A day on my own just to write... What could possibly go wrong?

I was so looking forward to today.

The sky was a pure blue, flowers were everywhere, spots of colours in the sunshine, birds were singing and a light breeze was coming through the open window of my makeshift study.

And more importantly, it was going to be one of those rare days when I would be alone in the house, with nobody to distract me and nothing else to do than get on with my story. I had a plan, I was bursting with ideas, I had images and bits of dialogues in my head. It was going to be a wonderful and productive day. I couldn't wait to write.

Things started to go wrong when child number one came back early from college - lessons cancelled - and embarked on playing his guitar, watching TV, playing noisy computer games and demanding lunch ... I gritted my teeth, closed the door and stayed focussed as long as I could. However feelings of motherly guilt for ignoring my first-born for the sake of imaginary characters and romantic plots pushed me out of the study and I got side-tracked.

When I came back to the computer I made the mistake of checking my emails, which in turn led to going onto the internet and reading a few blogs I follow.... Before I knew it, it was time to walk up to school to pick up child number three. Never mind, I still had an hour before child number two came back from high school and started demanding food and attention. I was just getting back into my story when the phone rang. One think I can't do is let the phone ring, and then I'm not very good at telling people I'll call them back because now isn't a good time to chat. So by the time I put the phone down, well... not only children one, two and three were reminding me it was time to make their tea but the writing mood was completely lost.

It's now a beautiful evening, the birds are still singing, and there isn't a single cloud in the sky...

Moustaches and Umbrellas...

It’s amazing the bits of information you pick up when you research historical facts for a novel. Moustaches and umbrellas, what can they have in common? The answer is: Napoleon’s great army and Waterloo.

‘Angel Heart’, my soon-to-be-published historical romance with Muse it Up Publishing, takes place in 1815. The hero, Hugo Saintclair, is a French cuirassier officer. I was rather put out to learn that Cuirassiers had to wear a moustache for nine months of the year, between March and December. For the remaining three months, they had to be clean shaven.  I tried, and tried, but I just couldn’t picture my hero with a moustache… So how did I get around it? I decided that my novel would start in January!

Here are a few other facts about France and moustaches.

Did you know that French waiters had to wait until 4^th May 1907 to win the right to wear a moustache? It wasn’t easy. They had to go on strike for it. At the time wearing a moustache was the prerogative of the middle and upper classes and military personnel (the gendarmes were obliged by ministerial decree to wear a moustache until 1933). House staff, coach drivers, delivery boys at the Banque de France, waiters and other men employed in subordinate positions, were all banned from wearing one, which they felt was grossly unfair.


Indeed, ever since Napoleon’s great army, the moustache was a symbol of absolute virility, the mark of the dominant male. At a time of social struggles in France, at the end of the 19^th century and beginning of the 20^th century, ‘garçons de café’ considered therefore that to deny them the right to wear a moustache was both an attack on their masculinity and an attempt at marking them as belonging to the inferior classes. They went on strike, and they won…

So what about umbrellas?

During my research on Napoleonic wars, I learnt that English officers were so often seen sheltering under umbrellas on the battlefield that Wellington, who found the habit 'not only ridiculous but unmilitary', had to give specific orders before Waterloo stating categorically that ‘Umbrellas will not be opened in the presence of the enemy.’

I must say that I would never have thought officers would carry an umbrella to battle, and even less open it and hide under it!

New Beginnings...

How many times can you re-start a novel? I don't mean editing, adding or changing a few things to make the opening scenes more grabbing, a character more life-like or a location more atmospheric. I mean a complete overhaul of the plot. I have been working on my current historical novel for a few weeks now, and it's the fourth time I start over from scratch, with a new time frame, new opening scenes and locations and elements to the plot. So far only the hero and heroin have escaped my rewriting frenzy. Every time I feel I'm doing better, and every time it seems that I'm not. A few chapters into the new 'improved' version, I stall... and wonder where I've gone wrong again.

Being an optimist, I have today started the fourth - and I hope the final - version of 'Dancing for the Devil'. I still believe in the characters and the storyline, but it feels by far the hardest story I've written and I wonder why.

So there... This time it starts on a very stormy day in Cape Wrath in the North of Scotland...

Publishing contract for The Lion's Embrace!

I am delighted to announce that I have just signed a publishing contract for my second historical romance 'The Lion's Embrace' with Muse it Up Publishing. The novel is scheduled for release in February 2013.

Here is the blurb for the novel:

Arrogant, selfish and dangerous, Lucas Saintclair is everything bookish Harriet Montague dislikes in a man. He is also the best guide in the whole of the Barbary States and the only man who can rescue her archaeologist father from a gang of Tuareg fighters. As Harriet embarks on a perilous journey to the Sahara desert, she discovers a bewitching but brutal land where reality blurs into mirages and she soon questions everything and everyone around her.

What was her father hoping to discover in Tin Hinan’s tomb, the legendary Touareg queen, and will she get there in time to save him? Is Lucas really as mercenary as he wants her to believe? And most of all, is he capable of loving her after ruthlessly capturing her heart, her body and her very soul?  

In the heat of the Sahara, dangerous passions, secrets of lost treasures and a sinister British criminal brotherhood threaten Harriet’s life and the life of the man she loves.

The Lion’s Embrace is a thrilling tale of adventure, passion and ancient mysteries set in North Africa and England in the 1840s.

Images and photos are always very important to me when I write, when I imagine characters and settings and when I plot the storyline, but for 'The Lion's Embrace', one photo in particular inspired me more than any other.

And it's this one!

As I immersed myself in research about North Africa and the Sahara in particular, about the Tuaregs, their history and their culture, I listened to a lot of music, but like for the photo, one song caught my imagination. Now, I have no idea what they are singing about! I just find the melody poignant and haunting, especially the Tuareg musical instrument called 'the Imzad' you can hear all the way through the song.

So here is the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5z7AcjE-YI

A kiss anyone? The wonderful photos of Robert Doisneau

Just because I am French and today is the centenary of the birth of Robert Doisneau, one of France’s most celebrated photographers, I thought I would show some of his most romantic and atmospheric photos here.

Enjoy…

And of course,

Oops, I'm doing it again...

A few months ago, I was more than half way through writing a historical romance set in 1880s France, which I must say I was rather happy with, when I started getting ideas for another, entirely different, story. I was naive and arrogant enough to think I could successfully carry on writing both at the same time even if they had vastly different storylines, settings, periods and sets of characters. I really believed I could bring both to completion. It didn’t work, of course. After a couple of weeks, I completely abandoned the first novel but managed to complete the other. The first story has now been ‘in storage’ for so long I lost the thread, the relationship with the characters and the inclination to finish it. I still believe in it though and keep promising myself that I will. One day.

I have since started a contemporary romance set in Scotland with what I believed were strong, likeable characters, a good plot and enough twists and turns to keep me interested (!). It was going quite well, or so I thought, when out of the blue it happened again. Images and characters from another place and another time started to haunt me. Lines of dialogues popped into my mind all the time. When I woke up one morning with the perfect title for the new story, I knew I just had to start writing.

Only this time, I really don’t want to give up the first story because I know that if I leave it too long, I will lose my connection with it too and it will never get finished.

So what should I do? Is it possible to write two different novels at the same time? How do you do it? Write a little of each every day or on alternate days or weeks? How do I keep everything fresh, exciting and alive in my head? Any suggestions gratefully received.

The joys and pains of self-editing

Last week-end, I started self-editing the first draft of the historical romance I completed at Christmas 'The Lion's Embrace'. I can't actually believe I managed to leave it alone for so long. I have spent the last three days 'travelling' between Algiers and Tamanrasset, oblivious to anything and anybody around me.

So what are the joys of self-editing?

First and foremost, it is falling in love with my hero all over again. I know this might sound strange (and probably a little silly). After all, I practically lived with the man for five months - the time it took to complete the first draft. How can I have forgotten about him after a few weeks only?
Then there is the pleasure of reading a description, a piece of dialogue, a phrase even, which I actually find quite good! Being French and writing in English, I often agonise about chosing the right words, avoiding grammatical mistakes or just writing something which 'sounds' English and which a real English person would say. So when I come across a nicely turned out sentence, I feel very happy indeed.
Another joy of self-editing is 'pruning' the text. I find cutting out unecessary words immensely satisfying: adverbs, 'but' 'and', 'suddenly', 'that', dialogue tags, repetitions, punctuation. I have a tendency to use adverbs, they seem to sneak into the text without my noticing. Same thing for exclamation marks!!! and these little things here ...

Now for the pains.

The biggest one of course is to realise that an aspect of the plot doesn't quite work, or that a sub-plot has taken over the main storyline.

Another is to see the hero or heroin act out of character or develop a completely new flaw or quality half way through the story.

I am guilty of all these. Hopefully I will manage to eradicate some of my mistakes and improve the story. 

Here is a bit of news.

My soon to be publisher, Muse it Up Publishing, is holding a competition. There are books to be won!
To enter and have fun, click on the link!
https://museituppublishing.com/bookstore2/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=92&Itemid=82