Writer's Wednesday: Caring for the Environment.

Is Our Writing Environment Important to Us? Steeple Hill author Margaret Daley investigates.

I remember when I first stated writing back in the Dark Ages when I used a typewriter. I had my typewriter set up on the kitchen table. I’ve come a long way since then. I’ve advanced to a computer (and so glad I don’t have to revise a manuscript on a typewriter—a lot of work) and I have my own office with a door I can close when I want to keep the world out.

Have you ever tried to write and family members keep interrupting you and you lose your thought in mid-sentence? Or, you don’t have anywhere to spread your stuff out? There are times when I’m on a deadline that my office gets messy, but I don’t have to straighten up until I’ve sent my book off. I just shut the door so no one has to see the mess but me.

When I set up my office years ago, I put a lot of thought into its layout and furniture. I wanted something that inspired me and was comfortable. After all, I was going to spend hours and hours in that room. I spend more time in my office than any room in my house—even my bedroom. Okay, that may read that I’m a workaholic and I probably am but I have everything I need at my fingertips.
My office walls are painted hot pink with white trim. I didn’t know how I was going to like hot pink and thought if it didn’t work out I could paint over it. But I love the walls. I find the color is invigorating, and I haven’t grown tired of the hot pink yet. In fact, the color has grown on me.

Over the years I began collecting flamingoes. I love animals and flamingoes are hot pink. What better accent than that in my office! Now I have so many—from a giant six-foot stuffed flamingo to a Christmas tree with mostly flamingo ornaments on it. The tree is up year round. And if my cats leave the tree alone, the ornaments stay on it.

When I published my first book in 1981, my husband starting framing my books to hang on the wall. Now I have over sixty on the walls in my office. When I get discouraged, I can look at what I’ve accomplished in almost thirty years in the business.

How important is your workspace to you? For me it is my getaway where I can go to dream up stories to entertain readers. I usually read books for pleasure even in my office. I have a couch that is quite comfortable. I have been known to fall asleep on it.

What do you think is important in an office or a workspace?

Margaret Daley has a book out this month from Love Inspired called Together for the Holidays. In the story, a single mother with a traumatic past, Lisa Morgan only wants to raise her son with love and values. But lately the boy is struggling. When his basketball coach becomes a reluctant role model, Lisa is relieved. Until she learns that David Russell is also a cop. She's not ready to share her past—or her heart. And neither is the world-weary detective. Yet as Christmas comes closer, the true meaning of the holiday brings them together in ways they never dared dream.

Next month Margaret has a Love Inspired Suspense out called Christmas Peril, a two in one story with Debby Giusti.

Temptation Tuesday: Celebrity Magazines

What is more tempting than a dishy hero in a lush setting? Presents author Sharon Kendrick is here at The Pink Heart Society to talk about one of the few things that can compete!


What's the similarity between these two light English scones which are sandwiched together with a wodge of thick, double cream and a generous helping of juicy strawberry jam.......

And this array of some of publishing's finest - brightly-coloured glossy magazines with their in-your-face typesetting and titles such as Reveal, Heat, Closer and OK!?

It's pleasure, of course - but in this case a very guilty pleasure. Something you might not want to admit to......

And while you might just get away with eating the scones by spending a work-out morning in the gym - you'll be hard-pressed to mount a good defence about why you happen to enjoy celebrity magazines.

Because people love to trash them. Some of the criticism they attract happens to be the same as that which is sometimes leveled at romantic fiction: They are mindless pap. They are an insult to the intelligence. They focus the attention on a superficial world where Z-list fame and trashy image dominate instead of real issues which concern women. Oh, dear. What a shallow person I must be - because I absolutely love them!

For me they provide endless amusement and genuine opportunities for research. I like to study faces and expressions - trying to gauge the true emotions revealed when the celebrity mask slips. I analyse body language - and discovered long ago that feigned affection is as easy to decipher as genuine tenderness. I'm fascinated by relationship between fame and publicity and how the weapon of PR can occasionally backfire. All of these elements give me ideas for my own protagonists and the glamorous worlds they inhabit.

I also like fashion watching - to see what the Hollywood glitterati are wearing. It's interesting (and occasionally appalling!) to see how much someone is prepared to spend on an outfit and it must be particularly galling to see that same outfit on one of your peers. This Cinderella element is vital to my stories - sometimes I make up my own dresses, shirts and shoes - but it's a dream to be able to incorporate some of the great designers. A kind of dressing-up by proxy! But I never name designers and that way I never date my books (because fashion designers go in and out of fashion, just as much as music does).

It's true that celebrity mags sometimes include features which are not for the faint-hearted - the sweaty underarm-double-page-spread springs to mind, as does the "Stars' Bunions!" section. But the whole point is that our idols are real. Sometimes they sweat and their feet hurt. They are "just like us" and that is why we are drawn to them.

So if you'll excuse me. I've just put my trainers away and so a large cream cake awaits me, but first - there is something I MUST read......

Sharon would love Pink Heart readers to visit her blogspot: http://sharonkendrick.blogspot.com/


She plans to post more regularly and would be spurred on by your comments!


North American readers can look for THE ITALIAN BILLIONAIRE'S SECRETARY MISTRESS in January, 2010

Male on Monday : Matthew Settle

Donna Alward explores the "real" side to her current book casting - actor Matthew Settle.

When I went shopping for a new hero, I had a pretty good idea of what I was looking for.  He didn't need to be a cowboy, but he had to be able to pull off the jeans and boots look.  He needed dark hair, enigmatic eyes, a soft voice but an underlying steel.  You would think that knowing all of this, I would have a good fix on my hero anyway (who, by the way, is named Wyatt Black).

But I'm a visual girl.  Especially at the beginning, when I'm looking to anchor the story.  I like that touchstone until the story takes on a life of its own.  Even then, sometimes I'll find myself recalling my casting, how that person might move, how they might sound, and it really really helps.

At the time I was watching Band of Brothers with my girls and then I realized.  Matthew Settle could pull it off.  I went searching for pictures and found a gold mine.  Finding a good biography took a little more work.

Born on September 17, 1969, in Hickory, NC, Settle is the youngest of two girls and four boys. In 1983, his father, a Baptist preacher, and his mother, a church organist, relocated the family to Sevierville, TN. Settle sold records at Dolly Parton's nearby theme park, Dollywood, before deciding to become a musician himself. After getting kicked out of his New York-based rock group, he hawked meat and seafood off a truck on Long Island before Jay Julian, Robert De Niro's lawyer, got him into acting school. Settle borrowed money from friends to afford the classes, and then moved out to Los Angeles to begin his career.

Rather than go through his filmography, let's just say I've seen him as a gallant young man in The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, as the crazy boyfriend of Jennifer Love-Hewitt in I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, to Captain Ronald Spiers in Band of Brothers and as Jacob Wheeler in Into The West.

In particular I loved him as Spiers, the cool as a cucumber, somewhat renegade Captain who became a legend based on rumours alone, according to the miniseries.  After the Battle of the Bulge when he took over Easy Company,  1st Sgt. Lipton said, "The men don't care about the rumours.  They're just happy to have a good leader again."  That's the kind of man I wanted for my hero.  His past is a bit of a mystery, and yet somehow we know he's one of the good guys, someone to rely on.

TV Credits include guest roles on ER, Brothers and Sisters, and currently he's playing Rufus Humphrey on Gossip Girl.  He also played Bo Goodnight in Nora Roberts' Blue Smoke.

I made this collage that I now have on my desktop as I'm writing my WIP - what do you think?

Donna's new release is A Bride for Rocking H Ranch in Montana, Mistletoe, Marriage, hitting store shelves on November 10!  You can check out an excerpt on her webpage at www.donnaalward.com .

Weekend Wind Down :: NaNoWriMo!!

Jenna Bayley-Burke is here with The Pink Heart Society annual NaNoWriMo post!!

What is NaNoWriMo? National Novel Writing Month comes every November. All around the world, writers vow to collect words until they hit 50,000, throwing aside all notions that tell them that they can’t. It is the brainchild of No Plot No Problem author Chris Baty. Each year the NaNoWriMo website and forum teem with writers hopeful to turn someday into today.

Anyone with an inkling they want to write a novel can join the NaNoWriMo brigade. It’s free, it’s fast, and it even has perks like a laptop loaner program, a free copy of your NaNo novel from LuLu if you finish, and a great reason to head out to your local community NaNo meeting and find likeminded writers in your area. If you’d prefer an online writing group, Romance Divas and eHarlequin both host specialized groups in their forums during November.

For years I found something wrong with the stories I wrote, usually right around chapter four. I’d drop it like a hot potato, chasing after the next idea so I’d soon forget I meant to go back and finish. Until I signed up for National Novel Writers Month in 2004, and forced myself to muddle through that fourth chapter, following it with more chapters until Just One Spark had a beginning, middle and an end. It became my first finished - and published book, put out by Mills & Boon in 2006.

Drafting a novel in thirty days isn’t for everyone, but for those who’ve never finished a novel, the magic of a deadline does pull you across the finish line. And those writers who hope to write category can benefit from the discipline. The draft that you have at the end of the month isn’t publishable, but it is fixable. As a great romance writer once said, you can’t fix a blank page.

Some might be concerned about how good a book could possibly be if it only took a month to write. There is magic in a book that spins together quickly. Don't take my word for it, be sure to read fabulous authors like Romance newcomer Nikki Logan & Modern Heat’s Natalie Anderson both of whom have told some amazing stories with stories they disovered in under 30 days.

What are you waiting for? Don’t write a novel someday, write it this November.

Jenna is actually writing this November. While she's busy, be sure to check out Compromising Positions -- available with chocolate, Kama Sutra yoga, a decade old crush and a steady addiction to sugar. To find out what Jenna is up to now...check out her website or daily NaNoWriMo reports on her blog.

Must Watch Friday - Spooks

Last month Kate Walker talked about her love of spooky ghost stories. This time, with the must watch TV slot, her focus is on some very different sort of Spooks.

Spooks is back. My autumn (Fall) viewing treat is guaranteed. I have a date and a space on my living-room sofa every Wednesday 9pm BBC 1 - for Spooks. (Well, I also have one for Flash Forward but that’s another topic.) Spooks is back and I’m happy. I’m also at the end of the current book and so can afford a little extra time to just totally relax, enjoy – and do some heavy duty research.

This is series 8 and so far nothing has grown tired or totally repetitive, the characters still fascinate even when the political machinations, behind the scenes machinations and need to save the world every week can sometimes blur into one. But it’s the characters who matter. I can still remember the first episode of the last series that had me sitting in the edge of my seat, watching Adam Carter played by Rupert Penry Jones drive a car that was literally a ticking bomb through London, thinking ‘They can’t. kill him off . . they won’t. . .’ But they can and they did. The car exploded and one of the main reasons for watching was gone. Spooks is like that. They are not precious with their stars. As the cast have often commented no one is safe on Spooks. Anyone can be killed off at any time.

And it’s that edge of the seat quality, the sheer sofa-chewing, nuclear bomb-defusing vividness of last December’s season-ending cliffhanger, that when the show blazed back onto our screens last night after a gap of almost a year it was as if time itself had stood still, leaving us effortlessly picking up the story with Harry Pearce (Peter Firth) the old –school knight of the realm, head of MI5’s counter-terrorism division still in the clutches of a Russian from Putin’s security service, trussed up in the boot of a car with tape across his mouth and that ‘they can and they might’ sense exerting its grip all over again

Spooks, after all, has a remarkably cavalier approach to its leading characters, and has a considerably higher personnel turnover than most long-running series. In fact, landing a big role here is just one step away from booking a spot on the mortuary slab – in the TV studios at least. No fewer than 12 major characters have been brutally decommissioned over the course of the last seven seasons, with almost the entire cast being regularly refreshed by way of bullet, bomb, radium injection or – most controversially – a head in a deep fat fryer. On this show, you’re lucky to make it to the end of an episode, let alone settle in for a comfortable retirement. And its that nerve-shredding feeling that you can’t relax and think ‘he/she’s a star so it’ll be all right’ that gives the show it’s extra special pull.

But for however long they last, the stars are worth the hour spent watching it every week. And that’s where the research come in. From the start the cast has been filled with the sort of actors who can deliver lines that can sometimes veer into ‘we have to save the world’ silliness with the sort of clench-jawed control and sang froid that somehow holds it just this side of melodrama in spite of the endless and often bonkers conspiracies they have to fight – both in the outside world and within ‘the Grid’ itself. (Because that’s another thing about Spooks – you can rarely, if ever, believe that just because a character has access to the central ‘grid’ they are in fact squeaky clean and totally trustworthy. Some aren’t and the revelation of just who can’t be trusted is another of those ‘Oh, they can’t’ elements because again they can - and they do.) )

Those stars have included , along with Peter Firth, Hugh Simon and Gemma Jones as the older team, the ever watchable Matthew MacFadayen, Keeley Hawes, Ruprt Penry-Jones, Hermione Norris, Alex Lanipekun. And that’s without including the list of guest stars such as Hugh Laurie, Robert Hardy, Tim McInnerny, Bruce Payne, Ian McDiarmid, Jimi Mistry, Andy Serkis, Andrew Tiernan, Anton Lesser, Anupam Kher, Alexander Siddig and Anthony Head.

And the last series provided compensation for the loss of Adam with then introduction of the new – and decidedly ambiguous - character of Lucas North played by the man the Romantic Novelists’ Association voted the sexiest thing on two legs – Richard Armitage. And as someone who has been addicted to dark, brooding , possibly untrustworthy, definitely ambiguous heroes who might turn out to be villains, this piece of casting just added to the ‘must see’ quality of the show. Especially when the BBC killed off Guy of Gisborne over on the much less watchable Robin Hood.

Incidentally, in an interview about this new season of Spooks, Richard Armitage admitted that he trained as a dancer, and his best dance was the Argentinian Tango. Now that is an Strictly Come Dancing/Dancing with the Stars I’d love to see. But for now I’ll settle for the heavy-duty research of Lucas North, steely blue eyes narrowed as he deals with one of Spook’s many puzzles, and many more villains - or those eyes warming as he charms the female American agent into cooperating with the scheme he has planned.

Spooks still delivers high-class escapism at its slickest, most glamorous and entertaining. Over the years it has had its ups and downs. But the last series managed to claw things back superbly, balancing pin-sharp characterisation with plots of such tension-ratcheting complexity that a rollercoaster ride was virtually guaranteed in every episode. If last night’s opener was anything to judge by, series eight promises to be just as good.

Kate Walker’s latest Presents title Kept For Her Baby is still available in Presents EXTRA. And the hero, Ricardo was inspired by none other than Richard Armitage in the last season of Spooks.

One reviewer called this book “a masterpiece that will live in the hearts of the reader for many years to come!” (We Write Romance)

You can find out more about Kate and her books on her website or her blog

Thursday Reading - YA Books Aren't Just Twilight!

Brigid Coady is talking about her recent reading experiences.

I’m putting my hand up to confess that recently I have mostly been reading Young Adult books. Why you may ask? Why am I reading YA instead of grown up books?

Well I say to you that some of the best stories out there are being written for the YA market. Yes I have read the Twilight books and seen the movie (Robert Pattinson swoon) but there are some other YA books out there.



Here are some reasons I love YA books and what I am learning from them:

1. They mix up the genres, everything is YA whether crime, romance, paranormal, fantasy or historical. And sometimes they can be all of the above. They make me think out of the box, mix things up and take chances.

2. The books grip you from the start. These books are being written for an audience that has so many other pulls on their time. If they want to keep them reading they have to get in, grip you and keep it going till the end. I am learning loads about writing brilliant beginnings and pacing.

3. Who doesn’t remember being a teenager? Everything was more intense, ups and downs seemed more catastrophic. We had our first loves, our first kisses, our first dates. When I read YA books it comes flooding back and it reminds me of the intensity.

And because I am a nice person I’m going to recommend some recent books I’ve read.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen regards it as a death sentence when she is forced to represent her district in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV. But Katniss has been close to death before—and survival, for her, is second nature. The Hunger Games is a searing novel set in a future with unsettling parallels to our present. Welcome to the deadliest reality TV show ever...

I read this book in one sitting and then haunted the bookshop until the second one came out! Brilliant, disturbing with a love triangle that has you picking teams.


Just Listen by Sarah Dessen
I'm Annabel. I'm the girl who has it all. Model looks, intelligence, a great social life. I'm one of the lucky ones. Aren't I? My 'best friend' Sophie is spreading rumours about me. My family is slowly falling apart. It's turning into a long, lonely summer, full of secrets and silence. But I've met this guy who won't let me hide away. He's one of those intense types, obsessed with music and totally unafraid of confrontation. He's determined to make me listen. Will I ever find the courage to tell him what really happened the night Sophie and I stopped being friends?

I would actually recommend any book by Sarah Dessen including ‘The Truth About Forever’ and ‘Lock and Key’.

They have all had me up until 2am sobbing my heart out by the end. Funny, sad, heart wrenching and dealing with difficult issues in a sympathetic way.

So go on, tell me what YA books have you been reading lately?



Brigid Coady is currently NaNoWriMoing (as BeeCee - come buddy up). She is finishing off ‘Bah Humbug!” and starting on a YA story of her own. Her short story ‘The Great Leap Forward’ will be published by Tonto Books in ‘Even More Tonto Short Stories’.

Writer’s Wednesday—Pondering Tension… aka An Excuse to Watch TV!

It's Wednesday at The Pink Heart Society, so we'll be writerly and talk about, you know, writing. Thankfully, Steeple Hill author Missy Tippens stopped by to make it fun!


Missy Tippens, here. I’ve recently discovered yet another reason to watch TV. :) To study tension in a story.

Have you ever watched a show week after week and been totally hooked. But then bam!, they do something that defuses the tension, and you find you’ve lost interest? Think of the classic example of this…Moonlighting.

I was pondering this the other night after watching the movie Tristan and Isolde. Man, what conflict there: loyalty vs loyalty. In Tristan’s case, it was loyalty to the man who saved him and took him in as a son (and also to country) versus loyalty to his true love (and thus self).Painful to watch. And it made me realize the proposal I’m working on doesn't have that kind of tension. It reminded me that we have to be sure come up with book-length conflict, and we can’t give our characters a break! The readers have to want to keep reading to the end of the book before they get the big payoff.

So what am I doing to add that tension to my proposal? I pulled out one of my favorite how-to workbooks, Alicia Rasley’s The Story Within Guidebook. In her books, she talks about heroic conflicts such as loyalty vs loyalty and gives a helpful list of some common heroic conflicts/issues. So I’m in the process of figuring out the type conflict my characters will be facing.

In my new release from Steeple Hill Love Inspired, A Forever Christmas, I planned these conflicts in the early stages of writing. For my heroine, Sarah, her conflict is betrayal versus trust (the hero, Gregory, had betrayed her in their past and she has to learn to trust him again). For Gregory, it is guilt versus expiation (he needs forgiveness for past mistakes to be able to move on and love again). And neither of these conflicts could be resolved until the end! I have to admit, this is one weakness of mine. I have a hard time creating conflict (torturing my characters) because I don’t like conflict in real life. But I’m learning to stick it to ‘em. And if I ease up on that tension in the least, my editor lets me know! :)

What about you? What do you do to make sure to keep that tension running through the whole story?

Missy Tippens’ third book for Steeple Hill Love Inspired, A Forever Christmas, has just released. Read an excerpt at e-harlequin.com. It’s also available at Amazon.com or on the shelves wherever you buy Harlequin books.