(The) Good and The God-awful

(Yeah, I know I cheated a little bit there with the title. Oh well!)

Two things happened yesterday when I got home from work, one good and one bad. Let me start with the bad. And by bad, I mean Aaaarghh!

So I get home and I’m all exhausted and trudging up the stairs, almost tripping over a package on the stairs (my landlady kindly leaves my post on the stairs), and I enter my dark room and drop my bag and the parcel on the bed before turning around to turn on the light and Aaaarghh! There was a GIANT spider in my room!

It was as HUGE!!! I am not exaggerating. It was about an inch long, half an inch wide, disgusting black colour with long twitchy legs… *shudder*

I stood there staring at IT for five minutes, panicking, wondering how to get rid of it, contemplating grabbing some clothes and finding an alternative location to spend the night, cuz did I mention? I have a deathly fear of those dreaded beings known as insects. Deathly! I actually prefer autumn and winter to spring and summer because of all the bees. But apparently there are giant spiders in autumn… *shudder again*

I finally decided I had to do something to get rid of IT, because unless I throw it out the window or kill it dead, I knew I would never be able to sleep again, at least not it that house. I went to get a broom, but as soon as I re-entered the room, the THING apparently finally registered the presence of a human in the vicinity and it scuttled sideways into the bathroom. (I hate things that scuttle. In fact, I hate the word ‘scuttle’. Almost as much as I hate the word ‘scurry’.)

I was certain it was going to disappear in there somewhere so that I can then wonder and worry and forever live with the sensation of things crawling up my leg. But thankfully, it stopped at the outside edge of the shower cubicle and stayed put. I then stood there staring at it for another five minutes, because getting rid of it would involve closing the six foot distance I was maintaining and I wasn’t sure I’d be able to manage that without a couple years of therapy first.

I ran downstairs to my landlord’s place (with the broom – causing a lot of hilarity, especially after I explained the situation) and my landlord’s daughter (who’s my friend) and her younger brother came back up with me. I thought the boy would be able to sweep IT into a piece of paper and throw it out the window, no problem, because boys are good at stuff like that right? But no, the boy was almost as nervous as I was and he managed to prod the THING so that it scuttled again and disappeared! And then he ran away.

(Boy, I have lost my respect for you.)

My friend and I squealed (hey, that’s what girls are supposed to do, and we got our part right) and jumped up and down convinced it was crawling up our legs. And then my friend’s Big Brother bounded up the stairs. We were still squealing while he calmly located the THING nestled in my bath mat, squashed it with his slippers, tipped it into the toilet and flushed it off.

(Bless your heart Big Brother! You are a true knight in… er, sweatpants, and may you live a hundred happy years with your princess and the little princess.)

After all that, I shakily sank to my bed and noticed the package I had dropped there earlier. And this is the good thing that happened yesterday. And by good I mean AWESOME!

A couple of weeks ago, the fun Minxes of Romance blog did an ‘author spotlight’ on the really cool Mills & Boon Modern/Harlequin Presents author India Grey. Now I read a lot of M&B, but I only have a handful (okay, two hands full) of favourite romance writers whose books I will actually spend my meagre funds on. India Grey is definitely one of them.

(I remember the first book of hers that I read – ‘Taken for Revenge, Bedded for Pleasure’ – and there was this one scene in it involving a glass window in a skyscraper/penthouse place. Oh. My. God. If I have ever read a more intense scene I cannot remember it anymore.)

It was a fun interview, where India talks about her writing process in that witty, self-depreciating way that authors do that makes you feel all warm and fuzzy toward them. My obsession with author blogs/websites started fairly recently (after I joined twitter and started stalk–uh, following all of them) and I am still quite amazed at how down-to-earth they all are. I mean, they have husbands, children, pets, some have other day-jobs, they have kids falling ill, kids breaking limbs, and all manner of distractions going on. It’s quite amazing they manage to write any books at all, much less write good books.

So anyway, the Minxes blog post also involved a giveaway – and like any broke bibliophile I do love a good giveaway – and I WON!

The package that had arrived in the post contained the following:

There are three reasons I am thrilled about this: 

1.  India Grey Books! Two of them! And her first set of connecting M&B’s no less!!

2. With American covers! I used to get those a lot back home, but of course I haven’t seen any since coming to the UK.

3. Chocolate!!!

I cannot wait for the weekend to read these. I plan on doing a marathon, one after the other on the same day. That should be a fun five hours!

‘F’ - For Love or Money…

Every time I sit in front of the laptop with the intent of writing, I decide to read some of my favourite author blogs first, for inspiration. The brilliant writing advice, those publishing stories, their editor-deadline tales of frustration (that make me go green with jealousy) – all absolutely motivating stuff for a wannabe writer. Only downside is I get so caught up in the advice (and the day dreams about one day imparting my own writer-ly wisdom) that I tend to forget about actually writing… 

Anyway, one of my favourite writer blogs is that of Sarah Duncan. Besides being the author of many fabulous books, Ms Duncan is also a Creative Writing teacher, and her articles portray her experience as both (at least in my mind). She writes about any commonplace activity, or some event that occurred recently, and somehow makes it about writing. But more about that some other time. In fact, I think I’ll do a post listing my favourite blogs and websites for wannabe writers.

So about Sarah Duncan, I recently read this one post by her where she talks about how she prefers people who buy her book, whether or not they read them, to people who read her books by borrowing them from the library – and I had an epiphany: Authors have to sell their books, that is how they make their living.

Okay, it wasn’t that I didn’t already know this. I have had those day dreams too where I am a best-selling author raking in the dough and negotiating movie deals. In my more lucid moments I have thought about the fact that I could get published but that doesn’t mean my book will be bought by anybody or that my publisher will want me to write more books. I knew all of those things, but the epiphany I had was purely from a reader’s point of view.

Now I am a bibliophile, which means not only do I like read, I want to own and keep lots and lots of books too. Unfortunately, my fresh-out-of-Uni-first-job-wages don’t allow for that. I let myself buy one, maybe two new books from my Amazon wishlist at the start of each month, and then a few more from a charity shop or library sale if I happen across one. It took some work to stop the impulse book-buying but I remind myself of the student loans often and somehow manage nowadays. Overall I try to avoid WHSmith and avert my eyes when walking past Waterstones, because it’s just too sad when I see books I want but can’t afford.

I love – LOVE – some authors. I have to find and read all of their books, I know exactly when the next one is coming out and I consider myself a proper loyal fan. But! More often than not, I try to borrow their books from the library, or I get them at a charity shop (got a Wilbur Smith for 40p last week!) and if I absolutely need to read a book and it isn’t available at the library, I will buy it from Amazon, used and cheap whenever possible.

I was somewhat happy with this arrangement.

Now I feel bad! Ms Duncan’s blog post made me realize that I am not exactly doing my favourite authors any favours by borrowing their books, or buying them for £.99 at Oxfam. But I can’t do anything about that either.

I have this list, of all the books I borrow from the library every week, with titles and author names, and I add a little asterisk at the end of a title if it was an AWESOME book or a hash symbol if it was a really good book. I hope to someday own those books marked with the asterisk. And that’s the best I can do right now.

Ms Duncan does conclude that post by saying she might have to rethink her attitude because those who read her book, by whatever means, are more likely to tell others about them and increase her readership, which might make more people buy her books.

I suppose that is something I can do too, recommend books, and write those reviews I keep planning on…

'E' is for Ever Ever After

(Like the Carrie Underwood song.)

I devour romance novels, and then I sigh and smile over them hours after I finish them. I have been known to shed tears at the end of Nicolas Sparks’ novels, and happy tears after many a Mills & Boon. If I see a couple holding hands on the street or in the tube, it brightens my mood, and I watch proposals and first-dance videos of complete strangers on youtube, and sigh over those too.

Yes, I do all of those things. And while you may think that qualifies me to be called a ‘hopeless romantic’, I prefer to think of myself as a ‘hopeful romantic’.

And why not?

Love does exist in the universe. Sure, divorce rates might be going up, but there are also those couples celebrating their fiftieth anniversary. So what is wrong with believing in love?

And what is wrong with being a romantic? Isn’t it a good thing to be an optimist? To expect the best in people?

(I’m having a bit of a vent. Can you tell?)

I am a romance writer and my big dream is to be published by Mills & Boon one day. It is what I am working towards, have been working towards for over a year now and I do not appreciate people rolling their eyes at this! If you don’t read’em, if you know nothing about’em, then you don’t get to have an opinion on them.

So there!

Okay, I’m done.

In other news, my M&B manuscript stands at about 18000 words and I’m feeling pretty good about it right now. The plan is to finish by the end of this year and then send off the partial and synopsis early next year. Hopefully, that’ll work out.

In the meantime, there’s this competition by Harlequin (American version of M&B) - very coolly named 'So You Think You Can Write' - which asks for the full manuscript rather than the usual first chapter or whatever. The final date is the 15^th of December and while to even dream about having a complete and polished MS within the next five weeks sounds mad, I’m going to try anyway. Good luck to me!

Also in the meantime, I’ve decided it’s time to try and make this blog a proper one, like I had originally intended it to be, and talk about stuff other than myself and my writing. Lately, I’ve read some good books, some mediocre ones and some horrendous ones, and I’m going to try my hand at writing reviews for them. Just my humble opinion as an avid reader. So watch this space, dear invisible readers of my blog!