Last week was spent editing South of Salem and catching up with publicity stuff. This morning I rewrote two long scenes for book 3. Work on book 3 should speed up now the edits for book 2 are done.

Welcome to my shiny new, totally awesome website.
Many thanks to designer, Frauke of Croco Designs. I couldn’t be happier with the end result. You’re a legend!

Big news this week. The edits are finished for the second Allegra Fairweather book, South of Salem. It’s gone off to production and will mostly likely be released in May. I’ll keep you posted on the exact date.

All weekend I’ve been up to my eyeballs in edits for book two. Hopefully my work on book two will soon be finished and I can return to work on book three.

Watch this space for more information on book two.

Lots of work done this week. Going over the earlier chapters, making sure the plot makes sense, adding description. I haven’t started counting words yet. For me, that’s best left until I have a later draft. My first drafts are always shockingly short. If I look at the word count too soon, I freak out. And that’s not pretty.

The title of this post says it all. So here they are (in no particular order):

1. Capt Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp, “Pirates of the Caribbean”) What an utterly delightful character! Another terrifice acting job from Johnny Depp, who never turns in a bad performance.

2. BridgetJones (Renee Zellwegger, “Bridget Jones’s Diary”) Wacky, socially inept and utterly delightful. A wonderfully likeable character brought to life perfectly by Renee Zellweger.

3. Inigo Montoya (Mandy Patinkin, “The Princess Bride”) What a hero! That scene where he fights the six-fingered man always makes me cry. I love Inigo’s bravery and his single-minded determination to achieve his goal.

4. The Fairy Godmother (Annette Crosby, “The Slipper and the Rose”) I want a fairy godmother like this. Cute, quirky and warm, plus she gets to sing a great song.

5.George Downes (Rupert Everett, “My Best Friend’s Wedding”) A gorgeous, over-the-top, funny character. Forget the sex, George can dance!

Who are your favourite movie characters? Go on, share. You know you want to.

I finished the first round of edits for the second Allegra Fairweather book. Yay!

This week I’m back to work on book 3. It’s always challenging to go from editing one book to working on another. The editing and first drafting processes demand different skills. It’s not always easy to switch from one to the other, going from editing an almost finished book to one that’s not much more than a few scenes, which are often strung together with notes saying things like: Describe forest here. or Describe baddie here or Elaborate on how Allegra feels here.

So today it’s back to the random scenes and notes. Wish me luck.

I’ve read some great books in the last few weeks. Here are my five favourites in no particular order.

1. “Past Midnight” by Mara Purnhagen. I loved this YA book. Great characters and a great story. I’m looking forward to more in this series.

2. “The Kiss Test” by Shannon McKelden. I loved the humour and the heroine’s voice. Plus this is a Carina Press book – not that I’m biased or anything. Looking forward to reading more by this author.

3. “Out of the Shadows” by Susan Lewis. I could not put this down! An absolute ripper read!

4. “Lost Innocence” by Susan Lewis (Yep I’m reading my way through her backlist.) Another great read by this fabulous author.

5. “Shelter Mountain” by Robyn Carr. I thoroughly enjoyed the warm and wonderful characters. Preacher was so lovely.

Looking forward to reading more wonderful books in January.

This week I haven’t done any work on book three but I’ve got a good excuse. I’ve been doing the edits for book two. And that means this is going to be a very short post. Gotta get back to work.