Press releases and promo

I suck at both of them. At least I think I do at the moment. One of my goals for this year was to make more effort at both. I hadn't bargained on my cable company crashing my net access without warning seemingly everytime I have a chat booked.
Thank you to everyone who has emailed me since the announcement of the romance prize shortlist. I'm overwhelmed and a little stunned still. I need to book my tickets now for the Savoy and for the conference.
Writing wise, I'm onto chapter two of my new medical and I think I can see where it's going better now thanks to Jess's inciteful critique. So I'm planning to push on with that as my task for this week.

It's official

The announcement of the shortlist for the Romance prize has been posted.
http://www.rna-uk.org click on RNA romance prize 2007
The Nominees are:

Accepting The Boss's Proposal - Natasha Oakley
An Improper Companion - Anne Herries
Her Ready-Made Family - Jessica Hart
Lord Greville's Captive - Nicola Cornick
The Gladiator's Honour - Michelle Styles
The Millionaire's Runaway Bride - Catherine George

and Marrying Max by me!!

I can't believe my book is there with all those fabulous authors. I've read all of the books except Anne and Catherine's and I know how fabulous they are. To even be considered in the same line as Jessica Hart makes me feel faint - those of you who read here regularly know how much I admire her work and how excited I was to meet her last year.
Congratulations to all the authors!

Agents and other stuff

I had an offer of representation yesterday from the agent who was looking at Charlie Darling. After a lot of research and thought I decided not to go with the offer. No doubt I'll kick myself at some point in the future about this decision but at the moment it feels right.
I finished the first chapter of my new medical and sent it to Jessica. Hopefully I've got the tone right but I'll see what she thinks.
My next step is to finish the chapter of Places To Go and send her that, then tackle chapter two of the medical. No news yet from M&B but I had two lovely emails, one from Shirley who was my editor at Peoples Friend for Marrying Max. It was so nice to hear from her as she was excited about the shortlisting. The other one was from Angela James at Samhain. Samhain have taken up the e book rights for Marrying Max so they are very thrilled too.

Ccccoooolllldddd

I hate being cold. It's freezing here and we didn't get the snow they promised. I want a snow day - chance to stay home in the warm. I heard from a friend on the Samhain boards that I've been quoted in the RWR magazine for this month. Just wish I could remember what it was about, I have vague recall of doing something for someone a few months ago about hints and tips. I don't get the magazine so if anyone here spots it, please let me know.
I heard from the agent that has Charlie and he told me he's reading. I'm doing my research to see if he's a good fit for me. No news from M&B which is okay as I'd like to be further in with my new story first. I'm almost done with the first chapter - I think the rest will be faster to write but this one is a challenge to get the tone right.
I'm also working on Places To Go - I'm hoping to have a new chapter done on that soon too. The March edition of The Romantic Times will be out soon and I'm on tenterhooks to see my advert and read the review for Things To Do. Exciting stuff happening so far this year!

I've been nominated.

I just had a phonecall from a lovely lady from The Romantic Novelist's Association. Marrying Max has made the shortlist for category romance novel of the year. I need to send more copies for the next round of judging. The winner is announced at a lunch at the Savoy hotel on Friday 27th April in London.
I am so excited - I would never have entered Max if my lovely friend and fellow writer Michelle Styles hadn't suggested I send copies. She has also made the shortlist with her fabulous book - Gladiators Honour. Whoo hoo! The official announcement should be made soon, but WOW!!!

Today is the launch of Be My Hero - the second book of the Cinderella series. I love this cover. The original one wasn't at all me but this one is great - The book should be available by tonight UK time and sometime in the day US time at http://www.moonlitromance.com/ and will be available at fictionwise shortly too. I'll give you all a shout when it goes up there.

Here's the excerpt I promised -

Polly knelt on a chair at the kitchen table with her colouring pencils.
‘That’s a nice picture.’ He admired her handiwork. The picture was of a man and a woman holding hands with crowns on their heads. A drawing of a little girl with yellow hair, also wearing a crown, was next to them.
‘That’s you and Nathalie getting married,’ Polly explained. ‘I’m in my princess dress because I’m the bridesmaid.’
Evan swallowed. ‘Um - Poll, sweetheart, Nathalie and I are just friends. We aren’t getting married.’ Even as he said the words out loud, he knew he wanted to marry Nathalie, had always wanted to marry Nathalie. The revelation quickened his pulse as it hit home like a thunderbolt.
‘I saw you kiss her - I peeped round the door when she said goodnight. That means you’ll marry her,’ Polly declared confidently as she began to colour in Nathalie’s hair in the picture with a black fibre-tip pen.
‘Poll, it’s not that simple, okay?’
His daughter silenced him with a look and a shrug of her shoulders. At least he should be grateful that Polly didn’t want him to remarry Laurel.
He toyed with the idea of calling Nathalie but he felt the initiative needed to come from her. If he pushed too hard at the moment, he could make everything worse. He rubbed his hand through his hair in frustration. The cases he dealt with in court weren’t as tricky to handle as Nathalie and his feelings for her.
The house phone rang and he rushed to answer it, hoping it would be her.

(C) Nell Dixon 2007

Things To Do

Is up on Amazon UK - I just found it by accident! whoo hoo! This has totally made my day.

Be My Hero

Be My Hero is due for release tomorrow. I'm kind of nervous about this book because it touches on something that's a difficult issue for many women. Infertility and the choices we sometimes are forced to make. It's something I have considerable firsthand experience of and I didn't want to write a schmaltzy story. Nathalie's story ends happily as all good romances should (at least the ones I like to read) but I hope I've done her justice.
The book has a special dedication - it's dedicated to all the staff and consultants at the unit for assisted fertility at Birmingham's womens hospital. Without them and my wonderful consultants, Mr Jordan and the Mr Afnan, I wouldn't have my family.
I'll post an excerpt for you tomorrow and the cover!
I'm guestblogging today at Sweeter Romantic Notions author blog - talking about the internet. Don't forget to go here http://blog.myspace.com/nelldixon and read Meg Allison's interview.

Launching My author spotlights

http://blog.myspace.com/nelldixon Drop by here to read more about multi-pubbed writer Meg Allison. I'll be posting regular spotlight interviews with guest authors over at my Myspace blog. If you write sweet/sensual or YA and would like an interview then please drop me a line.

ps Meg is a lovely person as well as a super talented author so please check her out.

Premature Back-ulation

Yes, cable is down again. I'm typing this from work just so you all don't think I've fallen off the edge of the planet, which I might do in a minute. I'm doing the book a day giveaway tomorrow Jan 16th over at The Romance Studio so if you fancy winning a copy of Things To Do hop over and enter the draw. If I ever get to access my emails ever again and you win I'll send you a copy.
To say I'm a bit pizzled off is the understatement of the year. I think we'll be changing provider because this is just ridiculous.
On the writing front - I managed some more on Places to Go yesterday and rewrote most of my medical as I'm still tinkering to get the tone right. It's very different from Charlie Darling.

Catching myself up

Now I finally can access the net again I've been catching up like a crazy woman. First 1000 words done on my medical now only 49k to go. I feel so much better for having got started, I probably wrote 5k before I was reasonably happy with the start. I'm sure it will change again though.
Places to Go is also moving along again, which is great as it's so much fun to write.
The weather here has been wet and wild for the last few days and my poor garden looks extremely battered. My dwarf conifer in my front rock garden looks to have bitten the dust and my DH is making noises about attaching ropes to my towbar to yank it out. The corkscrew hazel is budding up nicely although with the wild weather our squirrel has gone into hiding.

I'm baack!

Yay! Cable appears to be working again - at last. We've compensation for all the disruption in reduced bills and free calls for the next six months but what a nightmare!
I've started my new medical and managed a chapter on Places to Go - wow, really pleased with that. I also have a very rough almost completed synopsis for the new medical.
Things To Do is finally listed on Amazon.com!!! Now once I'm caught up again I plan to have a new contest so please keep your eyes peeled and I'll be announcing that shortly here and over at my website. I'll also be emailing the first of my guest authors their interview questions for my My space blog spotlights.
Oh, it's so good to be back.

Progress Report

Making Waves is done and sent to Laura at Moonlit to sit alongside Dangerous to know and my line edited version of Be My Hero which is due out on the eighteenth of this month.
Charlie Darling is with Maddie Rowe and with the agent - both of those outcomes are out of my control now so I'm trying to push them out of my head.
All I can do is continue with my other projects to get as much done on them as I possibly can. So, I'm starting my new medical today and I'm writing Places To Go as I've neglected it for far too long.
At work I have a health visitor student for the week for her alternative placement - Hi Liz! On Thursday my eldest belle will become a teenager - I am too young to be the mother of a teenager. (Stop sniggering)

Uh-oh I did it again

This time last year I queried a few agents about Things To Do and had some good results but no cigar. My friend, Allison Littlehales, told me a while ago about a really good agent who she thought was looking for medical romance writers amongst other things. Over our usual coffeee and cakes I promised her that if M&B showed any interest in Charlie darling I'd follow it up.
Guess what, I finally got my courage up and did it last night while the net was co-operating. This morning I woke up to a request to see the full ms and a 3-5 page synopsis.
So my goals have shifted a tinsy bit to allow for this new development. I need to rewrite the synopsis as I only usually write 2 page ones and the one for Charlie is woeful to say the least. Then I must finish Making Waves, I've only a little bit left to do. My plans are more or less firmed up for my new medical so I need to draft a rough synopsis for that too. Looks like a busy week.

Just sometimes...

My internet server provider is up to it's tricks again. I'm hoping this will stay on long enough to let me post. If you've emailed me and I haven't responded it's because I can't. I can recieve but not send - well certainly nothing more than a one line sentence if the wind is in the right direction.
I've recieved my confirmation from M&B so Charlie is sitting there waiting. Making Waves is almost complete and I have lots of things firming up for my new medical.
Be My Hero is due out in just over two weeks time and my edits after much cussing over the lack of email send facility should now be with Laura.
Cable tell me they should have this fixed next week - I won't hold my breath.

Welcome to the New Year

I'm guestblogging again today at Sweeter romantic notions again if you want to pop over. I was talking about setting goals to achieve your targets. I don't like resolutions too much, I prefer to set goals.
My goals are only set for a month at a time, this gives me chance to review them and make changes as circumstances alter. So for January my goals are:
To lose some weight - I've started this already - check out the (Pink Heart society)
To finish Making Waves, edit it and send it off - (2K to go and major editing)
To have a synopsis and the first three chapters done of a new medical (This one may be a tough push as I have final line edits for Be My Hero to complete as it's released at the end of this month and all the promoting to do)
So - three goals - what about you?