conference, part deux

Current work: admin
Listening to: Karine Polwart
Reading: Sharon Penman, The Sunne in Splendour

I’m aware that did a lot of name-dropping yesterday. Sorry. Don’t mean to be luvvie, but these people are actually my real-life friends. I guess it’d be the same if there was a musicians’ conference (oh, duh, there is – it’s called a music festival) – if they blogged they’d be talking about the people they chatted with at the bar and… do rock stars eat cake and chocolate, the way romantic novelists do?

Anyway. To the point. Saturday at the RNA conference. First was a talk by Mark Thornton from Mostly Books


all about thinking like a bookseller (very useful for me re local history books and much food for thought).


Then Liz Bailey and Eileen Ramsay did this hilarious talk on networking and how to do it gracefully; great entertainment value, and I think it told us all an important thing – that authors are just as paranoid as each other and convince themselves that nobody will want to talk to them, yada yada yada. (As with any profession, you get the odd person who behaves badly, but most are nice - you just need to talk to them and treat them as you'd like to be treated yourself.)




Interestingly, they also mentioned that it’s bad form to ask another author to crit your work or intro you to their editor or agent… if they offer, fine, but don’t ask. I have to admit, I feel bad about refusing to read people’s work, but I have tight deadlines and young children and I just don’t have spare capacity, especially this year. I’m behind on my own stuff and just can’t do it. (I can, however, recommend a very good appraisal service. Hilary Johnson.)

Then it was Anna Louise Lucia on a sense of place – enjoyed this very much and it struck a real chord with me, as well as getting me to write the first couple of paragraphs of chapter two in longhand. I’ve cropped this photo of our Anna, because Anna uses her hands a lot when she speaks, and the full view is… Well. Let’s just say it goes with other, um, conversations I had with various people after wine later that evening…



After lunch, the head of Midas PR talked us through a PR campaign.


Much food for thought there. Then I ducked out of the next session as I needed to flop, and that’s when I discovered that the PDA disk had corrupted. Tried writing longhand and ended up with a pageful of scribblings-out. Ick. Can't work that way. Then lovely Katie Fforde

introduced the next speaker - an audience with Jill Mansell.

Jill is amazing. She writes her book longhand with a fountain pen (hats off to her, because I prefer to compose straight to screen!). Her talk was great fun – as warm and witty as her books.

Chatted to historical author Mary Nichol at lunch about local history (she’s from my part of the world); then dinner. Silver service, allegedly… but very difficult for the poor waiting staff when the tables were crammed so closely together. Not sure what the first course was; then duck (which was nice) and lemon pudding (which was REALLY nice, the best food of the weekend).

And then it was the presentation of the Elizabeth Goudge award. I was so pleased for the winner, as it was her first conference. And I was also delighted because one of my friends was a runner-up – here’s Biddy Coady collecting her prize from Joanna Maitland.

And then it was time to go to the bar – spent lots of time chatting with lovely Nell Dixon, who had me in hysterics with some of her tales. (Sadly, I can’t use them as research, because it’s not a setting I can use in a Med…)

We did have coffee breaks in between, and I was thrilled to be asked to sign copies of mine. (Doesn’t take much to make an author happy. Four little words. ‘I loved your book.’ Even better when they can remember the hero’s name – and if they can remember a snatch of dialogue, well. Author heaven.)

To borrow a phrase, ‘And so to bed.’ More attempts at stifling the gimlet light with Post-It notes. (Yes, this is going to end up in a book. This book, to be precise, because it fits this one.) More failure. Wide awake at 4am on Sunday, panicking about my talk… but I’ll tell you about that tomorrow.

Edit: I've just discovered that One Night, One Baby is the featured book today in the ebook section at eHarlequin (and it's still in the top 5 bestselling ebooks - wow!)

Kate’s 25th party, guest blogger #7 - Brigid Coady

n Today I’m delighted to welcome Brigid Coady, radio star and fellow RNA member. I think we first got chatting on either Julie Cohen’s or Kate Walker’s blog, about music. The words ‘Keith Urban’ and ‘he’s mine’ spring to mind… Ahem. Anyway, I’d bought Keith’s latest CD and adored it, and then Biddy and I met in person at the RNA conference in Guildford. (I’ll let her tell you about that. But what I will say here is that if anyone sees those pics from the conference where we’re yakking and there are a lot of empty bottles in front of us, blame Julie Cohen for sneaking those bottles into the picture while we were too busy talking to notice. I had ONE GLASS.) When we were in Lincoln recently to celebrate Kate Walker’s 50th book, my husband, children and I bumped into her in Lincoln Castle. As soon as I introduced them, my husband turned white. ‘You’re the one who introduced her to Keith Urban…’

So here’s Brigid Coady:

Ahhh, foolish Kate Hardy has let me roam free on her blog!! MWahahahahahaha!! So I am just going to kick back, play her Keith Urban CDs at full volume and eat lots of chocolate. You see that is how Kate and I bonded… a love of music (I am to blame for the Keith Urban collection or so she says) and also a love of chocolate. [Edit from Kate: yup. I supplied the CD player and chocolate, she supplied the music, and… it was a late night.] And I blame her for always making me cry when I read her books (curse her talent!)

Now I have yet to have anything published (I am still one of Kate Walker’s “virgins”) but what I do have is a great way to inspire all you creative types out there. Music. And not just any music, country music. Now before you pooh-pooh me let me explain. I am a radio presenter for http://www.cmrnashville.net/ CMR Nashville and have the pleasure of presenting the Tennessee Tourist Board Chart Show every week, as well as a show called Big Country. Due to this immersing in country music I find that some songs can inspire me, get those juices running, making stories spin in my head. And country music is all about stories because this is an industry where the songwriter is as celebrated as the artists who sing their songs. They tell stories of heartbreak, seduction, losing, leaving, loving and also drinking, fishing and friends all in about three and a half minutes. Now that is some tight writing!

But the stories the music have inspired have been a little longer, not quite novels yet but I’m working on it. “Raining On Sunday” by Keith Urban helped fire a short story about flatmates in a storm; “Every Time I Hear Your Name” by Keith Anderson became a short story of two ex-lovers trying to forget each other.

There is a downside though… having to have that one song on repeat. Can make boyfriends, husbands, family members and neighbours a little testy. OK make that a lot testy. So you might instead want to tune into http://www.cmrnashville.net/ instead. I promise that the same songs don’t get played over and over again. You might have to put up with some Kenny Chesney and Willie Nelson if you tune into me but what are a few good tunes between friends?

Bio: Brigid Coady (http://www.brigidcoady.com/ and http://biddycoady.blogspot.com/)

I live in central London in a compact and bijou flat that has been many a Mills & Boon author’s B&B. I work as a radio presenter for CMR Nashville and Oneword Radio (http://www.oneword.co.uk/).


GIVEAWAY: Brigid Coady is a radio star, so naturally she’s giving away music: Keith Urban's "Love, Pain and The Whole Crazy Thing" (NB I have this and there are some really excellent tracks – um, this means I have to post a pic of Keith, does it not?)

GIVEAWAY QUESTION: What music inspires you?