Asakusa

We were incredibly lucky that our visit to Asakusa coincided (quite by accident) with the annual festival associated with Senso-ji their local temple, and so we saw the most fabulous procession.

I'm afraid I can't tell you many details. Andrew was translating announcements for us at the time, but most of it's flown from my aging brain.



People lined the streets for ages before the procession started, but we sneaked away for a lunch of tempura and soba noodles (made from buckwheat) and were back in time for the fun. I was fascinated by a patiently waiting group on the other side of the road in traditional dress. All the children I saw in Japan were very well behaved -- but I'm sure they're normal and have their "moments."

The procession was led by a golden dragon.


And there were several traditional "bands". I'm so used to brass and pipe bands for processions, but this Japanese music was very calm and restful, by comparison. Still stirring, however.


Of course the samurai were very stirring. Don't they look splendid?




















I loved these women (below), but I'm afraid I can't tell you who they are.

Japanese readers...

Japanese readers are voracious. I don't think I've ever seen so many people reading. Mind you, they spend A LOT of time on trains. Ex pat Australian, Belinda Hobbs, Managing Director of Harlequin's Tokyo office (with Elliot, left), said that some of her staff have a one and a half hour commute each way, each day, so they have plenty of reading time, I guess. But, until this trip, I don't think I'd ever seen so many people reading while standing in line on the platform.

(BTW, they are wonderful at standing in line -- for HOURS if necessary! You should have seen the lines waiting to try the simulator at the railway museum!!!!)

They also read standing up, with the book an inch from their nose in really tight peak hour crushes on the train.
Their books are produced in a sensibly small format that is easy to hold and they have these wonderful little plain covers to put over the book. Everyone uses them. Ostensibly, these covers are to keep the books clean, but it also hides the publisher's cover and people can read anything they like in public without any embarrassment. I think that's so clever!!!

Belinda and her enthusiastic team took us to a lovely lunch in a Thai restaurant. (Even though Japanese food is wonderful, they love foreign cuisines as well!) There, I met my very sweet Japanese editor, Miyoko Kobayashi ( and presumably the editor for all Image books, pictured right).
Miyoko told me that the Secrets We Keep trilogy will be released in Japan next May, June, July and my RITA book, Claiming His Family, will be out next August.

Miyoko and others commented that both Elliot and Belinda's husband treat their wives very nicely and they decided they would like Australian husbands!

At this lunch, I also learned that there are quite a lot of very popular Japanese romance authors. At least, they call themselves romance authors, but their stories often end unhappily. They are extremely popular, however, more popular than the Harlequin books. But our happy-ending stories are slowly making inroads. Our books are especially popular as downloads for cell phones -- selling amazingly well, apparently.


I gave Belinda at copy of Sizzle, Seduce & Simmer, with messages from Australian authors and she loved it (of course!). Is very interested in having it translated. I guess it needs to do well in ANZ first. Fingers crossed.
At this lunch I also learned the Japaneses romance readers love hard working heroines, but strong Alpha heroes. They don't seem to like particularly feisty heroines. No surprises to learn that Betty Neels is as popular here as everywhere else.

I also went back to the offices -- four floors of a skyscraper in inner Tokyo, where I met the rest of the team and signed books, which was fun. After we left, I was on my way back down the street and in the middle of a pedestrian crossing, when a sales manager came running after me, asking me to sign a cover flat for a reader who had lost her home in the earthquake in July, which I was, of course, very happy to do.

Yesterday, I was sent a translation of that reader's response, part of which said...

"Your company's kindness towards your reader just made me really happy. I imagine Harlequin staff are people full of love and joy, just as your books are.
It must be wonderful to have a job like yours that can make people happy. Your books have always made me happy, and I look forward to reading many more of your books in the future. "

That just about sums up my experience of the company, too.

Japan travels continued...

Before I start sounding like a tourist guide , take a look at this (below). It's a rooftop wedding chapel, and we took this shot from our hotel window. There are angels with trumpets, pink flamingos and all manner of fancy lights. Don't you love it?

Japan is a true mixture of the old and the new... and this was no more apparent than when we went into Tokyo and saw the Imperial Palace.

But unlike Buckingham Palace, you can’t see all the buildings, because they're cut off by a moat and a high stone wall.

The best view of the palace is from the Nijubashi bridge. The palace was almost completely destroyed in 1945 and was rebuilt in the 1960s.

The palace gate (below) has quite a romantic name that I've forgotten, but I know someone famous was murdered there by samurai in 1860. (Isn't that helpful? No wonder I don't write historical fiction.)

Here you can see modern Tokyo, just beyond the Imperial parkland. Everywhere in Japan, trees are carefully groomed and manicured and encouraged into artistic shapes. It took a little getting used to, but after I was there a few days, I began to appreciate the Japanese mindset and these "neatened" trees began to feel fitting and right.

After we'd visited this district, we hopped on a subway for the Ginza district, which is very uptown shopping. Actually, when I stepped out of the subway, it was like arriving on Fifth Avenue in New York.

The Japanese women are incredibly inventive dressers. Because they're so tiny, they are great with layers -- lots of frills where you don't expect them, dresses over jeans, lots of fancy leg wear and gorgeous boots, all sorts of clever scarves.

Now, let me to tell you about the toilets!! They are the most fantastic toilets in the world, I swear. To start with, the seats are warmed and extra comfortable. If you're in a public place, they will most likely have a button at the side with musical notes. You should press this, because it produces a pseudo flushing sound which camouflages more natural but embarrassing bodily functions. And then, when you are done, you can press a button to wash your bottom. Amazingly, it can hit exactly the right spot every time. Or there's yet another button if you'd prefer a bidet function.

Of course, you can be unlucky and occasionally encounter an equally clean toilet that is set in the floor for squatting over. I was really worried that once I was down, I would never get up again, but if you look carefully, there's usually a "western" toilet close by. No photos of these. :)

More tomorrow...

I'm ba-a-a-ck!!!!

Had a fab time in Japan, but my mind is whizzing with all the things that have happened while I was away. Ally Blake has had her darling baby, Bridget Ava. (Don’t you love those names?) Sizzle, Seduce & Simmer has been launched with great excitement and aplomb in Dymocks in Melbourne. And the news filtered through that Anne Weale, who first started writing for M&B in 1955 and who was one of the most fascinating authors I have ever met, has died. Anne was such a strong and intelligent women, it's hard to believe and terribly sad that she's passed away.

My little journey seems quite insignificant by comparison with these important events, but I’ll record it here anyway, because I’d like to get it down before the memories fade.

We flew out from Cairns, which is always a spectacular way to leave Australia (in my unbiased FNQ opinion). The cays on the Great Barrier Reef looked like pieces of jewellery – olive green, fringed by iridescent aqua and set in the deeper blue of the sea. It was just after the full moon in October, which is when the coral spawns each year and I also could see strings and clouds of this white coral spawn in the deeper blue water.

Our flight took us over Port Moresby and we also saw Lae on the coast as well as some of the amazing peninsulas of PNG, long stretches of beach and pretty offshore islands. It would be perfect sailing country if it weren’t for pirates.

On the flight I read Susan Wiggs’s “Dockside,” Book Three in her Lakeshore Chronicles. I’m loving that series and now have to wait till next March for Book 4 which will be Sophie Bellamy’s story.

It was wonderful to see my son, Andrew, at the airport, looking spiffy in a new black velvet jacket. (The Japanese are v fashion conscious.)

And health conscious. One of the first things I noticed about Japan is how very clean it is. Considering its huge population in such a small space, I think this is quite remarkable. The trains, the airport, the stations and streets are all litter and dust free. On the first morning, I looked out my hotel window and the first thing I saw was a neat little tiled courtyard across the road, complete with a topiary garden and a little man in a uniform and cap sweeping the yard and the seats. Later, all the shopkeepers swept the footpaths in front of their shops.

On our first day, after a breakfast that was a mixture of Japanese and western for me ( gorgeous steamed dumplings, a slice of omelette, smoked fish and kale, then fruit and yoghurt), we set off with Andrew for Nikko. (this was a complicated journey involving 5 train changes. Thank heavens Andy is now fluent in Japanese!)

Nikko is a beautiful village to the north of Tokyo, set in the foothills of majestic mountains, some of which had snow on the top. When you get out of the train, you are virtually at the bottom of the village and there is a long street lined with all kinds of dark, interesting cafes and fascinating old shops selling weird dried fish and vegetables (pictured top left). This road winds its way up the hillside till you reach a classic, old red arched wooden bridge crossing the Daiku River.

This is the beginning of the truly scenic and important part of Nikko – the State forest with shrines and temples.

The hillsides here are covered in gorgeous trees – enormous, ancient pines – and liquid ambers, which should now, in the middle of autumn, be covered in red and gold. But thanks to global warming, autumn is late this year. Only a few threes had begun to turn, but these were enough to show us how spectacular these hillsides will look in another few weeks.

The really important feature here is the shrine of the Tokugawa Ieyasu , the warlord shogun who conquered Japan. He had never been to Nikko, but he’d heard so much about its beauty that he chose it as his burial place. A year after he died, he was made a god and now the shrines and temples surrounding his tomb are all v important. This isn't his shrine, but we photographed it because the tree was so pretty.

I was fascinated to see these pieces of paper tied to trees and to learn from Andrew that they are prayers people have left there. The Shinto priests gather them up and take them into the temple to include in their prayers.

I don't want to weigh you down with too many details. There were many more temples, shrines, sculptures and beautiful gardens at Nikko than I can show here.
Nikko is also the site of the carving of the famous three wise monkeys, which inspired the well known legend and saying -- Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil.

More tomorrow...

Sayonara

And that, plus Konnichiwa, is the sum total of my Japanese.

See you again in a couple of weeks. xxx

Sizzle, Seduce and Simmer...

You'll probably see this book cover popping up on a lot of Australian authors' blogs this week.
It's a fabulous new book that's being launched in Melbourne in Dymocks on November 1st. And it should be in shops everywhere next week. It's been compiled by the fabulous Marion Lennox and it started over a Melbourne Mob lunch. I think the idea was: "Let's have a book with short stories and recipes from all of us!"

Later, more of us, who are further afield than Melbourne (much further in my case) got in on the act and now there's a whopping 320 page book of short stories and recipes -- a real friendship collection. And a great Christmas present!!!!

Some of the stories have fab fun titles like Ally Blake's Tall, Dark and Fettuccine, Kelly Hunter's Sunday Morning Sushi or Bron Jameson's Breakfast at Timothy's. And the reicpes sound like so much fun. Coming into summer, I really want to make Fiona McArthur's cut glass jelly.

My story, Call Me Angel, is one I wrote some time ago and has a slightly paranormal touch -- just to be different!

Check out Sizzle, Seduce & Simmer next week. I'm sure you'll want it.

Mum's the word

It's ridiculous. I was walking through the markets in Townsville's Flinders Mall yesterday morning and I heard a young man call, "Mum!"
I knew that one of my sons was in Western Australia and the other was in Japan, but I turned around instinctively. Part of my brain was convinced, momentarily, that the call was for me. Funny how a mother's brain is wired, isn't it?
Actually, we're heading off to Japan next Sunday to visit our son who's been working there on a six months exchange. Can't wait to see him and to hear him talking in Japanese. Apparently he's very fluent now. He has our itinerary all worked out and we'll also be visiting the Harlequin offices in Tokyo. Hope to show you lots of pics.
I want to finish Sally and Logan's story first, except that it would be good to get the chance to reread it after our break in Japan. May yet talk to my ed about that, because the chances are, that the print out for Nell and Jacob will land on my doorstep this week. Proofreading would certainly put a dent in my plans for a dash across the deadline.
Am feeling just a little stretched.

Childhood backyards...

There’s a series of stories in this Weekend Australian Magazine about the childhood backyards of various well known Australians and it set me thinking about the backyard of my childhood in suburban Brisbane. My parents were keen gardeners and my Dad was an engineer, so he changed our sloping hillside backyard into two terraces with a brick wall complete with steps. This was terrific because the rotary clothesline was on the top terrace, but hung out over the bottom terrace, so I could play netball down below and use the rungs of the clothesline as my goal.

The photo is of me on my first day as a Brownie. The first badge I earned was the writer's badge with a story about a girl who had to leave the city for the outback. Obviously that's my core story:)

I spent hours playing with balls in the backyard. If it wasn’t netball, I was playing golf with a softball bat that Dad made for me from a silky oak branch. I’d hit a tennis ball into the drain (harder than it sounds). Or I played “sevens” with a tennis ball up against the garage door, or my sister Liz and I threw softballs at each other. If we didn’t have a softball we’d substitute a lemon, which makes a terrific thwack when it hits a softball glove.

Yeah, I was a sports freak, which is a little unusual for a writer. But I loved books and writing, too. We had no television, so there was plenty of time for reading.

When I was quite small I used to play with frangipani that fell on the drive at the side of the house. Turn a frangipani flower upside down and you have a lady in a beautiful white ball gown. Mine were the ladies in waiting at the Queen’s coronation. I had a book about the coronation and I was obsessed.

There was also a large garage that was old and made from timber and people had lived in it before our house was built. At various times my sisters and I transformed it into a hospital, a school, a restaurant, an artists’ studio and a cat nursery.

A favourite memory is our barbecue – no, not a flash brick one but a small round, portable one with a grill set over coals. I can still remember the prefect taste of a grilled lamb chop eaten for lunch on a sunny Sunday in winter.

Mostly our garden was very pretty with a mixture of native trees and exotic shrubs, but one untidy section developed where I used to blow the husks off the budgie’s seed and the seed grew. I tried to harvest the seeds and make my own budgie food, but I don’t remember being very successful.

At one stage Mum and Dad grew a few vegies and herbs and I remember the tangy scent of tomato leaves and grazing on fresh parsley and shallots. Oh, yes, and then I would sip the honey out of the bottom of russelia flowers and put nasturtium leaves with Vegemite on sandwiches.

About twenty years after I had left home and after my parents had sold up and moved away, I bought a Courier Mail on a Saturday morning. I swear I hadn’t bought one in all those years, but I’d been thinking about my old home and I felt the urge. And when I opened the paper, there was our house in Alexandra Street for sale.

I resisted the desperate impulse to throw up everything and run back to my roots. Well, my husband flatly refused to consider it. But it was the strangest coincidence.

I'd love to hear about your backyard memories.

Right or left brain

I saw this on Kate Hardy's blog and had to put it here as well. It's apparently a test of whether you are predominantly a right brain or a left brain thinker.
I am, according to this test, most decidedly a right brainer. Not surprising, actually. The description certainly fitted how I feel about myself, except that the left brain deals with words and language, so I'm not sure where that leaves my writing.
I suppose I should do a little more research and find out.

Elliot is away on a fishing trip tonight, which means he's going to miss the programme about Errol Flynn on ABC TV, which is a pity because he wrote a series of newspaper stories about Errol's times in North Queensland. Then again, knowing Elliot, he'd get all agitated about the bits they get wrong or leave out. So perhaps he's better off out in the bush, camping under the stars at Cattle Creek. (Sounds like something out of one of my books.)

Am currently reading Kelly Hunter's "Priceless" and am loving it. LOVING it.

An about to be famous author

A month or so ago I posted about the launch of Café du Jour by Lilian Darcy, but I hadn't actually read it at the time. Now I've finally read her book and I don’t say finally lightly. Over the past few months I’ve found reading a challenge and I’m not sure why. It’s just taken me three weeks to get through a little Dick Francis novel. But I read Cafe du Jour in two days (while still completing my word count).

And I loved it. Loved? I was overawed, inspired, completely blown away. In case you can’t guess I thought it was fabulous and I think it’s a terrible shame that it won’t be published overseas.

There were so many things I liked about it – the wonderful tension of Susie’s relationship with Jody. The workshops – Lilian's imagination is incredible. The hospital scenes with Karen - especially the session with the occupational therapist. So enlightening. There were great plot turns, and there was nice Dr. Ewan and a host of other interesting characters.

I loved the little coffee metaphors at the end of each chapter. A type of coffee was described to represent each day in the story.

e.g. p. 36

A big, thick stoneware mug of basic morning caffeine -and-milk, which sometimes tastes bitter if I sip it too slowly. So I gulp it instead.

The character insights were also v clever. But most of all, I loved Lilian's writing. Wow! I probably thought wow almost every second sentence.

I feel so proud to have a friend who's written a such a wonderful 'real' book! I know, shoot me for saying that, but it's how I feel. Lilian has written 75 category romances, which is a fantastic feat, but I believe she has a great talent for literary fiction. So let's hope this book is the start of a brilliant literary career as well.

And it's not too late to buy your own copy of Cafe du Jour. I saw them in Target yesterday!

two deadlines...

As well as the end of the month deadline for my Romance, which I have to finish early because I'm going to Japan to visit my son, who's been working there for six months, I have a new commitment.
Last week, I was talking on the phone to my granddaughter Lucy ( who lives in Brisbane) and I asked her what she'd like for her birthday on the 20th.
'I'd like you to finish our book,' she said.
And then I remembered.
And felt guilty.
Lucy and I started writing a story together when we were on holidays at Noosa. It's called: "The Fairy Princess is looking for a lock." And it's about a girl called Lucy (of course) whose cat finds a fairy at the bottom of her garden. Lucy has to rescue the fairy from the cat's claws and then the adventure begins.
So you can see, this is also a very important deadline. It will probably require illustrations as well. So my nights are about to become as creatively frantic as my days. Wish me luck.

A sneak preview

Thanks to the lovely readers who've sent emails about Needed: Her Mr. Right. It was huge fun to work with Liz and Jackie on that trilogy.

The hardbacks for my next book The Bridesmaid's Best Man arrived last week and I dutifully posted them off to my mum and my daughters.

This book, my 25th!, will be out in the UK and USA in January and in ANZ in February (I think). If out in Feb, I think the cover has a definite Valentine feel.
It's very pretty, isn't it -- rather like what I was hoping for, although my hero, Mark, looks a little too narrow shouldered and thin chested for an Outback cattleman. And my heroine, Sophie, is supposed to have milk white English skin and glossy curling hair.

Here's what the back cover tells you...

Sundown in the Outback

As the shadows grow long and the sun melts behind the hills it's just another day for cattleman Mark Winchester. But nothing has been the same since he was best man at a wedding in London six weeks ago and met bridesmaid Sophie Felsham...

A rainy morning in London

On the other side of the world, city girl Sophie is about to make the most difficult phone call of her life. The one beautiful night she shared with rugged Mark has resulted in pregnancy -- and now it's time to tell Mark that he's going to be the father of her child...

Incidentally...

Am chugging along with WIP -- about half way through and really enjoying writing something a little lighter.
Yesterday, I snuck out of my writing cave for half and hour and bought a cupboard from a local antique shop to use for storing towels in the bathroom at Tarzali. It's a very fresh pale green and cream (favourite colours of mine), and the shelves and inside walls are lined with pretty green and cream floral paper and I love it.
There don't seem to be nearly as many antique shops around as there used to be. I've always loved old furniture. Elliot and I bought our first piece -- an English oak dressing table, before we were married. I still remember the price -- $28.
But perhaps antiques are a baby boomer thing. I know my mother never liked old furniture and the young generation aren't really into them either.
It's getting very hot here -- very enervating. Everyone I know is tired. It happens every spring in the tropics. With the first hot days we feel really flattened and then somehow, our bodies must adjust, as we manage to soldier on through the summer.

away in the country...

I know I've been rather slack here, but the truth is, I've been more or less in retreat mode, tucked away in the country and writing hard. When I haven't been writing I've been weeding (we have endless weeds here) or planning future extensions (because we really do want to come and live here, we've decided).
This planning is great fun and involves lying down on the grass, where we think out future bed might be and checking out the view/ line of sight etc.
While we were here we also had ground excavated for a shed -- a two door garage, which will really help with storage!!
I'm having great fun with my current story, but put all that aside this weekend for a VIP visitor -- Lilly!!
This was her first visit to Tarzali and she had great fun.



The new pad awaiting extensions provided a great place to try out her walker, but there's nothing quite like the simple fun of playing in a "bath" outdoors. And of course Lilly got to meet Belle, our neighbour's beefalo calf, whose birth last December was recorded on this blog. Oh, and she met other cows and a pig, the farmer's dogs and chooks and young Brian (pictured). Now she knows what a real "moo" sounds like!

Townsville's Strand

One of my city's biggest attractions is our beautiful Strand and at the moment, for twelve days, ephemeral 'sculptures' are on display for us to enjoy. I thought I'd share some with you. Above is a "postcard" complete with chalk and duster, so that we can write our own message. That's Magnetic Island in the background.


This is one of the sculptures -- a woven boat and in the background, you can see the fishing pier.


I love this chair made from soft coral. Makes me think of Sue Monk Kidd's The Mermaid's Chair.


These are massive lamingtons made by my friend, Townsville artist, Sylvia Ditchburn. For those of you who don't know what lamingtons are, they are an Aussie favourite at any picnic and often sold for fund raisers -- squares of sponge dipped in chocolate and rolled in coconut.




How gorgeous is this driftwood crocodile?



This was Elliot's favourite. Hmmm.... But it is clever, isn't it?


In this photo, you can see the permanent "sculptures" of silver coconuts on the ground -- some of them quite suitable for sitting on. And, in the background, ephemeral box jelly fish. Of course, there are many more sculptures -- about thirty in total, but these were among my favourites.

No Aussie beach is complete without a life guards' lookout -- even if there's no surf because our shores are protected by the Great Barrier Reef.


To put the Strand in perspective, if you turn from your view of Magnetic Island and look behind you, you see Castle Hill, a huge shoulder of pink granite. This photo's perspective hides the suburb of North Ward which sits between the hill and the sea.

Another day...

Am making steady progress on my book. Went to the library to get a few books to follow up on some threads I’m developing in this story. Got a biography of Brahms, mainly because I’m interested in him, but you never know, it might turn up in the WIP...

Brahms’s violin concerto is among my all time favourite pieces of classical music. There’s a section in the first movement when the music slows down that’s so beautiful I have to stop everything just to listen. Every time.

I’ve voted for it on the favourite concerto competition the ABC is currently running. As has writer mate, Anna Campbell.

Lilly and her Mum visited yesterday afternoon and had a swim. We have a lovely pool on the roof of our apartment block.

Last night we went to cinema club and saw Last Train to Freo (Fremantle). It’s a Western Australian thriller set on a train and it is majorly scary, but brilliantly acted. Fantastic characterisation.

The second movie was supposed to be 49 up, the next movie in the 7 up series, which I love and have been following since it started. However, there had to be last minute change because it was only available in digital and so we saw Romulus, My Father instead. Fabulous! Brilliant. Terribly sad, but so powerful. The young Raimond’s acting is sensational, but the whole cast is very, very good. Marvellous men. Gorgeous, brilliant Eric Bana. Inspiring art. I hope it does well overseas.

Thank you

Thanks everyone for your thoughts. The official word has been handed down and the book will be called Adopted:Outback Baby.

I must admit that it's an economical title. Every word helps to tell exactly what the story is about. The fact that Nell and Jacob don't actually adopt Sam (it's almost impossible for grandparents to adopt, although they can become legal guardians) is splitting hairs, I guess.

On another matter, I'm pleased to report that I've taken a deep breath and dived into my next book. Just as well, considering the looming deadline. The first chapter has been polished and re-worked to within an inch of its life and I'm moving on to Chapter Two. I'm not one of these authors who can write a dirty draft.

You can follow the whole process of a book being constructed on Nicola Marsh's blog.

I must admit that while the actual flow of my story can be different from book to book, I always start the same way -- not with characters alone, but with a story idea -- a situation that intrigues me. In Claiming His Family, for example, I wanted to write a story that started where my other stories usually finish -- with a woman from the city (Manhattan - why not think big?) and an Outback cattleman, who have already fallen in love and married, but their marriage failed and they are now divorced.

Sometimes I might even start with nothing more than a story-rich title like Having the Boss's Babies.

Once I have an idea that excites me and which I know has the right ingredients and hooks for the Romance line, then I ask myself: who will this happen to? Why? How? Where? When? etc, etc. But this process is never orderly or predictable. Sometimes the characters arrive almost at the same time as the starting idea. Sometimes I'm halfway through the book, before I really get a grip on them. Sometimes, I outline the plot before I start. I can't say for sure that any of these methods is more successful than another.

This time I've planned as much of my story as I can before I start. I think it was the careful planning, wanting to have everything perfect in my head, that held me back from diving in. But there's a point when you hear that starter's gun and you just have to start dog-paddling and hope like crazy that you get to the other side. That's where I am now.

A straw poll

Now's your chance to have a say!

Possible contenders for the title of my next book are...

Adopted: Outback Baby

Outback Baby Surprise

A Baby at Koomalong

Finally, A Family

I would welcome comments from Romance readers on whether any of these titles appeal. Or you are also welcome to make other suggestions for a story about a couple whose baby was given up for adoption when they were 19 and who find themselves brought together by a twist of fate to care for their tiny grandson.

Something new and something blue...

I discovered this amazing Romance Television channel yesterday. You can see interviews with all your favourite American authors like Nora Roberts, Suzanne Brockmann and Rachel Gibson, to name just a few. And there are reviews -- even an Oscar night style coverage of the RITA awards, with all the glamour and excitement. Crikey, if I'd gone, I really would have had to think hard about my "frock" -- oh, and a diet and a trip to the hairdresser and the nail bar. Much less stressful to stay home and garden.
It may be that I'm the last person on the planet to have discovered this channel, but I'm posting about it in case there are one or two others.
And how did I discover it? Can you tell I'm procrastinating before I dive into my next book? I've made lots of notes on little cards, in a notebook and on the computer and I have been doing masses of thinking, but there's been lots of "medical stuff" happening in our house lately. We're OK, but not great and I think I need to feel all the planets lined up to give me the go ahead and to recapture the thrill of diving into a new book. It will happen soon and it will be fun, I know, but first this morning, there's the dentist.

Our wonderful Sydney office

When I was in Sydney for the conference I met the dynamic Jackie Johnson from Harlequin Mills and Boon's Sydney office and she told me then that she'd organized a lovely gold foil Award winning author flash for my next Australian release.

Then she sent me a cover flat. Isn't it gorgeous? We really are lucky to have fabulous support from our office here in Oz.








On that note, I also want to tell you about another venture the Sydney office have launched and that is the publication of the super talented and much loved Australian author Lilian Darcy's single title book Cafe Du Jour under their Mira imprint. Check out Lilian's website to find out more about this wonderful book, which she says is a mix of popular and literary fiction.

Yay, Lilian!!!

I was lucky enough to be at Lilian's launch of this exciting book at the Sydney conference and I'm very much looking forward to reading it.


Both Needed: Her Mr. Right and Cafe du Jour are available at eHarlequin.au

Puppies, plants and a veranda and oh, yes, a new book...

Home from Tarzali and about to get head down on my new book. There's nothing more exciting than a new book idea -- before I start writing.
It's all shining and wonderful and full of promise and I can "see" all sorts of gorgeous scenes. But, oh, this is also when the nervous flutters start. Will I ruin these lovely, bright and shimmering ideas when I try to get them down in words?

Anyhow, that's my worry, not yours. Thought I'd show you a few pics taken at Tarzali on the weekend.



This is me on a cool and misty morning, admiring the concrete slab which will be our new veranda.


Here is a gorgeous blossom on a native shrub we bought last year from Yeruga nursery.


It's a brilliant nursery at Tolga where, if you tell them which part of the Tablelands you live, will supply you with a catalogue of native plants suited to your area. Our plants are all thriving. Isn't this just gorgeous? Sorry, I can't tell you its name. I'm not that sort of gardener, although I'm getting better.

We were disappointed to have to leave the plant behind to flower madly and brightly while we weren't there to tell it how lovely it is.

And here is a new litter of puppies at our neighbours' place. I often write about blue heeler cattle dogs in my Outback books.



These puppies are a mixture of Smithfield Blue and Border Collie with an Australian red heeler mother.



My next book is set in the city and I don't know if I'm going to be able to have a dog in it. Oh, heck, why not? Yes, I think my hero must have a dog, mustn't he? But only if he looks after it well.