 50. (By the time I check again it could be different, but, hey. Right here, right now, I can claim to be in the top 50.)

As Amazon provides a whole slew of charts, this makes the same book number 3 in Women Writers & Fiction, 4 in Romance Contemporary and 6 in Adult & Contemporary.

Now, you can say that it’s easy to sell a book so cheaply, and ask whether it’s worth it, and I’ll tell you more about that when I get royalties for this period. But some facts can’t be argued with. Not only is All That Mullarkey selling well, but all of my other Choc Lit books, Starting Over, Want to Know a Secret and Love & Freedom, have gone up the rankings, too. Not so far as All That Mullarkey, but, still. It was a marketing decision to put one book out on superduperspecial offer to increase interest in the rest, and it’s working. Amazon reviewers are saying so! It’s even affecting my backlist title, which I put out as an ebook myself (with a lot of help from somebody whose support I much value), Uphill All the Way.

I think that today’s audiences are prepared to be tempted by a cheap book and willing to be converted into regular readers. I’m one of those, myself. If you fall into this category, it’s great to have you reading my books. And I hope you continue to enjoy reading them.

And now I have to go back to the writing of the current one …