Bliss

Most of you know I'm a huge fan girl of Jessica Hart and Liz Fielding - so what could possibly be better than a new book containing both of those ladies story's? Many thanks to Jessica for sending me the latest release from the Romance line, I can't wait to start reading. Sadly however I've another editing round on Charlie Darling to finish first and I need to meet my writing deadlines for this week - now though I might just go a little bit faster with a fab book waiting in the wings for me to read. Also happy Birthday today to another Jessica! My lovely friend, Jessica Foote - Have a fab day!

On a roll

Finally got the shoe problem sorted - in the end I had to go down there with the shoes and not move until I got an answer. Shoes are now gone to be altered so Miss la will have to have a note for school and permission to wear sandals for a week until tbey come back. Not ideal but better than nothing.
I finally got on top of some of my mailing today too - a huge haul to the post office of official forms, parcels and other writerly bits and bobs that I needed to sort out.
I also braved the child tax credit line and dealt with updating and renewing all of that info - always a challenge when you have dyscalculia and there are a lot of numbers involved.
I finished the first chapter of Just Look at me Now. I think I quite like it - it's very different again from my other books and definitely different from Crystal Clear. Even better yesterday I got my sticky mitts on a copy of Jessica Hart's Honeymoon with the Boss. Rush out and get a copy - it's a lovely summery sunshine feelgood read that whisks you off to a tropical paradise.

Catching up

Now I'm feeling a bit more coherent I'll attempt to talk about the conference. First though, I'm guest blogging at another of my writing heroine's blogs this week. So as well as the lovely Liz Fielding allowing me to visit you can also catch me HERE This is where I go all fan girl because you know I adore Jessica Hart's books.
Anyhoo, The Conference!
We kicked off with questions to a panel of writers all working in different subsections of the romance genre. Kate Johnson, who writes paranormal, Kate Harrison, who writes chick lit, Kate Hardy, medicals and modern heat, Anna Jacobs, Saga and contemporary and Nicola Cornick, historical. That was very interesting to hear the news from all the different aspects.
I met up with Imogen Howson, who writes for Drollerie press, Immi, who is a lovely person, disgustingly slim and pretty and a fab writer to boot, was also my editor at samhain so we had lots to talk about.
Anyway, workshops.
I went to one by Mark Thornton, from Mostly Books, based in Abingdon who talked about what to do and what not to do if you want a bookseller to stock your book.
Then I went to hear Anna Jacobs talk on polishing a manuscript, this was interesting to me because although there were similarities in how she polishes and how I polish, she is an over writer who pares down and as you all know I'm an underwriter who adds in.
Then came a session for the New Writers scheme readers.
After lunch came Midas - the PR company talking about the secrets of a successful publicity campaign. This fascinated me as I only ever see the American model on the net so to hear a UK agency talk about how they work was quite eyeopening.
A brilliant talk followed by Sue Moorcroft on writing short stories for womens magazines. I used to write a lot of short stories many years ago and I'm just starting to think about getting back into it again so it was nice to get some tips from such a successful writer in that field.
We then had a wonderful talk from Jill Mansell on how she writes. She also very bravely fielded questions.
The evening bought the gala dinner and the Elizabeth Goudge contest but I'll blog about that tomorrow.