I made the New Voices Top 10!!!!!!!!

I went to bed last night - at 2am (thank you jetlag) a little disappointed that I hadn't received an email, and therefore sure I'd not made it into the next round of New Voices.

And then I wake up this morning to the fabulous subject line: You are through to the New Voices Top Ten!!

I didn't even read the email, just ran to my fiance (who was having a shower) and told him, while shaking :) Then ran back to get the laptop, and read the email to him (hands still shaking).

My mentoring team is Jessica Hart and Meg Lewis. I feel so incredibly fortunate!

Now, I just need to start Chapter Two...

Well done to everyone who entered - so many of you are super talented and I was surprised not to see your names in the Top 10. Please still submit your partials!

I just discovered something mildly terrifying (New Voices related)

Look!

Heidi Rice's blog that says the New Voices top 10 have been chosen

The Top 10 will be announced on Monday. For some reason I had thought the announcement was on Wednesday, not Monday. Argh! It is no longer reassuringly far off.

In other news, I'm home! My holiday is over :( I'm currently in a strange exhausted-but-can't-sleep limbo,  after arriving home this afternoon from London. That's 13 hours London -> Singapore than a stop over, then 5 hours Singapore -> Perth. It's about as pleasant as it sounds. In London it is currently 3pm, so I guess I'm experiencing my first bout of jet lag - lucky me :)

New Voices entries are, however, brilliant to read when your brain is too mushy to comprehend an actual novel - a chapter is perfect. So, back to reading (and eventually, I hope, sleeping) I go...

Lacey Devlin rocks!

The lovely Lacey has put me on her New Voices Wall of Fame! I feel very special :) I've also added her you-beaut New Voices badge to my blog -->

If you haven't already, go read Lacey's first chapter - it has some fantastic, snappy dialogue and a seriously page turning ending!

New Voices - entered!

Well, I did it! My entry is up: Secrets & Speed Dating.

I would love to hear what you think!

Writing at the beach in Croatia

Thank goodness that's done :) It was written over the past week, while I've been in Vela Luka, Croatia. However, it turned out to be a little frustrating to write. My first version, I liked. After writing the first 2000 words, I happily emailed it to my amazing crit partners, confident that I was on the right track. I kept on typing, and by the time I heard back from them the next day, I had a good 3500 words down. For me - Captain Slow Writer - this was super sonic speed!

Sadly, what I'd written was crap. This took me a few hours to digest, as I'd been told in the nicest possible way :) But basically I'd lost my voice, it just wasn't "me".

Where had I gone wrong? I think the problem was I was trying to write what I thought Mills & Boon wanted. I think I figured that with the changes from Sweet/Romance to Cherish and Riva, that I was more a Cherish writer, so I need something a bit gentler than my normal style. Clearly, this was a stupid mistake - I'm not capable of this style, and my chapter featured a neurotic, unlikeable heroine and a plot that was going nowhere.

So, I started again. I was able to salvage much of the first scene, but the rest - thrown out. Almost 3000 words! And only three days to go before the deadline!

But, I managed it. I know it isn't perfect, but it's me. It is in my voice. So if it crashes and burns in the competition, and least I've got that.

At the beach with my own hero :)

Due to lack of consistent Internet (I need to buy it in 24 hour blocks) I've been lurking a bit on the New Voices web site, but there are some very impressive entries there. Including the work of some of my favourite bloggers! Here are their excellent entries:

• Rachael Johns
• Jackie Ashenden
• Janette Radevski
• Joanne Pibworth
• Lorraine Wilson
• Joanne Dannon (okay, not a blogger, but a friend :) )

Sorry if I've missed anyone!

Also, I must mention how sad I was to lose all of my (possibly overused) italics when I pasted in my entry. Poor italics :)

Real life romance (and New Voices)

Sorry to have been so absent - I will write a long, detailed, many-pictured blog post soon that covers my fabulous time at the Romance Writers of Australia conference.

But I DO have a good excuse. On arriving home from Sydney I immediately launched into last minute panicking (and packing) prior to leaving on a one month holiday to the UK and Croatia. Getting everything sorted at work, and the house half-decent for our house sitter, took up a stupid amount of time.

And then... on the Saturday afternoon before we left (our flight was 1am Sunday), my boyfriend and I took our dogs down to the park for a walk. We read the paper, ate fish and chips, and the dogs ran around in circles. Then I look up - and my boyfriend is on his knee, with the most incredible ring (box upside down). I cried for about a minute, so he had to ask me again... but of course I said yes.

It was at the park where we first met 3.5 years ago. He'd intended to ask me in Croatia, but thought that I'd want to be able to share it with my family and friends before we left. Plus he wanted the dogs to be there.

So I'm feeling incredibly happy, and incredibly lucky.

The last week has been a bit of a blur, can't quite believe I've been in London more than a week! But my visit to London turned out to be very timely, as I was able to attend one of the New Voices workshops. It was this afternoon in East Sheen, which is absolutely nowhere near where I'm staying with my sisters. So I was super brave and battled the tube strikes to take a combination of buses and the overland train to actually get to the library - and even be on time!

The editors gave a great overview of how to write for Mills & Boon, and I even got to take home some books - yay! It was great motivation to sit down and get my new chapter together and enter New Voices, which I'll do over the next week or so.

I've been very absent from blogland the past 10 days, I can't wait to read everyone's entries - it looks like competition will be fierce!!

And so it turns out...

... I'm sensitive to pseudoephedrine. Unfortunately I learnt this at about 3.30am this morning when still totally wide awake - and I never have trouble sleeping - I read the fine text on my over the counter cold and flu tablets. And there it was: sleeplessness may also occur in individuals sensitive to pseudoephedrine. That must be me.

So, when my conference roomie's alarm went off I was still wide awake. I didn't sleep all night! Excellent start to the conference!!!

I felt scarily fine, so went to the first half of Deb Dixon's workshop. It was brilliant, but i need to get some sleep so I can still go to the cocktail party tonight. Housekeeping is finishing cleaning our room now, and then I'm going to have a nap.

I'm writing this on my iPhone so apologies if it makes little sense.

Right. Sleep time!!

Good news, conference countdown and costumes!

Linley (on right) and I at Sydney 2007

This time next week I'll be at the Romance Writers of Australia Conference in Sydney. I absolutely adore the RWA conferences, and am very excited. This will be my fourth conference, and one of my favourite parts of each conference is the Harlequin Cocktail Party, which is on the Friday night. Each year I've had great fun coming up with a costume, urged on by my costume queen room mate, Linley Maroney. At my first conference in 2007, the cocktail party theme was Venetian Carnivale.  My costume involved a $29 wedding dress (bargain of the century), a brocade doona cover, some ribbon, lace and my fabulous mum's sewing skills. Linley's dress was absolutely spectacular, as you can see!

Paula Roe and I in 2008

In 2008 we were in Melbourne, and for the One Enchanted Century theme (for 100 years of Mills & Boon) I made a dress that consisted of laminated Mills & Boon covers, both present day and very old. I loved how it turned out, and I even won a prize :) (books, yay!). The photo is of me and Paula Roe (with her fabulous mermaid costume).

Last year the theme was Arabian Nights. I had a costume made while I was in Vietnam a few months earlier, so went in an I Dream of Jeannie costume. The photo (below) is of me and Paula, again - believe it or not! The photo is of Saddam and I recreating the classic "climbing the man tree" romance novel cover pose :)  However, as much as I liked that costume, about half of the party-goers had the same idea. This year I'm determined to have a "different" costume, and as I type this, I'm surrounded by the finishing touches of my costume. This year the theme is "Fantasy Island", but I'll keep my costume a surprise for now ;)

And now... for the good news!

Climbing the man tree, 2009

I woke up this morning to an email from The Golden Acorn Contest coordinator. I won my category!! This was a massive shock after my 5th placing, and no request, for The Great Beginnings contest.

And... the best bit (by far), is that this Harlequin editor's feedback was just lovely, and she has requested my partial. Hurrah!!!!!! Favourite bit of feedback: "We felt there was real promise in this voice".


Yippee!


So I guess what I've learnt from this is that even if one editor doesn't like my manuscript enough to request it (like with the Great Beginnings), it isn't necessarily the death of the manuscript.

Which is a relief :)