Legend on LoveCats...... with Christine Rimmer!

Welcome to another Legends on LoveCats. Today we are excited to have the wonderful Christine Rimmer as our guest. Christine is a USA Today Bestselling author and writes for Harlequin Special Edition.

Greetings, LoveCats!  Thanks for inviting me to visit with you today!

1/ Please tell us a little about your journey to first getting published?

 It was years and years ago.  I was young and adventurous. After giving up the acting career I’d pursued without much success into my 20’s, I tried my hand at a number of different writing disciplines.  I was a playwright and had my plays produced in Southern California; I wrote and published poetry and short stories.  But you can bet at the end of the day, a great romance was always close at hand for my reading pleasure.  I finally got smart and decided to try to write what I loved most to read.  I bought a book on how to write a romance and followed the instructions, which sounds quite simple but really was an interesting journey.  There was research that lasted for months.  I had to read and catalog and analyze 200 romances.  I enjoyed every one those love stories and when I got down to the actual writing of that first book, I found I loved writing romances as much as I loved reading them.  And so I’ve been writing them ever since.  I started out in series/category romance and I’ve written a few mainstream stories, but in the main, my career has been in category, which I still love to write.

When I wrote my first series romance, there were several other category romance publishers here in the USA.  I tried them all, avoiding Harlequin because I had some idea that a beginner like me would never have a chance there.  Finally, after several rejections, I decided to go ahead and query Harlequin, though I was doubtful anything would come of it.  They asked to see my book!  I was so thrilled.  And then, months later, I got the call.  What a day that was!  I walked on air for months after.

 2/ How many books have you had published so far in your career? 

Oh, 80 or so.

 3/ The world of publishing is ever evolving, how have you stayed on top of trends and continued to give your readers what they want?

 I read, read, read.  And then I read some more.  I know, that’s not particularly surprising, it’s just what all authors do.  We are, all of us, readers first and foremost.

When I’m reading, I stay open to how the syntax and rhythm of the language keeps changing. I watch for new turns of phrase. I pay attention to how social mores develop and our perceptions of what’s desirable in life and love alter.  I try to keep current on how people talk and behave.

That said, so far in my romance writing career, certain beloved storylines have remained consistently popular: the Marriage of Convenience, the Secret Baby, Hero or Heroine with Amnesia, the Sexy Single Dad, Reunion Stories, Runaway Brides, Alpha Heroes—all these and more never seem to lose their appeal.  And I happen to love writing such stories.  It’s the place where what I love to write intersects with an audience, and that means I’m fortunate to have wonderful readers all over the world who enjoy a book by Christine Rimmer.

 4/ What has been the highlight of your publishing career so far?

 I honestly can’t name just one.  Though I enjoy the satisfaction of making bestseller lists and winning awards for my writing, I do think I love the process of writing most of all.  So the highlights are those days when everything is working and the words just seem to flow into my head and out my fingers onto the screen.  My dear friend Susan Mallery and I have a sort of salutation we share.  “May you write like the wind.”  That’s it.  That’s as good as it gets.  When I write like the wind.

 5/ Which of your books is your favourite, and why?

 Sorry.  Can’t name a favorite. The others might get jealous.  ;)  I am thoroughly enjoying writing my Bravo Royales series now.  It’s fun, for a change, to write about princes on the Cote d’Azur instead of American heroes in Texas.  Or Wyoming.  Or California...

 6/ Are you a plotter or a panster?

 Er, both.  Probably more on the plotter side than the panster.

 I work with a plot group and love the plot/brainstorming process.  Twice a year I meet with Susan Mallery, Kate Carlisle and Teresa Southwick in Las Vegas.  For four days, we brainstorm each other’s plots and get the sessions on tape.  I get two taped sessions per plot group.  Of course, when I sit down to write my proposal, a lot changes from whatever we worked out in the session.  But I always get so many more ideas from those three other brilliant brains than I could if I were working completely on my own.

 By the time I’ve put the story into outline/synopsis form, it’s pretty thoroughly planned out. But then I’m always changing it up once I’m writing the manuscript, discovering new things about the characters and the story.  Often the second half of the book will be different in some ways than planned.  But the general arcs of plot points and character development usually remains, well, if not the same, definitely close.

7/ What’s the one piece of advice you would give aspiring authors?

Read, read, read and then write, write, write.  Write a whole book.  And then write another one.  I know, I know.  It’s not very original.  But it works.

 8/ What do you love most about being a romance author?

 It still comes down the work for me, the satisfaction I get when a synopsis finally clicks, or when I finish a book and know I’ve written the best book I could for this moment in my life as a writer. Beyond the writing process, I love when the paperback author’s copies of my latest release come in the mail.  I love to hold my latest book in my hands and grin at the sight of my name on the front and think, “I did that.  And I can do it again.”

Thank you so much Christine for visiting us today...

Please leave a comment to go into the draw to win a copy of Christine's latest Harlequin Special Edition Her Highness And The Bodyguard

www.christinerimmer.com

Sunday Smooch with Jenny Brigalow.....

Welcome to another LoveCats DownUnder Sunday Smooch!


Today we have a smooch from Jenny Brigalow, but first ...

the winner of last week's Sunday Smooch Giveaway will be announced next week.





And now for today's Sunday Smooch from A Man For All Seasons by Jenny Brigalow........

When rodeo rider, Chad Cherub, steps off the plane at Heathrow, love is the last thing on his mind. He's travelled from Australia to do a business deal with wealthy Walter Driscoll. However, he is distracted by Wally's gorgeous daughter Seraphim.

Sweet, spoiled Seraphim, a gifted dressage rider, is troubled. Engaged to the eminently suitable Barry Wellington-Worth, Chad's arrival forces her to acknowledge the truth. She does not love her fiancé.

When Chad's cook is injured Seraphim jumps at the chance to fly south to Oz. In the great dust bowl of the Australian outback they discover they have more in common than horses.  But the secrets of the past and the prejudices of the present threaten to tear them apart. Can love bloom in the Outback?

Scene set-up: [ A clear, cold English night in the stable yard at Seraphim's family home. Seraphim is delighted to be going to Oz with Chad, but distressed by the distance that is developing between them. Unsure as to the reason, Seraphim longs to find a way to show Chad the depth of her feeling. And realises that, this time, there is only one way. She must show him...]


    Between them they dug the last of the carrots out of the bag, then she gained several more precious moments as the big stallion and Chad played tug of war with the empty bag. She watched, entranced and touched by the pair's youthful exuberance.

    For a moment she could imagine that it was her playfully fighting with the tall, handsome man. She could just see it. For a while he'd tease, let her think she was winning. Then he'd pull her down and pin her gently to the ground. He'd laugh down into her face and then…

    “Penny for them?”

    She startled, and then blushed when she realised his remarkable amber eyes were fixed upon her. What must he think?

    He'd relinquished the bag and Trick had retreated into his stable with his prize.

    Forcing a small smile, she lied. “I was just wondering how Trick would enjoy his flight.”

    “He'll be fine. Flying doesn't seem to faze them much.” Then two crease marks formed between his eyes.

    She jumped a little as he reached out one brown hand and ran his thumb softly down her cheek. She could barely breathe.

    “You're absolutely frozen,” he said.

    She stared at him blankly for a minute until she realised he was quite right. Her toes were numb and the marrow in her leg bones seemed to throb in protest. Small spasms coursed through her body and she shivered like a sapling in the wind. But how could he know that it was nothing to do with the cold? How could he know that desire fizzed through her like a Catherine wheel? How could he know that her lips wanted to part to ask for a kiss? How could he know? The answer of course, was that she had to tell him.

    She caught his wrist in her hand and looked at him. Her breath came in jagged bursts and she felt as if she would implode with need. “Warm me,” she whispered.

    For an agonising eternity he remained frozen, his eyes locked on hers. And then his hand slid over the fall of her jaw and slowly encircled her throat. “I can feel your pulse,” he whispered. “It feels like a butterfly in a net.” Then he dropped his head and his mouth met hers, softly catching up her lower lip.

    She tipped back her head, a small moan of ecstasy filtering through their union. Instinctively she moved into the unfamiliar realms of his body and her mouth began to explore. Heat flared in her core as his hands slid around her and pulled her close.

    Tentatively at first, and then with growing confidence, she began to explore the iron hard muscles of his shoulders and back. Her legs felt so hollow that she believed she would fall without his hold upon her. Surrender beckoned with her mysterious smile.

Leave a comment to go into the draw to win an eCopy of A Man For All Seasons.

  Come back next Sunday when the winner will be announced and a smooch from Driving Her Crazy by Amy Andrews will be posted. 

Frivolous Friday - A Budweiser Clydesdale Selection

with Sharon Archer

I love the Budweiser Clydesdale advertisements so I thought I share a couple of my recent finds with you today! 

The first is "Dream" - a little fellow with a big future!




Next up - "Brotherhood" - The little fellow finds his big future but doesn't forget the friend that helped him prepare for that future!




And lastly, some lovely footage of the foal in a peek behind the scenes about the naming of Budweiser Clydesdales...




Hope you enjoy these as much as I enjoyed finding them!

:)

Yvonne's RELAXATION WINNER!

Congratulations to Jeanette Aguilar! You're my lucky winner! Please visit the books page on my website to choose your prize from my backlist, Jeanette, then email me through yvonne at yvonnelindsay dot com with your choice of book (English or Foreign edition, stock permitting) and your mailing address!

Thanks to everyone who participated in the blog! http://www.yvonnelindsay.com

Relaxation--Are you active, or passive?

Yvonne Lindsay
Deborah Hillman Photograpy

We have an advertisement on our televisions here in New Zealand, where a high profile sportsman talks about being an active relaxer. That is, to relax he needs to be doing something, like going for a swim or cooking, etc. It's got me to thinking about how I relax and I've discovered that far from being the total couch potato I'd always thought I was, I'm kind of an active relaxer, too.

A few years ago I took up knitting again because just sitting and watching TV in the evening stopped being fun and, because I'm also into instant gratificiation :-) I picked socks as my project of choice. Enter the wonders of Ravelry.com, a free site for knitters and crocheters (I'm NZYvonne on there if you want to look up some of the socks I've done.) What a treasure trove of patterns and ideas.

I've found that I love to work with colour, so hand dyed merino-blend yarns are an absolute delight for me. Colours make my brain happy, doing something useful in a time of relaxation makes my brain happy, seeing a project completed in a reasonably short period of time makes my brain very happy. That said, for Mr Fix-It, I do stick to his preferred (yawn) navy, grey or black. Everything in me rebels at working with the plainer tones but that's tempered with the fact that I'm making socks, with love, for the man I love.

My eldest daughter, The Drill Sergeant, has recently joined me in knitting as a relaxation (except we won't talk about the 13 attempts it took to get her most recent beanie completed, or how relaxing it may or may have not been, LOL!) We've both found knitting to be a mental time out, whether we're thinking about other stuff or just letting our minds wander or even if we're just (okay, that's me) obsessively following the pattern. Either way, we've both found it beneficial, and I've also found that my creative writing juices flow more evenly during the days following an evening of knitting.

I think I've always been an active relaxer, certainly since I've had my two gorgeous girls. Initially it was cross-stitch and floral design, more recently mosaics and quilting (hey, I didn't realise it but they essentially go hand in hand, don't they? Piecing bits and pieces of colour together to make pretty pictures?) and latterly, knitting.

How about you? Are you an active relaxer or are you blissfully happy to do nothing at all in those precious moments when you are able to do nothing at all. Share your thoughts with me and I'll put you in a draw for one commenter to win one of my backlist books (stock permitting.) And, if your native tongue is a different language to English, and if I have a foreign edition in that language, you have a choice of an English or foreign edition ~~ Yvonne Lindsay

Join me in Byron for a Literary Feast

I’m lucky enough to call Byron Bay home. It’s a wonderful place for a writer to live. Lots of great spots to sit and write that offer fabulous views, great coffee and an eclectic mix of people just to keep things interesting.

But Byron offers writers (and readers) something else very special. We have our own writers’ festival.  The Byron Bay Writers’ began in 1997 with just fifty writers.  This year’s Festival will feature over 100 writers over three days.

The 2013 program is yet to be launched by returning Festival Director Jeni Caffin, but so far we know about two literary legends, the Booker Prize winners DBC Pierre and Peter Carey. MJ Hyland is also coming back. Her second novel Carry Me Down was shortlisted for the 2006 Booker Prize. Other authors that have been announced include Steve Bisley, Robert Drewe, Richard Gill, Kerry Greenwood, Anita Heiss, Cate Kennedy, Paul Kelly, Judith Lucy, Melissa Lucashenko, Maxine McKew, Archie Roach. There will also be lots of local Northern Rivers' talent.

One of the best things about the Festival is that you pay one ticket price and you can stay the whole day. How you plan your day is completely up to you as you move between the marquees, which feature the talent.  There’s amazing sculptures to enjoy, wonderful food, book launches, an onsite bookshop, author signings and so much more. The week prior to the Festival also features an array of fabulous writing workshops, so you can make it a writing holiday!

If you have a completed manuscript, think about entering the Pitch Perfect competition. The top six submissions are invited to pitch their book idea to a panel of publishers on Saturday 3 August at the Festival. I’ve been to the last couple of Pitch Perfect events. The quality of the pitches is very high and can lead to a publishing contract. A friend of mine was contracted from pitching at this event. The deadline is for Pitch Perfect is Wednesday 3 July, so get polishing.

A few years ago I managed the publicity for the Festival and met so many amazing people (I still have Kamahl on speed dial from his poetry debut). Authors at the Byron Festival mingle very freely with the public and there are lots of opportunities to chat. The whole event is very relaxed but full of brilliant literary discourse.

If you have kids, think about heading to the dedicated children’s program, which is always fantastic and often very funny.

Early bird tickets are still available but word on the street is that they are selling out fast.  So, do yourself a favour and come to Byron for three days of writerly fun. I’ll be there as the gates open every day, so see you there!

Sunday Smooch with Ros Baxter......

Welcome to another LoveCats DownUnder Sunday Smooch!


Today we have a smooch from  Ros Baxter, but first ...
the winner of last week's Sunday Smooch Giveaway is  -Nas


Can you please contact michelle(at) michelle-douglas (dot) com to recieve your copy of First Comes Baby


And now for today's Sunday Smooch from  Fish Out Of Water........

Dirtwater's straight-talking Deputy Sheriff has a lot on her plate: a nicotine addiction that's a serious liability for a mermaid, a solider-of-fortune ex who's hooked on her Mom's brownies, a gorgeous, naked stranger in her shower, and a mysterious dead blonde with a fish tattoo on Main Street.

Oh, and one other thing.

She's scheduled to die on her thirtieth birthday - in three weeks - unless she can 'change the course of destiny and save the world entire'. Throw in a Mom who's the local Mayor and a Dad who's been locked in the county jail for twelve years, and that's all the trouble she needs without her mermaid roots coming back to haunt her.

Rania's heading home to Aegira for a family wedding but she's starting to have a sinking feeling that's got nothing to do with hydroporting seven miles under the sea and everything to do with some weird connections that seem to be emerging between her, the dead blonde, her Mom's shady past and a ten thousand year old prophesy. Now if she can just steal a corpse, get a crazy Aegirian priest off her case, work out who the hell's trying to kill her and stop sleeping with the fishes, she might be able to unravel the prophesy, the mystery of the missing choirgirls and the secrets hidden in her Mom's past. And maybe even save her own ass while she's at it.

“It’s  Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum meets Splash in a sexy, smart-talking debut about a mermaid in a desert, a city under water, and the secret that no-one is supposed to uncover.”

Scene set-up:

Rania has found out some troubling news about Carragheen, the smokin’ hot merman with indigo eyes and a voice like Lucky Strikes and home-made toffee.  He’s married.  With a child.  A fact he omitted to mention when he was pirouetting through the water with her during The Dance of the Dolphins. So she can’t work out why she still trusts him.  But she does know she should definitely not be acting on the crazy urges she has whenever he’s in the same room. In this scene, Rania has been injured very badly by the Bad Guy and, as she recuperates at Carragheen’s Pool, he is trying to explain that there is more to his story than meets the eye...


      I knew it was wrong.  Goddamit I knew it was wrong, but I put my hand on his arm and didn’t let him finish.  I didn’t want to hear what he had to say.  I had no idea what it meant, but just for now I wanted to taste him. I knew I’d regret it, thinking about it later.  I am, at heart, a good girl. And there were too many unanswered questions about him now.  I’m Sicilian. Suspicion was burned into my cells at conception. And I’m a cop too. Trusting’s never been a great help in the field.  Especially when someone lies to you from the start.
      I felt myself shiver, like my skin was trying to shake off all threat and doubt.
      “Don’t worry,” he whispered, dark and close.  He traced one finger around the curve of my face, starting at the place where my hair meets my forehead, then sliding down the outside of one cheek, rubbing my chin with his thumb.  “I will protect you.”
      I knew it was true, somehow I knew it was true.  But I had no idea who was going to protect me from him.  Because right now he could do anything to me he wanted.
      When he kissed me, it was like my whole body rolled over and said:  Well, finally, that’s what we’ve been after all this time.  It was hot and fierce, but endlessly comforting at once.  His tongue was warm behind the cool of his lips, and his hands traced slow, deliberate circles across my back and through my hair. He laid me down beside him and ran the flat of his hands all over me, like he was trying to imprint the very image of me onto them. The sensation was like nothing I’ve ever felt.  The rough rasp of his warm palms through the cold press of the water.
      There was a low, slow ache in my breasts and my nipples were tight and tingly as my stomach slid into a jittery dance, the very center of me on slow burn.  I watched, mesmerized, as the finger that had caressed my face slid down my neck, across my chest and towards my belly, circling my navel in long, slow loops that had my hips starting to buck a little in impatience.
      “Rania, Carragheen, it’s time.”  We jumped in horrified unison at Mom’s voice.  I wondered if Aegir himself kept sending people to interrupt us.  And if that should make me worry. As I leapt up, he caught my arm.  His hand was so strong it frightened me and I thought about what I’d heard in his head.  What choices had he meant? What the hell was I doing?
      I pulled away, but he cupped big, warm hands around my face. “Be careful, Rania.”
      He didn’t try to hide the thought that echoed in his brain as I left.  I will not lose you.

                   

                 ******************************************

Ever been sprung mid-pash (as we say here in Oz) by your mother or someone else equally as embarrassing? 




Come back next Sunday, when the winner of today's giveaway will be announced and a smooch from Outback by Jenny Brigalow will be posted!