I've moved!

My blog has now moved to my new website! Please visit me at www.julie-cohen.com/blog

in the beginning

Some people like beginning a book. I don't, or at least I don't today. It's hard work--much harder work than any other part of the writing process. There's so much still to invent. And so much work still to do. Just thinking about it makes me tired. I was wondering if I felt this same way when I started my last book, back in November, so I checked my blog, and I don't appear to have. I seem to have had a small crisis about beginning with a cliche, but I seem to have been enjoying myself. I also seem to have written 6000 words, which is 10% of the finished book, in six days. (I kept up the pace for the whole book, finishing the first draft in 10 weeks.) Today, in contrast, every word is taking an age. I've squeezed out 560 words and though I think they're pretty good words (my hero begins the book by thinking about his backside, and I have high hopes that he may think about his backside fairly frequently during the course of this story), they're slow ones. I've done my character questionnaire about Zoe, the heroine, and I know her pretty well, and like her very much. (She's an enneagram type 8--an alpha heroine!) Nick, the hero, was a secondary character in Featured Attraction (the heroine's brother) so I've dealt with him before, too. He looks like Eric Bana. So today I watched Troy for inspiration. Those arms... I've also found four songs for my soundtrack, by the Arctic Monkeys, Razorlight, and Orson. But it's slow, and the plot is somewhere ahead of me in the mists of time waiting to be discovered, and right now I'd rather go to bed. Hopefully it'll pick up in a page or so when Nick and Zoe meet...right now he's waiting in the corridor outside what he thinks is her apartment, doing his best to control his dangerous, simmering anger. In other news, my website and blog are going to be updated very soon; it's going to be seriously funktified around here, thanks to the very talented Emily at Swank Web Style, who should wear a badge saying "I Have The Patience Of A Saint". I have also been collecting photographs of Mr Bana, so keep tuning in, Faithful Readers.

contest winners

So to choose the winner of my contest for a copy of Featured Attraction I wrote down the initials of everyone who entered (quite a few, wow!) on slips of paper and then put the slips of paper in a bowl and drew one. The thing is, I drew the initials JW, and when I looked at who'd entered, there were two people with the initials JW in their email address and I didn't know which one I had meant! So I'm going to be fair and have two winners...Joy W. Isley and Jackie Wisherd, both of whom I'll email in a minute, and both of whom correctly answered the question In the story, Jack and Kitty get locked in a cinema with a year's supply of three things. What are they? with the eminently reasonable reply popcorn, chocolate-covered raisins, and condoms. Thanks for entering my contest and keep tuned for my next one!

a dare

The first thing I have to say is THANK YOU to those people who have emailed me saying they've enjoyed Featured Attraction. What a fantastic feeling. Yippee! The second thing I have to say is that my revisions on Rush have been accepted, and it'll be out in October 2006. They want to change the title, but to what is uncertain. I'm trying to convince my editor she wants to call it Remarkably Penetrative Sperm. I mean, come on, you'd read a romance novel called that, wouldn't you? WOULDN'T YOU??? But the third and most important thing I need to say is: Do I dare to send a copy of Featured Attraction to John Cusack, on whom the hero Jack Taylor is based? I mean, that doesn' t make me an official stalker, does it? Just sending a book to the guy? I mean, he won't take out a court injunction or anything, will he? He'd find it funny and flattering, right? Or at the worst, very very pathetic? I won't get Interpol on my doorstep, will I? Look at the guy. Do you think he's likely to be frightened of a poor obsessive romance writer who has imagined him naked?

books that changed things

Today's World Book Day. I know this because we celebrate it at our school by forcing the poor helpless children to read. Last week I gave an assembly at my school about the books I've read that have changed my life. I talked about how The Complete Sherlock Holmes made me want to move to England and study English. How The Dark Is Rising by Susan Cooper and A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula LeGuin made me want to be a writer. How Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger taught me a working theory of why we're here on this earth. What books have changed your life?

revisions

Michelle Styles blogged about revisions the other day and since I've just finished a bunch, I thought I would, too. I've never written a book that didn't need revisions. FEATURED ATTRACTION went through five different revisions: following the advice of my critique partners, following the advice of my RNA New Writers' Scheme report, following the advice of an editor after my partial submission, following the advice of that editor who became my editor after the book sold, and a final bit of revisions for my new editor following some legal advice from the publishers. My revisions on other books since haven't been so extensive, though that's only luck, I know, and one day I'll have to do the wholescale rip-em-out-and-start-again revisions again. My revisions for RUSH were pretty minor: some tweaks of motivation, development of a character, some small cuts and small additions. I followed this process: I read the revision letter several times. My editor is very clear but before I started, I wanted to make sure I understood every word she wrote. Then I printed it out, highlighted the important bits, and wrote notes beside each point with my ideas of how to fix the problems. Then I went through the ms on screen. Every time I made a change, I ticked it off on the letter. This took me two afternoons. I found a different way to solve one of the problems that my editor pointed out, and so I followed my own ideas for revision on that one point, and emailed her to ask her if that was all right. Fortunately she's said yes so after a quick skim-through tonight I'll be sending it off tomorrow. Yay! What's your process?

my cyber mum

Kate Walker wrote the nicest thing on her blog today after receiving my books in the post. I cried.

contest

My husband, as seen above pretending to be shocked at a saucy bit of FEATURED ATTRACTION, has drawn names out of a bowl, and the winner of my contest for a copy of my first book is Katie Stalham, of New Zealand. This contest was so successful (20 people entered, and I didn't even know some of them!) that I'm immediately having another one, again for a copy of FEATURED ATTRACTION. Email me the answer to the following question via my website by next Saturday and I'll get my husband to pick another winner: In the story, Jack and Kitty get locked in a cinema with a year's supply of three things. What are they? (Hint: the answer's on my website or in my newsletter, if you got it.)

Featured Attraction

...is ON THE SHELVES! I am quite ridiculously excited. My husband and I made total fools of ourselves in the shop taking pictures and of course he rearranged the shelves so that my book was taking up the shelf space he deemed sufficient. We'd nearly left when I realised I didn't have a photo on my phone yet so I made him go back and take another. You can see WIFE FOR A WEEK, by my fellow Modern Extra launch author Kelly Hunter, on the shelf next to my book. I also picked up Kate Hardy's HER HONOURABLE PLAYBOY. Yippee! Tomorrow I'll post the winner of my contest draw (so you still have time to enter!) but if you don't win, I'm going to start a new contest, too.