Archive for January, 2008

January 16, 2008 | Comments

There is a bigg-ish yellow ball in the sky this morning which I think must be ‘the sun’. The weather has been terrible for so long, I nearly didn’t recognise it. I’ve had a stinking cold and not felt like doing anything except stay in. But there is good news…

Thanks for your good wishes about mum and dad who are fine now, just spending hours on the phone sorting out all the legal stuff that arose from the freak accident on Monday.

ISHBM is going well and I’m going to proof read the first 20k today and send it to my agent for her feedback. Quiver…

Some of the authors who entered their books in the RNA Romance Prize are getting very excited as the shortlist is being announced tomorrow. I hope some of my writer friends are on it.. tee hee. I can’t believe it’s come round so soon and haven’t forgotten meeting Nell for coffee and telling her I was convinced she would win the 2007 prize - and she did!

January 15, 2008 | 8 Comments

I consider myself very fortunate not to be an orphan this morning…

Joking apart, my mum and dad had a very lucky escape last night. They were returning from the Lakes on the M6, when an accident happened on the opposite carriageway. A wheel flew off a car and smashed into my parents’ Freelander at about 90mph. It hit the column between the windscreen and the door, shattering the windscreen and caving in the sunroof. The wheel bounced off and ended up back on the opposite carriageway.

The police said that if the wheel had come through the centre of the screen, my parents would probably have been killed and that they were fortunate to have been driving a sturdy vehicle like a Land Rover. (Mr Bennet designs them and I’m proud of him). Their car is a write-off.

The paramedics came and sorted out my dad but said he was OK to go home - he wouldn’t have gone to hospital anyway. The glass cut his face and hand but he’s OK.

I’d like to thank the traffic police officers and paramedics who came out to help them. Mum says they were fantastic, very helpful and kind.

January 11, 2008 | 6 Comments

A Brazilian reader posted on my N&S messageboard to say she had been reading Decent Exposure in the Amazon jungle. I think that rates as the coolest location to read it! Her message put a smile on my face because I’ve got the blues, the crows (big, black horrible ones that have roosted over my wip for weeks) and some kind of flu-ey shivers. Ms Bennet has returned to uni too.

Don’t just you hate these gloomy, foggy, dark days and nights in the UK? Roll on spring…

January 8, 2008 | 5 Comments

I’ve got a new publication date for Just Say Yes on Amazon. It’s out in paperback onAugust 7th 2008.

It seems a long time to wait but it is just perfect for the holiday season, especially as the book is about escaping to Cornwall. Julie Cohen has been talking about settings on her blog today. Here’s a pic that inspired me for JSY. It’s taken at Watergate Bay, Cornwall and shows the RNLI Lifeguards working on a blustery and bitter cold September day last year. The lifeguards make a brief appearance in Just Say Yes and they’re going to figure in It Should Have Been Me. I love rescue heroes and until I have the setting for a book, I just can’t write it. I love using the setting as a metaphor for the themes of the book and the characters’ feelings and just imagining myself in some sunny place - or even a cold one. What about you?

January 7, 2008 | 2 Comments

OK. I’ve just been to have some more physio on my back. Don’t feel sorry for me. I’m almost ‘cured’ and my physio is frankly, pretty Alpha. Mr Bennet and I have known him since school. He’s been consultant physio to the British Olympic Athletic team for many years and he ran 400m for Great Britain. The walls of his practice are lined with framed running vests signed by people he’s helped - like Linford Christie, Paula Radcliffe, Jonathan Edwards, Sally Gunnell, etc

I’ve been trying to persuade him to give a talk to the next RNA conference about looking after your back, preventing RSI, choosing a chair etc. I think we writers neglect our physical wellbeing. He reckons that if we all spent ten minutes a day lying face down on the floor (he points out we could read/proof read during this time), half the nation’s back problems would not occur.

He also suggests no more than 40 mins at the computer without getting up and walking about or stretching and showed me some exercises to help my back - and all the bits it supports - stay healthy. My back is much better, I’ve lost 2lbs and my tum’s not quite so flabby now I’ve started his exercises which are a bit like Pilates.

However, I have to warn you - some of these exercises involve ‘buttock clenching’. I tried to take this seriously but when you’ve known the guy 30 odd years, it’s hard not to:

a feel a right prat
b start giggling and squirming with embarrassment. Squirming is not required. Clenching is.