Wednesday 28 March 2007

Deadlines

Finally knuckled down and got some writing done yesterday. I added somewhere between 2000 and 25oo words to the wip . The weather is unseasonally warm at the moment so I took the opportunity to do some Spring Weeding with the sunshine wonderfully warm on my back. The forecasters tell me that the cold weather will return tomorrow, so perhaps I won't do any more for while.

Time then to stay indoors and write! I do have a deadline of a sort. Not a publishing deadline, but we leave to go on holiday in May and I'd like to have it wrapped up by then. That gives me four to six weeks...40K to go. Anyone care to take a wager?

Some people need a deadline, but I don't think I do. I like to think I'm organised and progressing in nice easy increments towards the target. But then, the writing urge doesn't always appear to order, as I found last week. I gave myself a few days off, and then forced myself back to the wordprocessor. It seemed to work. I hope it isn't going to happen too often.

Sunday 25 March 2007

Spring is here!


I lost an hour's sleep last night but since Spring is officially here, perhaps I won't grumble. Not that we have sunshine, you understand, but at least it isn't raining, and there's no wind. I'm starting to think of Outings now that better weather and longer days are here. I still have a wish to go and view Britannia. I loved that ship, and Edinburgh is only a two hour drive away.

But today is a day for writing. I have such a good scene to do today - an Easter Ball in which the hero and heroine finally realise they are more than friends and when the Herbert Dastardly character tries to muscle in on the heroine's affections. Should be fun to write.

Saturday 24 March 2007

Getting the hang of things

I'm finally getting to grips with how to manipulate the info I want on this blog, which is good. I now have a list of links, which may change from time to time since I don't know what the ultimate number of permitted links might be, and my interests change with time.

Any writing and critting I've been doing this week has been interupted by the fact that I mislaid my wallet. Yes, with credit cards and stuff. The annoying thing is, it has to be somewhere in this house! I used a card on Friday for a delivery of groceries, didn't leave the house Friday or Saturday, and couldn't find the wallet on Sunday morning. We've searched the waste bins, looked under the beds, looked inside the washing machine - yes, I know! - everywhere we can think of and still no joy. My dh thinks I've been sleepwalking.

Had to ring endless "push this button if you want..." numbers to cancel and renew all the cards, check no one had used the old ones, then wait for the new ones to arrive. This kind of small domestic crisis kind of gets in the way of writing...

Friday 23 March 2007



There's a new review site out and they've done my book SHADOWS. I particularly like the last couple of lines! See below!

The link is http://www.redrosesforauthors.blogstpot.com



Here's what they say:

When Julie was introduced to Don, she knew she liked him a lot but when he invited her to go on holiday with him, she wasn't sure if she ought - but then she decided she liked him too much to refuse. When they arrived at the beautiful old mill in France, Julie began to fall in love with it and Don. However, there were shadows and Julie found herself being sucked into the past, her feelings those of a girl involved in a long ago tragedy. Will Julie be sucked in so far that she is in danger or will her love for Don, and his for her bring her back from the edge?
The sightings of monk-like figures and strange happenings are what turns this book from a simple love story to something more exciting. I enjoyed it very much, though I would have liked even more of the ghostly happenings. Sensual at times, Shadows is the work of a clever author who also writes sensational historical books. Well worth reading. Award five red roses.

http://www.triskelionpublishing.net/
Posted by Redrosesfor authors.reviews at 01:21

Thursday 22 March 2007


Since it is nearly spring I thought I'd give you some spring flowers! Can't you just smell the hyacinths!
I found Maddie James's blogspot yesterday and I know I'm going to enjoy it - this is the link

http://sisterwriters.blogspot.com/

"Four struggling romance writers -- 2 published, 2 pre-published, who have bonded together as writers to vent, rant, share, sass, commiserate, congratulate and just downright celebrate in the sisterhood of being writers. Come join in the fun."

Sounds just like my thing - and maybe yours too!

Wednesday 21 March 2007

A Day Off


I awarded myself a day off today. After the horrendous winds we've had lately, today's weather was just too tempting, so off we went to Wallington Hall. Armed with hiking boots, sandwiches and coffee we ambled around the woods for a couple of miles and a couple of hours. 2.71 miles, to be precise. I have a pedometer, and I'm fascinated with it.
We were at Wallington not long ago and found a couple of trees blown down in a storm. We thought they would have been cleared away, but no; they were still there, blocking the River Wansbeck. We had blue skies and sunshine today - not the murkier stuff you see in the picture.
Now I must get back to writing. The scene in the Turkish bath awaits!

Tuesday 20 March 2007

This is a catch-up post so I will know where I am with dates and word counts later in the year.

I started a new work (SA) on 16th January this year. I have two partials out on spec to HM&B. One (RC, 56.5k in 14 chapters) went mid-November, and the other (FAG 80K and 20 chapters) went off on 18th January, so I know it will be a long and tedious wait until I hear from them.
I'm tackling a new new time period in SA. I spent about a week reading and thinking about it before I decided I would do it. At the very least, a new time period will give the little old grey cells some healthy exercise. By 23rd January I had the synopsis done - or perhaps at this stage it would be fairer to call it a story outline.

I wrote the first 4,500 words of SA by 3rd February. I hope I'm catching the speech cadences of the time! It is quite different to writing about Vikings, so it is interesting for that reason alone. No one can draw a sword or fling an axe to settle an argument!

Around the 14th February I ran headlong into trouble with my website. I wanted to update it and succeeded in wasting a considerable amount of time trying to load pictures onto the old free GeoCities website. Seems I cannot do that any longer as my Frontpage is more recent than theirs. I upgraded to GeoCities Pro for a small fee, and wasted more time - still couldn't use Frontpage! I looked around for another host and settled on Tripod. By the 8th March I had it up and running. It handles Frontpage 5 beautifully! So my website is now: http://members.lycos.co.uk/jenblack

I still have http://www.myspace.com/jenblack1 but I forget to go over there more often than not. Made mental to visit more!

One of my publishers has set up a new website too. Give it a whirl at: http://www.triskelionpublishing.com

SA is up to Chapter Six now, progressing well at about 34k. I'm having a wonderful time researching the story! The costumes are gorgeous! It is so good to be able to describe characters in terms of silk and diamond cravat pins instead of leather and linen. I am tracing old, lost railways on current maps and constantly being surprised. Who knows what I'll discover next!

Sunday 18 March 2007


18th March, 2007
I started my writing diary on 10th November, 2006 and for a while I felt as if I was putting a message in a bottle and throwing it into the sea. Might be a long wait before anything comes back to me!
I started the blog over at Yahoo 360, so if you are interested, pop over there and see what happened between November and now. I think I shall maybe keep both running for a while, and see which I find easier to handle. The url below will take you there. Don't forget to check the pictures in the albums....

http://uk.blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-dphP5lUmcrJkVI_t8wLgBzwI

There'll be more here tomorrow!

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