Three copies of my Large Print version of It Should Have Been Me arrived yesterday. They’re mainly for libraries but you can also order copies from Ulverscroft – a great idea for anyone who struggles to see normal small print.

Yesterday, I bunked off writing to visit one of my favourite places ever: Moseley Old Hall in Staffordshire. (One of) the houses where King Charles II hid while on the run from Cromwell’s men, it has a really exciting and romantic story. If you’re in the area, go visit!

The author, Anita Burgh, has a very useful piece of preparing a quick pitch for your novel – that’s the sentence you trot out when an agent or editor asks you ‘what’s the book about?” – and hopefully makes them want to snap it up!

If you’re a reader or writer, Book Slut has an excellent in-depth article on monster lit – covering the craze for vampire/monster/classic lit mash ups such as Mr Darcy, Vampyre and Queen Victoria, Demon Hunter.

The programme blurb:

Samuel Richardson’s Clarissa is a heartbreaking and compulsive piece of epistolary storytelling and one of the world’s greatest novels. Published in 1747, it was the precursor to and inspiration for many of the great European novels which followed in its wake.

The young and beautiful Clarissa is courted by the rake Lovelace, who tricks her into his power, carries her off to London, and rapes her. Clarissa then falls into decline. Lovelace becomes involved in an avenging duel with Clarissa’s cousin, and Clarissa’s family and friends must live with the guilt and shame of their own neglect and betrayal of her.

It’s Mr March from 12 Men of Christmas. He’s called Mayor Bob in the movie and he’s based ( I think) on my character, Bob, the salt-of-the-earth leader of the mountain rescue team.

In the movie, he wears a Western shirt and bootlace tie and has a gorgeous ‘cowboy’ accent – and is teased mercilessly by the townspeople for appearing semi-naked in the hot tub.

You can browse the online calendar here on the Lifetime site but I really wish they had produced a calendar you could buy – maybe next year? Anyway, in future, I’ll be flagging up a Calendar Boy from the movie on the first of every month.

PS To the person who visited this website looking for ‘book love story meets teenage boyfriend corsica job interview’, I think you want Wish You Were Here. Hope you enjoy it!

This week:

* I saw the delicious cover of my new US release

* Wrote a newsletter – hurrah. Work. Yum.

* Wrote a 1500-word synopsis of DATING MR DECEMBER for the Sourcebooks sales team.

* Updated the website – and there’s a new page for US readers coming shortly.

* Started work on revising my current wip. I’m feeling pretty chipper about the new insights prompted by my agent’s comments. As a result, I’ve been looking for a muse for the sexy, older male character in the wip. He’s a wealthy, troubled and charismatic father and here’s my inspiration:

It’s David Wenham (who isn’t quite old enough for my purposes but is probably the closest to the character in my imagination!)

So have a great weekend – I plan to settle down on the sofa with Mr B, a bottle of sparkling Shiraz and the Six nations Rugby teams.

My US publisher sent me the cover of DATING MR DECEMBER. It’s available on November 1st 2010 as a trade paperback with Sourcebooks Landmark. It’s very different to the UK cover of Decent Exposure and, please forgive me for drooling.

I keep telling Mr B… “Imagine if we flew over to New York to see my book in the stores in December. You’ve always wanted to see New York, haven’t you, dear? You could visit the Empire State Building, see the Statue of Liberty, catch a show on Broadway and meet all the lovely US C19 NYers.

He’s coming round to the idea.

The Guardian has published Ten Rules for Writing Fiction.

Successful writers across all genres have given their ten ‘rules’ (aka tips) for writing. Some are a bit scary (if you’re breaking said rule, that is!) but most are inspirational.

I think it’s a must-read piece on the craft and process of fiction. It’s also rather long so you may want to read it on the bus, in bed or in the loo, wherever you can get some peace and quiet.

I particularly love the suggestions from Richard Ford, Neil Gaiman – and my favourite crime writer, Ian ‘a real hunk in the flesh’ Rankin:

9. Get lucky
10. Stay lucky

And um.. cut, rewrite, cut and rewrite again…

On Friday, BBC Wales and BBC 3 Counties both phoned to ask me to speak out against the idea that ‘Valentine’s Day should be banned/is evil.’ As their ‘hopeless romantic’ and having done this gig before, I would have been delighted but I was taking my mum to lunch as it was her birthday. Happily, some not-so-hopeless romantics at the RNA stepped in and did the debate.

I wasn’t on the pc much as my daughter came home for the weekend and my husband took me to a great Valentine’s Day concert at the Symphony Hall last night. It featured songs from the shows and starred Daniel Boys (from the BBC’s Joseph show and the London cast of Avenue Q ) and Jessie Buckley (runner-up in I’d Do Anything ) Two really fresh and young stars and we thoroughly enjoyed it.

Now, it may sometimes seem like there is nothing of a writing nature going on in my life at the moment, but believe me, there is. Gosh, I’d love to tell you but I’m not writing War and Peace here so I’ll spare you.

One of the things I can tell you about involves the publication of Decent Exposure in the US. I am going to have to stop calling it Decent Exposure because it has a new title. And it’s not 12 Men of Christmas but something else. I’ve also seen the fabulous new cover. It’s very different to the UK version and it involves hot men.

I hope to share very, very soon.

”

Google translates the blurb like this:

Two men on a girl to strip class, was found in the proposal would be immoral, or innocent Do you like this?

Yet, these communities did not care about the business of Emma. Will Emma’s intentions to the July handsome male was completely misunderstood? Emma now it ‘Female of the month is how much is going to convince?

Or, for Turkish readers:

Ahlaksız Teklif

Özeti

Lakin, söz konusu toplum Emma’nın yaptığı işleri umursamıyordu. Yakışıklı Temmuz Erkeği Will ise Emma’nın niyetini tamamen yanlış anlamıştı. Şimdi Emma onu ‘Ayın Erkeği’nden fazlası olduğuna nasıl ikna edecekti?