Jessica Hart's Blog, page 2

My split identity social networking strategy

Well, what a lovely time I had on Tuesday. Lunch was at Brasserie Max which I can totally recommend if money is no object. Important things first:  I had asparagus and a poached egg with champagne hollandaise to start, followed by the daily special, a pork chop with thyme jus.  Yum, yum, yum.   Oh, yes, and we talked about me, me, me.  Really, what could be nicer?
Jessica HartMy fantasy about the publicist telling me not to bother about social media got a laugh, but as suspected, remains a fantasy. Starting next week (aarrgghh) I will be writing two blogs, one here as Jessica Hart and another as Pamela Hartshorne, for which I am going to have to reinvent myself and be serious and sensible.  No more wittering. No more holiday pics.  No more whingeing about the writing process.  Oh dear me, no.  We’re talking history and research and proper author stuff over there. 


Pamela Hartshorne: spot the difference?

Confusingly, this means that the real me will be carrying on here under an assumed name, while I assume a false identity to blog under my real name.  I’ve been trying to update this blog twice a week (in between holidays) but will have to scale back to once a week I think or my head might explode.




And then there’s Facebook. I have a very happy time on my Jessica Hart page but now I’m going to have to be a different person there too.  I set up a Pamela Hartshorne page some time ago in fact and currently have all of 2 likes (wonder who the other person is!)  - if you’re on Facebook and can bear to pop over and ‘like’ me, it would be much appreciated!  - and I've made a total mess of Twitter, twittering as @PamHartshorne but really Jessica Hart, and as a result am not sure WHO I am now. 
Still, it has to be done. Everyone says so.  I have a nasty feeling my split personality strategy is going to be a hard one to pull off, but I’ll have a go.  Want to take bets on how long I last before beating my head on the desk?  
So I'll be back in a week.  Be good until then, and have a great weekend.

The place of manicures on a priority list

Oh, dear, my careful schedule is shot to pieces.  It’s fatal to lose momentum when writing, and after visitors on Friday, the course on Saturday, going to a wedding party, having guests, going out for a drink last night (hair of the dog) and coffee this morning, getting nails done … well, you can see how easy it is to slip behind.
You might think that getting my nails done is hardly a priority under the circumstances, but tomorrow I am off to London for the day to have lunch with my editor, my agent and my publicist.  (Hang on, I need to say that again in case you didn’t get how cool it was: lunch with my editor, my agent and my publicist (OMG, I have a publicist!!!!))  
Now do you see the vital importance of the nails?  A fresh layer of gel and a coat of Bordeaux does wonders for the confidence, and I had no hesitation in moving a manicure up the priority list.
Of course, I am deeply excited by the prospect of such a glamorous day, but it's tempered by an undercurrent of anxiety.   Mainly in case my editor wants to read what I’ve done so far on my WIP.  I’m only on 27,198 words (which means I still have 3802 to do today to get back on target … like that’s going to happen) and they are so not ready to be shown to anyone.  This is a Shitty Second Draft, and the thought of anyone looking at it in its current state makes my toes curl in distress.  (If I ever fall under a bus, my executors have strict instructions to shred any SFDs or SSDs without even glancing at them)
And what if they want to know my PR strategy?  No, wait, that’s the publicist’s job, isn’t it?   I have a little fantasy that she’ll say: "Darling, forget about setting up another blog.  Don’t worry about Facebook or Twitter or any of that.  You don’t need to think about promotion.  The book will miraculously sell itself.  You just concentrate on your writing."
As you see, I have a rich inner fantasy life.  I suppose it's handy when you're a writer, but coming up against reality is always a blow.
Never mind, I am determined to enjoy tomorrow – after which I will have to come home and wrestle my schedule back on track.  

In search of good (romantic) sex

I’m teaching a one day Crash Course on Writing Romance on Saturday, so spent yesterday going through my notes from last year.  (Funny how no matter how often you think: that went pretty well, I’ll just do that again next year, you always end up rewriting and changing things around.  The couple of hours I’d planned on preparation stretched to the whole day in the end.)
The focus of the course is on emotional tension, which I firmly believe is the key to any successful romance.  If you don’t have that, no amount of good writing will stop your story from sagging.  But of course a romance is more than just structure too.  The problem with a crash course is that we just don’t have time to do everything.  And in my case, when it comes to writing about sex, this is probably just as well. 
I have to hold my hand up and say that I’m not good at sex scenes.  Sexual tension, yes, I can offer advice on that, but the business itself … not so much.  Which is a shame, as when it’s done well, scenes which show that the hero and heroine are sexually as well as emotionally compatible are central to many romances. 
It’s a great skill, I think, to keep the reader engaged with the characters and what they are feeling when they make love.  Too often I’m pulled out of a story by icky descriptions or euphemisms that make me squirm.  The most memorable was one I read nearly 30 years ago: “With gentle, hurting care he stormed the furled portals of her womanhood”.  Eeeuuwww.
Luckily for me I write for Harlequin Romance, a line in which we “close the bedroom door” (a pretty icky euphemism in itself!) but when it comes to teaching a course like tomorrow’s, the best I can do is to tell participants to read those authors who write about sex really well. 
It’s almost impossible to give an excerpt, as it never works out of context.  The emotional tension in the story is the foreplay that makes these scenes truly satisfying, and that takes time to build up.  The reader needs to know the characters, to have shared their growing awareness of each other and to understand why they are feeling what they do. 



Loretta Chase, Jenny Crusie Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Nora Roberts, Kelly Hunter … all these authors write brilliant sex scenes and I’ll send everyone on the course away with recommendations to read them, but I’m always looking for new authors to recommend. Who do you think does sex really well??
Oh, nearly forgot!  The winner of this week's competition is Natalija ... Natalija, do you want to email your address to leah@leah-ashton.com and she'll put a copy of SECRETS AND SPEED DATING in the post to you - enjoy!   

Leah Ashton

* cue drum roll *  I’m absolutely delighted to welcome Leah Ashton to my blog today.
I first met Leah at the RWA Australia conference in Sydney in August 2010, so it was a wonderful coincidence to be teamed up with her for the New Voices competition that year.  Leah’s “voice” jumped out of her writing immediately, and I was thrilled – but not at all surprised – when she won. 
Now Secrets and Speed Dating is published.  I’m in the middle of reading it right now, and getting a little thrill whenever I recognise a tiny moment from the competition.  Apart from those few brief moments, Leah’s  story has changed completely, but that easy, readable voice remains - you know, that one that keeps you turning the pages even though you really should be getting up and going back to your keyboard …  
It's wonderful to be able to welcome Leah as a fellow Harlequin Romance author and to be able to follow the journey she's taken to publication.  
Today Leah’s talking about character, and she’s offering a free copy of Secrets and Speed Dating to one lucky person who comments below.  If that’s not you, make sure you order yourself a copy anyway, and put Leah Ashton on your auto-buy list!  I’ll get Leah to pick a winner at the end of the week, so don’t forget to check back to see if you’ve won.
Over to you, Leah!  

Thanks so much Jessica for inviting me to your blog! I think it’s crazy that it’s now almost two years since the original New Voices competition, and since I was lucky enough to have Jessica Hart as one of my mentors. Although, when I think back some of the truly dreadful brainstorming I did with Jessica via email at the time (what was I thinking?) it is a great reminder of how far I’ve come with my writing. Although, of course – I still have a long way to go! Secrets & Speed Dating, my New Voices-winning story, is currently on the shelves in the US, and it also has come a long way since the night I hit “submit” and entered New Voices. For those unfamiliar with the New Voices competition, the format was to submit your opening chapter. From there the top 10 were selected, and had the opportunity to write Chapter Two with the assistance of an author and editor mentor. Then, the lucky final four got to write their pivotal moment, and the winner was chosen. I can tell you, when it was me, I was ecstatic!But – when my next task was to finish my book, I soon realized that the story that won New Voices was not going to carry an entire book. Ouch!Looking back, I think the issue was that I never truly answered the question I’d asked myself right at the beginning, when the opening sentence to Secrets & Speed Datingpopped into my head:“Just so you know, I can’t have children.”When that line of dialogue came to me, I immediately wanted to know who had said that, and why. And that was where Sophie Morgan, my heroine, started.The problem was, that as I wrote my New Voices entry, and the subsequent chapters, I never really answered my question. Who was Sophie Morgan?I didn’t really have a handle on her. I didn’t know what her job was (I kept on coming up with ideas for a career that would help manipulate the plot, rather than being true to her), I didn’t really know why she went speed dating and certainly I didn’t know why she’d agree to the arrangement she eventually agrees to with my hero, Dan Halliday (although, he’s rather delicious – maybe agreeing to pretend to date him without solid motivation is not so far fetched…).It wasn’t until I realized that Sophie was an extremely well organized person who had responded to a recent major disaster in her life by writing her own life plan – The Sophie Project – that everything began to fall into place. The woman who was just a sketch in my mind, was suddenly walking and talking and breathing!I’ve written two books since Secrets & Speed Dating, and each one teaches me more and more about my writing and what makes a good story. I keep on making mistakes, but hopefully not the same ones too many times! But Secrets & Speed Dating certainly taught me that character is everything – without a strong character driving your story, you’ve got absolutely nothing JSo, I’d love to know – who is your favourite character? It can be from a book, or from a movie or TV show – I don’t mind!
Tell Leah your favourite character below, and you'll be in with a chance to win a copy of Secrets and Speed Dating. 

Write or Die: a cure for procrastination?

This should be Day 5 of my new regime, but I have factored in a hiatus today: my Occasional Other Half (OOH) is coming tonight and my cupboard is bare, so I must go and do some shopping, and a cursory clean of the house is probably in order too.  But otherwise, the routine (6.15 start, 500 words before shower, 3k words a day) has got off to a pretty good start.  My goal, taking weekends and odd days off into account, is a 120k draft by 6th August.
I played my usual psychological trick on myself and was 2k words in before I started, so only had to write 1k to reach Monday’s target, and was then ahead on Tuesday’s and so on.  I aimed to have 15k finished by the end of today, and in fact have 17k under my belt – although I have to admit that I’ve been able to cannibalise more than I expected from my Shitty First Draft. 
This meant that I got sloppy yesterday, and wasted most of the morning trying to sort out holiday dates and when I should launch Time’s Echo, neither of which were on my schedule.  When I confessed to this on Facebook, my friend Isabel posted a new app designed to put an end to this kind of procrastination.  Write or Die is designed, apparently, to put the prod back into productivity. The prospect of a noise going off the moment I stopped typing would probably work for me, but am not sure I could handle the stress of it! 
The app is clearly based on the same principle employed by my cousin’s husband when I spent a few months in Australia in the early 1990s.  They would go out to work, while I stayed home and wrote, and I was set up on their computer in the office.  The first day I sat down and typed CHAPTER ONE and then, as is my wont, paused for a moment.  Thirty seconds later, the screen saver popped up: BACK TO WORK SLACK BITCH!  It was the first I knew that (a) you could customise a screensaver, and (b) that you could change how soon it appeared – and, actually, it did the trick.  I did get back to work – once I’d finished laughing.
I’m not sure there will ever be a realistic cure for procrastination.  As long as writers write, we will be checking our emails, filing our nails, posting on Facebook, making cups of coffee, remembering that we really must send that birthday card/clean the oven/find that obscure reference.  I squeeze the words out with the help of frequent little rewards, but the only thing that really makes me settle down and write is an imminent deadline.  Who needs an app when you’ve got adrenaline? 
Have a good weekend, everyone, and may it be sunnier and more productive than mine is set to be!

Plunging vs planning

I was reading last week about a couple planning to drive round the world in 800 days.  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18355129 They seem very well prepared and I approved of all the neat boxes, but instantly, I was plunged into crisis. Iused to be that kind of person too.  Why aren’t I planning a round-the-world trip? When did my life become so boring?  I don’t have adventures any more. Omigod, I’m middle-aged! And so on.
Not that I ever got myself organised to undertake quite such a mammoth trip, you understand, but I had lots of dreams.  When I was at university in Edinburgh, I wrote to British Leyland and asked if they would like to sponsor me by giving me a Land Rover to drive from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego.  
I have no idea what made me think that they would, given that I was 20, had never driven a four-wheel drive and had no organisational backing or relevant experience whatsoever, but eventually I had a pleasant letter (remember those?) back saying that they were sorry not to be able to give me their support but wishing me the best of luck for my trip, which was very nice of them under the circumstances.
I hadn’t planned anything beyond getting hold of a Land Rover.  I knew nothing about mechanics or visas or any of the myriad difficulties involved in driving the length of the Americas.  I didn’t even have anyone to go with me.  I just thought: ‘ooh, I’d like to do that’, and dashed off a letter to British Leyland.  God knows what I would have done if they’d said yes. 
Maybe I’d have got my Land Rover to Alaska and started driving, and just maybe I’d have made it to Tierra del Fuego.  Or maybe I'd have realised just what a ridiculous goal I'd set myself and how inadequate I was to the task.
It’s a bit like writing a book.  If you think too much about how difficult it is, and how unlikely it is that (a) you’ll ever get to the end, (b) anyone will publish it, (c) anyone will read it and (d) that you’ll make any money out of it, it’s all too easy to give up.  I’d certainly have given up if I’d known how long the whole process takes, but I tackled writing the way I planned my South America expedition.  Having decided it was a good idea, I plunged in without a moment’s thought or research. 
And was promptly rejected.  And then again.  At that point I did the sensible thing and borrowed Mary Wibberley’s book on how to write romance from the library.  Light bulbs started popping all over the place. I still had another rejection to go, but I was on my way. 
I’m thinking about that time now as I embark on my second time slip.  There seems such a long way to go, I can’t believe I’ll ever get there.  I’ve planned a strict writing regime (bird by bird), but it won’t be long before I start to doubt the story/characters/my ability (the equivalent of coming up to the first police roadblock and smudged visa issue when you’re driving round the world).  
So for now I’m refusing to anticipate all the difficulties involved and just doing it.  There’s only so long you can spend preparing and planning.  After a while, you have to get in and drive.  I may not be going round the world, but perhaps it will be adventure enough to write this book, and if I can get to the end, I'll be happy.

What I did on my holiday

Remember me?  Am home at last after a wonderful time walking the Dingle Way, on the west coast of Ireland, where we only wore our waterproofs for about two hours over ten days!  We were so lucky with the weather and the first three days in particular ended up looking for shade which is not something I think happens  an awful lot on the Dingle Way … 

I love these holidays.  All you have to do is get up, have a delicious breakfast (entirely justifiable since you’re going to be walking all day) and then walk to where you’re staying that night.  No deadlines, no connections, no waiting for someone else to turn up.  Just one foot in front of the other. 


My mind empties when I’m walking, in spite of my best intentions to think about the next book, but I think that’s why it’s so relaxing.  The moment I got home yesterday evening I started scribbling lists of things I mustn’t forget to do, but when I was sitting high on the shoulder of Brandon Mountain looking at the Atlantic, none of it seemed to matter very much … sigh!



Unforgettable moments:
Having coffee on these boulders beneath Minard Castle







and being my usual elegant self ... 








A boat trip from Dingle around the strange Blasket Islands (next parish New York)






Climbing Brandon Mountain, walking along Ireland's longest (deserted) beach, lamb cutlets at the South Pole Inn, the farmer we met on the road to Annascaul, prehistoric walls between Dingle and Dunquin ... nope, far too many photos to include here.  I'll put up a full selection on my Facebook page later.

The only downside was forgetting to take a book with me so that I could add another photo to my Books Around The World collection.  I tried taking Ordinary Girl in a Tiara in front of the Jubilee River Pageant instead, but the weather was so foul, it didn’t really come out.  The atmosphere in London was terrific that day, though - it's not often you get good craic on the tube! 

I was lucky enough to be able to watch the pageant from a balcony in Chelsea Harbour, and it was an amazing spectacle in spite of the weather.


Never mind, will just have to have another holiday one day to get that photo.  Not for a while, though.  I have a book to write now, and no excuses not to get on with it …

New website!

It feels like a very long time since my friend Isabel designed the very first www.jessicahart.co.uk.  The site has been through a couple of incarnations since then, but when I started to think about a website for Pamela Hartshorne (of which more later), I thought it was time for a major revamp of the Jessica Hart site too. 
After a LOT of to-ing and fro-ing and hmmn-ing and ha-ing, the new version is at last up and running and I am very pleased with how professional it looks. 
This time, though, I get to update it myself, a very laborious process that involves me doggedly following step-by-step instructions and makes me even more appreciative of Nikki of 2DC who has been looking after the website for me until now.  (Thanks, Nikki!)
Take a look and let me know what you think: www.jessicahart.co.uk   
Meanwhile, I am off to walk the Dingle Way first thing on Wednesday.  Nearly two weeks without phones or computers and nothing to do all day except eat breakfast and walk to the next place to stay along what looks like a beautiful coastline – bliss!  So nothing from me until after the Jubilee holiday in June.  Happy reading and writing until then!

Capsule wardrobes (or not)

Back home after a quick whizz down the motorway to Wiltshire, where for once the sun was shining (every now and then, anyway) and the woods were hazy with bluebells. 
West Woods, near West Overton
Now at the half unpacked stage, which I hate.  I don’t know why I don’t just open my case and put everything away as soon as I get back, but instead I leave it, trip over the case at least six times a day and scrabble frantically around in search of that last clean pair of knickers for days afterwards, all the while getting crosser and crosser at the mess of it all. 
This time it’s even worse as it hardly seems worth unpacking when in less than a week I’ll be packing again, and will be going through the same hair-clutching agony about what to take.  No matter how many times I go away, I never seem to take the right clothes with me.  I’ve always longed to be one of those cool women who can jump on a plane with just a clutch bag, but I guess you need your own private jet, not to mention an unlimited luggage allowance, to get away with that. 
Still, a capsule wardrobe shouldn’t be beyond the bounds of possibility. A few key pieces, comfortable, uncrushable and yet effortlessly elegant, in colours that go together and, in my case at least, that don’t show all the stains from stuff you’ve dropped down your front.  Oh, and layered, so that you’ve always got something to put on if it’s cold or take off if you’re having a hot flush.  Now, how hard can that be?  And yet, getting just the right clothes to take every time remains ever elusive.  Life would be so much easier if only I had the kind of lean, rangy figure that meant I could just take a pair of jeans and a couple of T shirts (how cool would that be?) but sadly I’m more of a baggy top, elasticated-waist kind of gal, which combined with a preternaturally sensitive internal thermostat and a princess-and-the-pea approach to anything remotely scratchy makes the whole clothes issue a fraught one. 
Next week’s packing is doubly complicated, involving as it does one case for 10 days walking along the Dingle Way (list begins: whisky, waterproofs, ibuprofen, blister kit …) and another for the Jubilee weekend split between London (watching Thames flotilla from smart balcony in Chelsea Harbour) and Wiltshire (village ceilidh).  I don’t fancy my chances of getting all of thatin a capsule wardrobe. 
Oh, well.  Less fretting about my packing and more working is required in the week I have left.  I read through the proofs of Time’s Echo in Wiltshire, so that was a good (and exciting!) job done. I had to keep pinching myself to realise that I’d actually written it myself. Now to get back to my Amazing Plotting Plan ... still a lot of scenes to go. I keep discovering more that need to be slotted in.  Originally I planned on  30, but it's looking more like 45 now and who knows how many more good ideas I'll have before I get to the end??

Me and my tulips

Look at my poor parrot tulips.  They made a valiant attempt at being spectacular, and one bright morning I even found them holding their heads high, and they looked absolutely wonderful. I so wish I’d taken a photo then, but of course I never got round to it, and now they are beaten down by the rain and really look as if they have had enough.
Hands up who knows that feeling.  I know I do.  You do your very, very best and sometimes you even  get to feel as wonderful as tulips on a sunny morning.  But at others life can seem as relentless as the rain this May, and it all seems a bit too hard. 
I don’t know why I’m waxing maudlin today.  It’s not even as if I’m writing at the moment (am persevering with my Amazing Plotting Plan notes, though), my desk is super tidy, and I have a lovely holiday to look forward to.  I think I’m suffering from Seasonal Affective Disorder – me and just about everybody else in the country, it seems.
Rain or no rain, this year feels like a plod, and as I’m an instant gratification person motivated by immediate results, I’m not good at the long haul.  (Hhmmnn, I wonder if this could explain my relationship history??)  I need to give myself some immediate deadlines to get the adrenalin racing again, I fear. I appear to operate in two modes only: fritter or frenzy. I am firmly in fritter mode at the moment and it doesn’t feel good, however much I might congratulate myself on my plotting notes. 
But I’m going away for the weekend, and they’re even talking about the sun reappearing for a while, so I’m bound to cheer up.  After I get home, I’ll have just under a week to finish the APP before heading to Ireland, and I have no doubt that come June, when time will be ticking away on my second timeslip deadline, I’ll be back in frenzy mode.  You can confidently expect a blog complaining about that come the summer!
Have a great weekend everyone, wherever you are, and whatever the weather.