ooooh, and the verdict is in

She (being the lovely publisher lady at Poolbeg) likes it!
So yay, she says yes and 'It's Got to be Perfect' will officially be my fourth novel, due for publication at an as unyet decided date in 2010.

Phew!

Oh how I love this moment

There comes a time in the writing of each book when the last line pops into my head.
I always kind of know what I want my characters to achieve but I don't always know how I'm going to get them there. I've been crucified with writers' block (which sounds like a bad dose of constipation) for the last few days and my usual tactic of going for a wee lie down and a think hasn't been working - mostly because I keep falling asleep as soon as my head hits a pillow.
But this morning as I wrote, it became clear and it's going to be fab. And the last line is just waiting to be written (in approximately 44,000 words time... eep!)  but now at least I know exactly where Annie is going and there are going to be more than a few laughs along the way.
I don't think I have enjoyed writing a book as much as this one!

And on another note - many thanks and a big hello to all the new readers of this blog! Nice to see you!

The quest to get the damn book finished continues

It seems the more I write, the more there is to write.
Maybe it is because the book has taken off and reached that very exciting big story arch bit, or maybe it is because deadline is looming but I just want to get it done now.
It's the best thing I've written. It's gonna be huge (I'm cosmic ordering, okay?) and I'm so excited about it I just want it done and out there.

48,200 words down... 61,800 to go....

Book 4 - the sex scene dilemma

So when I attended a recent writers' event in the Central Library in Derry two of my fellow authors commented that my work is a wee bit racy.

I never thought it to be so, to be honest. Yes, there is a fair smattering of swearing and in Feels Like Maybe there is the odd bonk - after all it is a novel about baby making and all it entails. But none of it is graphic.

Now book 4 is something a little different (and no, it's not a Jackie Collins bonkbuster type thing... fear not). It is essentially a romantic comedy - the story of a woman so determined to have the happy ending she imagined in her childhood that she would do anything to find "the one" before her self imposed deadline.

That involves kissing (and, well, shagging) a few frogs. Now I'm not comfortable writing sex scenes. To quote Eliza Doolittle, I'm a good girl I am.

But I can't really write a modern romantic comedy without a fair smattering of sexy stuff. But at the same time I know my granny will read it - so it has to be fairly clean.

Today I wrote a big date scene - one of the pivotal moments in the novel - and yes, it did end with the two characters getting intimate. And I'm blushing already at the thought of my agent and my publisher reading it - even though it's really not graphic at all.

You would think two babies in, I would have no qualms with talking about intimate human relations - it would seem I'm wrong.

1000 words

Written tonight - of book 4.
I feel all buzzy and excited. Only wish the baby had slept on so I could write more.

I wrote!

And you know what, it really is sometimes just a case of what my fellow Derry writer Brian McGilloway says - sometimes you just have to sit down and fecking do it.
Sure my head has been mince (as my lovely VBF would say) the last few months but I have a book plotted and there in my head entirely and now I just have to fecking write the thing.
So this morning - no excuses. Even though I was in very bad form after a visit to the midwife (how can a midwife make me feel like an errant 2 year old just by looking at me over her specs?) I sat down and 1000 words of 'Ever After' poured out.
And you know what - there is nothing in it about poking pins into the arms of midwives or asking them to pee into ridiculously small plastic tubes while their stomach extends to the end of the bathroom or indeed weighing them and commenting on it. (For the record I am almost 38 weeks pregnant and have put on 2lbs the whole fecking pregnancy, so LEAVE ME ALONE).

Anyway - some of it, I think, was funny and I feel all proud of myself. I'm now going to cuddle my baby nephew for an hour and then get my gorgeous boy from school and then later I will just sit fecking down and writing some fecking more. So there.

There are some benefits to the insomnia..

Last night it was 5am before I dosed off. And it wasn't down to pains, or nausea (well, only mild nausea) or heartburn. I just couldn't sleep. My brain just wanted to stay awake.
I tried getting up for a while. I tried climbing into bed beside the boy and snuggling him - but ya know a single bed and a starfish impersonating five year old and eight month pregnant lady is not a good combination.
I tried at times both hugging the hubby and barging at him to stay away from me because he was breathing too loud.
I tried drifting off into my make believe world in the hope that I would bore
myself to sleep - thing is though, I just woke myself up more. The next chapter of 'Ever After' played out in my head - trhe plot filling in the lines as I tried to get to sleep and while that can be exceptionally, very annoying it is also a great buzz. When you see a book play out in front of your eyes when you are writing dialogue in your head at the speed of light when it all seems to be good.
'Ever After' is taking me the longest of all my books to write, but what I am writing of it I love. It's quality and non quantity that really matters - non?
Hopefully the lovely people at Poolbeg will feel the same.

Oh and once I got to sleep, at 5am, I slept on through til 10 with only occasional heavily pregnant comfort breaks. How can it be I'm surviving on 5 hours sleep a night? Or maybe that is why I'm so damn cross today. It might be about time to bring Ouiser out again..

She LOVES it... hurrah!

I nervously sent the first 13000 words of book 4 (ironically called 'Ever After' as it is taking forever to write..) to my agent last night.
I am suffering such a crisis of confidence at the moment (hormones) that I struggle to write a sentence without seeking the approval of those around me. I am, officially, a little demented and difficult to live with these days.
Anyway thus began the morning process of sitting, watching my email inbox, pretending not to care - writing my column as if I had not a worry in the world - while all the time noticing my finger nails were getting shorter and a faint taste of chewed down fingernails lingered in my mouth...
I got an email, mid morning. And she LOVES it. Now I put the LOVE in caps because she put the LOVE in caps and LOVE in caps make me happy.
No to go all Sally Field on y'all but yay - she LOVES it, she really, really LOVES it.

oooh, lunchtime blog - remembered what I was originally going to blog about...

So I'm writing my fourth book (and yes, I'm actually writing it and not just writing about writing it) and I have a character issue. In the book there is a man and he's, well, a little bit hairy. In fact he's a whole lot hairy. He is a walking carpet - a wookie like creature from Donegal who manages to make my MC lose run of her senses. And she refers to him as Chewbacca.

Now this has sparked a debate (mostly in my own head, I hasten to add) about my ability to use the name Chewbacca without contravening copyright law. Obviously he's not actually a wookie (although, you know, he does have a hairy back and all). It would annoy me more than words can say to take the reference out - so I'm actually going to have to do some proper research on this one. Bum!

Oh, and just so as you know, the character is very loosely based on my friend's obsession with Anton DuBeke of Strictly Come Dancing who is very, very hairy.

By jove I think she's got it...

I've done.
I've written some fiction.
1000 words of the stuff.
And read off the rest of the WIP (that's Work In Progress) and it's not the sack of shite I was fearing it to be.
In fact it's quite good.
And I enjoyed the writing. And I found it flowed nicely.
So the seal has been broken and the writer is back. Hurrah and hurrah. I'm not broken any more.

Don't mention the war.... or the book

Okay so I'm supposed to update on my writing progress today...
Supposed to, being the key words.
So anyway - did you see Relocation, Relocation, Relocation last night? I just caught a little of it - but how high maintenance was yer woman?
And isn't Phil thingummy just lovely. I wish he was my husband.
Loads of Braxton Hicks last night - and bizarre dreams about living in my old rented house.
I seem to be dreaming about houses past a lot recently - wonder what that means? Searching for a more secure time in my past perhaps?
In recent weeks I've dreamed of my old student digs (aka The Brown house - the carpets were brown, the curtains brown, the woodwork brown, the furniture brown etc). It was a lovely - if exceptionally basic and very cold house which we were pretty sure was haunted, but they were really, insanely happy days. There was friendship, song, drink and more drink, dancing and more dancing and a bit of studying.
And then I dreamt of my grandparents house - most notably their back garden - the scene of many a happy childhood adventure. Yes, so the dream was weird in that suddenly their garden morphed into the City Walls here in Derry... but it was a lovely dream all the same.
And then last night I dreamt we were back living in the house we (meaning me, my sister and my then fiance) rented when I first started working in the Derry Journal. It was a lovely house - with a very steep driveway - and we were poor but happy.
All definitions welcome...
And as for the book... well.... erm.... I'll chat tomorrow.

Getting blocked...

Where I'm from getting blocked has a certain meaning - generally it means going out and consuming a fairly vast amount of alcohol so that you end up in a nicely inebriated state and generally it involves dancing like a complete eejit in a public place.
Or at least that is what it used to mean.
Now it means - for me at least - the inability to write. My fourth book (working title 'Ever After') has stalled at a measly 12,000 words. Now I do have several very good excuses but as each night passes with me staring at a laptop willing the lovely Annie (my MC) into life I get more and more frustrated.
Now, generally when I hit the wall I pour a nice, cold glass of wine - consume it at record speed and find that magically the block lifts. Sure what I write that evening might be a load of carbolics but the effect of actually being able to write something is enough to spur me on to write something more legible and coherent the following evening.
Of course at the moment I don't have the luxury of a bottle of wine at my side. I do however have a variety of prescription medications each and every one of them complete with the warning that they may cause drowsiness.
"If affected do not attempt to drive or operate heavy machinery" they warn - but I think they are missing the crucial adendum "or attempt to write chick lit".

Tonight will be the third night in a row that I'll switch on my laptop, open the file and promise myself to write a little more. It's at quite interesting juncture in the book so in theory is should be easy. In theory.
I promise to report back tomorrow - wish me luck.