Ros Clarke's Blog, page 28

The Oil Tycoon and Her Sexy Sheikh

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Available now!

His duty, her dreams, undone by their desire…

In the male-dominated oil industry, executive Olivia McInnes plays a careful game – she’s cold, uncompromising, and ambitious as hell. Once she seals the deal to drill in the clear waters of Saqat, she’ll finally prove herself worthy to take the reins of her father’s oil company. Her only obstacle is marine biologist – and Saqat’s royal heir – Sheikh Khaled Ibm Saqat al Mayim, who’s determined to protect both his people and his country from environmental devastation…

It’s not long before Olivia’s icy cool exterior is shattered by the intelligent and wickedly hot sheikh, and business is surpassed by sweet, stolen pleasures. But outside the bedroom, there’s reality to be faced. Soon Khaled must return to his obligations – and his betrothed – in Saqat.

Caught between duty and ambition, can an oil tycoon and a sexy sheikh find room for love… or will this business deal spell disaster for them both?

Amazon US | Amazon UK

Writing short

I just had a lovely email from my editor claiming that I am the only author he works with who knows how to write a Flirt.* Flirts are Entangled’s shortest stories, at 10-15,000 words. The next line up is Ever After at 20-40,000 words. 40,000 words is half a good sized novel and almost enough for a category romance (45-50,000 words). So a Flirt is a really different kind of thing.

I find writing short much, much easier than writing long. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve done so much academic writing with very strict word counts – even one word over the limit would knock you down a grade. I think I have a natural tendency towards brevity as well. Plus words are the hard bit of writing. Ideas are easy.

Anyway, here’s how I go about writing a Flirt. It’s basically three chapters of a book (not necessarily of equal length): Set up; Conflict; Resolution. Easy.

Set up

In two of my Flirts I’ve helped move the set up along by having characters who already know each other. I think there’s a limit to what you can do from a meet-cute in 10-15,000 words, and it will be hard to find a satisfying conflict unless there’s some background to draw on. The set up will also need to introduce the conflict, just as it would in a longer romance.

Conflict

Then you need to pitch the real struggle in chapter two. This is the key to making the short story work. You’ve got to have a conflict that’s real and significant, but also one that you can resolve in the short space. Your story doesn’t have to take place in a single day, but I think it does need to be relatively compact chronologically as well as narratively. Episodic short stories are weird and unsatisfying, in my experience. You’ll need to have characters who talk to each other about real stuff so that you can get to the heart of their issues quickly.

Resolution

In a longer book, the resolution takes up a comparatively small proportion of the word count, but I think that even in a short story, readers want to be able to enjoy the happy ending and feel sure that it’s real. It’s easy, in this length of story, to use themes, images and phrases that refer back to the set up and the conflict to give a satisfying literary resolution which matches the romantic resolution. I don’t think you have to aim for HEA with a short – happy for now is definitely okay. You’ve dealt with one problem between your characters, but if they are real, complex people, they’ll doubtless face other issues and the reader knows that. Don’t make the resolution bigger than the conflict deserves.

I think that’s the key, actually, balancing the set up, the conflict and the resolution. You’re probably not going to tell a grand, sweeping love story that towers across the ages in this short format. What you can do is focus in on one moment of a relationship, and make your readers care about your characters enough to want them to get through this particular hurdle and come out stronger and better on the other side.

*It should be pointed out that of the three stand-alone Flirts published so far, one has sold hundreds of thousands of copies, and the other two are mine. So I haven’t exactly got the magic touch.

Writing news

I realise there has been precious little of this recently. That’s mostly because there has been precious little writing. Still, I have news!

The big exciting news is that The Oil Tycoon and Her Sexy Sheikh is now on the copyeditor’s desk and is due to be published next week. NEXT WEEK!!! There will be a cover and links to buy it and an excerpt and all those happy things very shortly.

And today I finally finished something new and sent it to my editor. It’s another short story and another Christmas one at that. So even if he likes it, it won’t be published until November/December. But it feels really good to have written another story.

I’ve got ideas and half-written chapters and synopses for a few other things on the go, but nothing else submitted or under contract as yet. I will try to remember to keep you updated here, though I’ll definitely be tweeting about everything if you want to follow me there.

More is More

I finished the crochet bag. And then I added some decoration. And then some more:

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I’ve been ill for the last couple of weeks, so this has been a project for lying on the sofa, watching Wimbledon. It’s been a good challenge to make the bag using only materials I already own.

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I had the yarn, and fabric for lining it. I used a scrap of plastic canvas to strength the base and sides – ideally I would have used slightly bigger pieces for the sides, but it works okay as it is. And then I needed something for the handles. Piping cord? Couldn’t find any thick enough. Plastic tubing? Nope. Aha! Old electrical cable from a dead laptop battery I no longer need. Perfect. It’s wrapped in several layers of yarn, of course and it feels very comfortable and sturdy.

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So there it is. I’m very pleased with it and I might try and write up the basic pattern. The decorations are May Roses, Mini Bunting and Teeny Tiny Hearts from Attic24 and Bobbles from Dances with Wool.

I’ve also made some peanut butter brownies. I’ve done the final, final, final round of edits on The Oil Tycoon And Her Sexy Sheikh (due out very, very soon!). And now I’m ready to stop being ill, please.

Making Monday Without Photos

Because my SD card is broken, so you’ll have to use your imagination.

I haven’t been feeling well for the last few days, which has been the perfect excuse to sit on the sofa, watch a lot of Wimbledon and knit. First up is an Urchin hat, made from some handspun ‘art yarn’. The yarn is spun from Wensleydale top with some dyed Wensleydale locks spun in with it. Unfortunately, it wasn’t until I knitted the hat up that I spotted two problems with the yarn. First, there is a section where I clearly used the wrong base fibre. I don’t know how a handful of BFL got in with the Wensleydale, but there it is. It’s a different colour and texture. Second, I wasn’t very good at evenly splitting the dyed locks along the base fibre. I’d hoped for uneven clumps all over the hat. What I’ve got is half a hat that’s mostly pink with some cream bits, and half that’s mostly cream with some pink bits. On the other hand, I love the shape of the hat, so I think I will probably still wear it.

Second up is a crochet bag. I bought some very pretty yarn at Woolfest, which I initially planned to use for a Betty Mouat Cowl, but I decided it’s not really soft enough to wear next to the skin. And I wanted to crochet something. I find crochet even more soothing and mindless than knitting when I’m ill. I looked around on Ravelry and despite the thousands of patterns, couldn’t find what I had in mind, so I’ve been making it up as I go. It’s got a flat base, ripple pattern sides and is going to have neat crocheted handles. If it turns out well, I’ll try to write it up as a p/hop pattern, I think.

And finally, some fabric arrived last week for a new quilt. I’ve made a couple of wonky log cabin squares and they are looking gorgeous. There’s no hurry to get this one finished, so I’ll try and do a few squares every week or so.

Oh, and I made strawberry jam before the SD card broke. When they are selling 500g punnets for 20p, it would be rude not to!

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Flashmobs

I am a sucker for a flashmob. Dancers, singers, musicians, Disney characters, you name it, I’ll watch it with a tear in my eye. This is the latest one I’ve come across:

I think it’s really an advert, but I don’t care, it’s still fabulous. I love watching the way that the small children are completely captivated by it – who says classical music is boring?! What I don’t love is the number of people videoing the perfomance on their phones.

I know, it’s hypocritical, because I like to watch the videos. But if I were there, the last thing I’d think about would be recording the flashmob. Surely an experience like that is all about being in the moment? Watching it later just isn’t the same thing. And there’s something magical about the unexpectedness of the flashmob, I think. Imagine trying to tell someone who’d never seen or heard of such a thing that a full orchestra and choir had appeared out of nowhere while you were doing your shopping!

It’s a bit like the kind of tourist who never gets to really see the place they’re visiting, because they’re too busy looking through a camera lens. So sad. We seem to live in a culture that is obsessed by recording everything for the future that we’ve forgotten how much more wonderful it is to live in the present.

An Assemblage of 19th Century Horses and Carriages

I bought this delightful book a few weeks ago from a second-hand bookseller. Looking on Amazon, I probably could have got it much cheaper, but without seeing the pictures, I probably wouldn’t have bought it at all, so.

The sketches were made in 1873, by William Francis Freelove, who was a solicitor’s clerk, not a professional artist. But they are really lovely and he captured a huge range of vehicles from royal state coaches to the penny van, from a wedding carriage to a coal waggon. In the book, the sketches are categorised as pleasure vehicles, business vehicles, special vehicles and ‘nondescript’, which includes a bathing machine and a gypsy caravan. The text of the book has been added for its first publication in 1971, but is very helpful in explaining when and how the vehicles were used. Regency writers beware – the brougham, for example, was not introduced until 1838.

Here are just a few of his pictures:

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Ephemeral

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It’s just over two months since I began working on my 38 things to do while I’m thirty-eight and it’s all going very well indeed. Already completed are:

4. Holiday in Sardinia

5. Go to Woolfest

6. Enter craft and baking categories at the county show

9. Eat something I’ve never eaten before

11. Spa day with F.

14. Go to see the Strictly Dance To The Music Tour

16. Walk along a beach without shoes

17. Make a new quilt

18. Eat pizza in Italy

19. And gelato

23. Swim in the sea

33. Start wearing perfume more regularly

Obviously I included some things in the list which were already in my diary, such as the holiday, but I have also been looking out for opportunities to do some of the other things. Which is why I now have a ticket to see Pointless being recorded next week. Hooray! The novel is due out in the middle of July. I’ve given away one box full of books, though I still have more to go. I’m doing pretty well at keeping flowers in the house. At the moment I have a beautiful bunch of sweet williams in a mix of gorgeous pinks. The flowers in the photo are inspired by someone I saw at Woolfest doing natural weaving. You get a stick with a V in it, wind twine around it to form a warp and then weave all sorts of natural materials into it. She used sheep’s wool as well as plant material, but I’ve just stuck with things I found in the hedgerows here. It won’t last but it’s beautiful and was very fun to make. There are some poppies and roses in the jamjars which had broken off in the wind.

I think I need to start keeping a list of new places. I’m not sure I’m going to get to 38, but we’ll see. I’ve decided that a ‘place’ is a town or village, rather than just a building, and I have to have walked about in it to count, not just driven through. So far I’ve got a rather feeble list of:

Flumini

Tortoli

Arbatax

Nuoro

Bewdley

Cockermouth

St Bees

Suggestions of fun places to visit are very welcome!

It’s here!

I got the figures last week and today I have the cheque (or check!) to hold in my hot little hands!

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My first real royalties from a real publisher. It doesn’t get much more exciting than this.

#6

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“As stated a present suitable for the diamond jubilee. Very pleasing to look through. Well done.

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“Love this little bolero, good tension, pleasing pattern – well done.”

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“External Appearance (shape, colour and uniformity): 3.5/4; Internal Conditions (depth of crust, texture, distribution of ingredients): 2/4; Flavour/aroma: 10/12; total 15.5/20.” Third place got 16/20/

“Good shape – however pastry too thick – lacking flavour”

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“Lovely idea but a lot of care needs to be taken in the construction of the bag.”

The ruthlessness of judging (I did not enter this category!):

[image error]“Thank you for entering these attractive cakes. When showing, “decorated sponge” means only the top of the cake should be decorated. If the sides are decorated it is then termed ‘a gateau’. As you will see I have given you marks as I have judged the cakes but cannot award a prize. Also for the cakes which have used the Olympic Rings, these are strictly copyright and would normally be disqualified. I can see a lot of work has gone into these entries which is why they have been judged and appreciated.”

Gosh.  I would not have known the difference between ‘a decorated sponge’ and ‘a gateau’ and there is no rulebook to tell you these things.

Prizewinning cattle (show champion on far right):

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Showjumping in the mud:

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