Mills & Boon Romance Writing Masterclass News...

Interesting email received today from Mills and Boon; they've announced that in January 2015 they will be holding their first Romance Writing Masterclass, at Paradise Heights in Richmond.

It's an " intense one day workshop" being held on Saturday, January 24th 2015.

Places are limited, but tickets go on sale next week- no idea of cost.

You're asked to email Author Lab, details on this page.

It looks like a long, hard working day.

Described as, "designed to take you from zero to sixty in your romance writing skills." Those attending will leave with "a clear understanding of the romantic fiction market and an idea of the next steps to take in the writing process."

(This doesn't sound like it's aimed at those who have been developing their romance writing skills for some time already...)

There will be a Mills and Boon guest author- presumably they will be revealed when the details are sent out.

The course will be run by Harlequin's senior editorial team, as well as the guest author.

And to finish it off there will be a drinks reception at the end of the day, and the "chance to sign up for our mentoring program."

This could be a costly day when you put travelling onto the potential ticket cost, and depending on how far you have to travel from, overnight accommodation might need to be added into the total.

There could be some cost to the mentoring program - if you look at how other mainstream publishers have been moving into the mentoring sector in the past year or two.

Perhaps M&B are looking to expand further into the romance market, and they see this as a way of nurturing what they want next; or maybe it's the start of a big future change...

Recovering...

I'm now getting back to normal- slowly admittedly- but I'm catching up.

This past week has been awful- I had an infection under a back molar that was extremely painful, and caused my face to swell up from cheek to jaw. And not helped by lost sleep...

Certainly made me realise how dreadful, and deadly, toothache would have been hundreds of years ago- no strong antibiotics.

I did try writing one day, but after 300+ words I gave up. There's probably 100 usable ones among those 300+.

Now it's back to all the other writing related projects that have been on hold, and as a few have imminent deadlines I' won't post until Wednesday/Thursday, rather than my usual Sunday.

I have an idea for this next post, but I need to speak to a few other writers first...

Hope the remainder of your weekend is problem-free.

Progress?

This week is half term in the UK, so that means my writing time will be severely eaten into, but I hope to keep to my minimum writing target anyway.

Today I had one of those moments when a whole scene started playing in my head and there was no quiet to concentrate, the computer was in use by another family member, and everyone kept asking questions as I was desperately trying to hold onto the scene and stop it fading away, until I could get to my pen and notebook.

I lost some of the first bits of dialogue, but the important elements of the scene hung around long enough for me to write the basics...

It was actually the end of the novella, which has only been a vague point in the future. I knew there was a happy ending, and the big revelation that leads up to it, but hadn't been too concerned about it.

But clearly my brain has been working in the background anyway, and the content feels right.

Now I just have to get on with the bit in the middle... :-)

Now Blogger seems to have sorted out the accessing the elements, of the layout in my browser, issue. I am going to finish updating the blog.

So you may see some different styles being tried out in the coming week, while I decide what I like and what works for me.

Then I will have to start getting Serena's site sorted out...