glamorous author (x2) and slobby weekends

Current work: revisions for Med
Listening to: Crowded House
Reading: Jenny Crusie, Bet Me (fantastic – good structure, well-drawn characters, witty and sparkling dialogue I would LOVE to be able to write myself – could see this as a film. Brilliant)

Friday saw me wearing make-up and looking slightly less scruffy than usual. This is because of the photo shoot. And I had a great time; Steve, the photographer, was very quick-witted and a real laugh, which always helps. The plan was to do the shoot outside the castle, except it was pouring. We stood in the doorway of the castle and Steve kept saying, ‘Look, it’s getting brighter over there…’ And then there would be an immediate gust of wind and more driving rain. ‘No, it’s getting worse.’ In the end, we did the shoot inside the castle. People kept coming out of the lift and looking at us, and we started hamming it up a bit. OK, a lot. It’s very obvious I’m not a model – I’m about six inches too short and way too many pounds too heavy. Just to give the onlookers a clue as to why I was there with a professional photographer, I waved the book around a lot. (Rats, missed a trick – should’ve checked the gift shop and offered to sign copies.)

The only bit that worried me was that most of them were full-length shots. I try to avoid these where possible because, like Garfield, I’m undertall. ‘I should’ve written a bigger book so it would’ve hidden the spare tyres. Can I open it up so you get the whole of the cover hiding me?’ I asked. Steve cracked up and made a brilliant joke about the definition of vanity publishing being writing a book big enough to hide behind (though please note that WAS a joke – my publisher pays me, not vice versa!).

So then he asked me to drape myself along a rail. ‘You DO know you’re going to get the cleavage shot if I do that? Oh, well, hubby will like it and it might get me some sales.’ (Actually, the EDP is a family paper, so we used the book to hide the cleavage and prop up the chins.) I have no idea which picture they’ll use in the feature, but I will definitely be laughing and looking happy because the whole shoot was enormous fun.

Saturday, was a very bad puppy and spent the morning curled up in bed with an excellent book (see above - recommended to me by Liz Fielding and Nina Harrington, and the rec was much appreciated). Worked in the afternoon (dog deserted me because Madam let him sneak onto the sofa and cuddle up with her), then did the salads and roast veg while DH did the blokey thing and sorted the barbecue.

Sunday, tried to persuade DH to go out for a walk as it was a reasonable day; the idea was that when he said yes, I could choose one of my pic locations for one of the new books (and I had plans to drag him to Blickling and take pics of the rhododendrons to post here). However, he was in slug mode and wanted to watch motor racing, so I worked on revisions and the kids had the neighbour’s children round to play.

And then it was glam author moment #2 when my lovely friend and colleague Liz Fielding sent me an email telling me that she’d heard me on Radio Four’s ‘Broadcasting House’ programme, talking about blogging. More emails followed from other colleagues (nice emails – so I didn’t make a complete idiot of myself, then). The Beeb has a ‘listen again’ feature, so if you want to hear it just click here – the intro to my bit is at about 26:40 and I talk for a couple of minutes. This is condensed from 30 minutes or so of interview – but even so, I talk too quickly and say the word ‘actually’ far too frequently! And a big thank you to Chris Vallance, for indulging me with a bit of music at the end and also for not saying how disgustingly untidy my office is. (Mind you, I’ve yet to meet a writer who does have a pristine office…)

Righty. Plan for today: lick revisions into shape and then crack on with new book. I’ve been ignoring the hero and heroine, and they’re lobbing things at me – such as the fact that my heroine has been adopted by an enormous ginger cat called Titan. Now, this was Not In The Plan. But when my book starts to take on a life of its own, it’s always a huge relief.