August 2008

Just returned from a blissful fortnight in the sun aboard the new P & O ship The Ventura. Fitted in some book signing in Rome, had a natter to Marco Pierre White on the staircase about Barnsley Dog Track (like you do) and laughed my head off at veteran comic Mick Miller - my insides are still aching. Arthritic goldfish - you had to be there, but it was the best ever. Still battling to find the title to book 3 - it has to be right. But I'm all refreshed now and come back to give book 3 a bit of a tweak and I'm really really pleased with it. All the more so because Marco Pierre White is in it and I can have a good old fantasise whilst I'm writing.

Lots of lovely exciting things to come back to. More on that later but shhhhhh for now.

No talks planned this month. Occupation hazard with writing is a sore neck and I'm having to take things a bit easy and have lots of massages. Oh dear how awful for me :)

And - BIG THRILL - came back to find an Italian press pack made up of all the press coverage I'd had when I went to Milan - and there I am, sitting in the middle of GRAZIA magazine. Me! Grazia! Front Cover of Vogue here I come...

July 2008

I reckon this will be a very quiet month for me - I'm chilling for the summer, inbetween making Munchkin outfits for the school play. Lots of Italian publicity is bubbling to the surface and there has been great feedback to my article in the Yorkshire Post on Saturday so I've got plenty of notes to write up.

Busy trying to think of a title for book 3 - there is a working title but it won't be the final one...nearly there, I think, just one word evading me. I always feel better when the title is sorted, but it has to feel right... so far, so good, but this one is a little minx to box off. Daft thing is - I know I'll overhear the word when I'm not even thinking about it and know it's the right one - the only question is when!!!

June 2008

Had the most fantastic few days in Milan where I was warmly welcomed, looked after, fed and watered (or rather 'wined') and treated like 'una regina'. My lovely publishing house Corbaccio gave me three of the nicest days of my life and I can't thank you enough - Cecilia, Raffaella and the wonderful Valentina. There's a full report on my blog if you click to the right. There are some glam bits to this job and when they come along - BOY they're good. After the slimy, two faced b******ds I've worked for in the past, it's so nice to be appreciated and treated so well. Would I swap places with myself 18 months ago - I rather think not.

Lovely month last month - and so useful from a research point of view. Had a wonderful time at Ellesmere Port meeting my heroes and heroines from the golden days of wrestling - and gathered so much info my notepads are bursting. And I'm off on my first tour to Milan this month - which promises to be exciting and mad and rushed and tiring and they'll treat me like 'una regina'. And I've dropped a stone and a half in weight to fit in a bigger choice of frocks for the occasion. Feels FANTASTIC to find that clothes are actually fastening instead of buttons threatening to ping off in agonised strain. I never thought I'd get bitten by a get fit bug - I should be an exhibit in Ripley's Believe It Or Not. A few things in the pipeline that I've LOVE to tell you about, but they haven't come to fruition yet and I don't want to tempt providence. Oh and there's a new Odds and Sods page for all the bits I can't put anywhere else.

May 2008

Had a fantastic mingle last month with the WWE lads backstage at Smackdown. Thank you to Dave Batista for signing my book and making me sigh a lot (God, he's big!. Great book too, very easy to read and quite emotional. Thanks to the extraordinary handsome Matt Hardy for making my mother swoon, Theodore Long for high-fiving my sons and totally charming them and the sweet and very lovely Eve Torres for making me look like a total blimp (she is absolutely gorgeous - don't stand next to her!)

I have a short story published in My Weekly this month - should be May 17th and, again, doing lots of local talks around the area and getting in some practice for my Italian tour next month.

Oh and I've just been sold into Spain too so Hola Espana!

Cracking on with the local history book on wrestling and writing some magazine articles for that. Interviewing William Regal whose book is really interesting for anyone who is interested in the sport and wants to see how a British lad became a major force in the WWE and fought the temptations of the high life. Smashing read. Of course the research is coming in so handy for book 5, which I've just started rewriting because I've 'had a better idea' for the plot.

Book 4 is well underway now. I've decided to cut down on the day job and get it finished - which means the lobster and truffles are off the menu and it's dandelion on bread for a while. But I'm really into the characters and as this one is about five women, it needs to be tight - there's a lot going on.

April 2008

Well, bad luck to the Barnsley Team last week at Wembley. But great to take the kids in a big friendly group and watch our lads play on the Hallowed turf. And thank you, designers of Wembley, for putting millions of ladies loos there (Hallam FM Arena, please note!)

The Smackdown lads are coming to Hallam on the 17th and we're hoping to mingle (all in the name of research you understand). I'm hoping to get a souvenir from Dave Batista - like a baby. I'll keep you posted.

And I'm gearing up for my tour in Italy in the next few weeks. I am so excited about that.

Oh and I received a pack of 12 CDs in the post - my book on audio. I started listening to it and, wow, it's a wonderfully weird experience.

A very cloggy cold and cough has kept me away from the gym (what a shame!) but abnormal service will hopefully be resumed next week, especially as I'm now having dreams about going on holiday and not fitting into anything. I have a vision in my head of a sleek, pencil-skirted, sun-glassered Milly appearing on the Jumbo steps at Milan airport - it's keeping me on the straight and narrow. But seeds just don't taste half as good as lemon cheesecake. Here's hoping it's all worth the sacrifice!

March 2008

Where does the time go? Spring already! Only another few months before I'm due to deliver book 4 and I'm nowhere near. I'm having a great deal of fun on the wrestling project - I do like a challenge - and what started off as a pamphlet has now expanded into charity dinners in the planning and world domination.

The raffle for the hospice was far greater a success story than I could ever have imagined. I can't wait to do it again next year with book 3, when I'll be totally organised - as this year set the benchmark. I've just about managed to deliver all 90 raffle prizes, although there are just a couple of wrong telephone numbers to Miss Marple on.

I've had some fantastic reviews on both books recently. It was an unexpected bonus that sales of book 2 would perk up sales of book 1 to a fantastic degree and, brag brag, I've been called 'Romantic Comedy's fastest rising star' and compliments don't come much bigger than that.

I had a rites of passage this month too - my first glam publisher's party - Simon and Schuster's 21st with a cake as big as my lounge. The last thing I remember is dancing to Rehab and enough said about that one. Suffice to say the next time I go to one of those 'do's, I shan't let the waiters top up my glass every 5 seconds. Still, had I not been so popped, I wouldn't have been brave enough to speak to Phillipa Gregory, whose work I love. Not that I needed to be especially brave, considering she was lovely.

Right - off to rise to the occasion. I have to keep on top of my game now. Further up you go, further to slide... no rest for the wicked! Happy Easter Everyone!

Feb 2008

IT'S PUBLICATION MONTH and been quite mad. Had my first red carpet experience at the Romantic Novelist Association Lunch in London on Monday where the room was just full of novelists and it took me a little while to compute that I was one of them myself. Congratulations to FREYA NORTH and KATE HARDY who won the Best Novel and Romance Prize, respectively. The speeches were very moving. Offset by lots of humour with Helen Lederer. The food was wonderful, champagne flowed from my lovely publishers as it was publication day for me and I felt rather like a queen bee - excuse the pun.

Oh and Congratulations to my friend Sue Welfare (who also writes as Gemma Fox) who has a new book out - under the name Kate Lawson - MUMS THE WORD. I haven't read it yet - but I have no doubt it will be like all her other books - a damn good read. Perfect title for a Mother's Day Present, although I shouldn't say that should I - doing myself out of a sale! Ho ho... it's a pleasure to promote her work, she's been a perfect mentor to me in the unpublished years and I don't know what I would have done without her. Good Luck!

And on the 23rd of this month (it's a Saturday)- as you'll have seen - in Barnsley Market, The Bookshop (near Sailor Sid's Sweets) from 11am I'll be signing and selling books and giving away goody bags, my friends will be selling raffle tickets, my kids will be giving away honey and shortbread and I'll be 44 (I know - I look SOOOO much younger!) so there will be buns with bees on them. Come and buy 5 raffle tickets for a pound, share a bun, grab a pen, support your local hospice, stuff your face and spread a bit of karma!!

Jan 2008

Well HAPPY NEW YEAR everyone! We brought 2008 in in the middle of the Atlantic with force 11 gales and a ship rolling and lurching like a big dipper. Absolutely fantastic! Course you'll always get the moaners on board - but we weren't in that gang. We had a fortnight of good food, good wine, lots of sleep, great company and now I'm back home to a diet and enough work for 12 Milly Johnsons. Wouldn't have it any other way.

Big congratulations to my friend Lucie Whitehouse whose book - The House at Midnight - is out in the shops now and it's going to be huge.

So, it's all hands on deck for book 2 coming out and the official launch on Feb 23rd in Barnsley Town Centre - details later. Lots of publicity, interviews and tours to look forward to and photographs not to look forward to!

Oh and Norway have just bought book 2... I'm absolutely thrilled!

December

I've won ANOTHER award! I've come joint first in the 'Promising Author of 2007' in the Chicklit Awards with Paige Toon and her 'Lucy in the Sky'.

'A tied result for the authors of two top-notch chick lit books that will make you definitely want to read their next offerings.'

Santa, it seems, has visited me early this month!

Having a mad dash writing up my wrestling notes for my local history - which is turning out to be a HUGE project and one I'm SO glad I started. It's the most fun I've had doing research ever. Then I'm going to down instruments and chill over Christmas - or rather bake in front of my fire - and recharge my batteries so I can hit the ground running in the New Year. Book 2 is obviously coming out, book 3 is finished and awaiting an edit and book 4 is half-finished and ready to be picked up again. Plus I've got a host of wrestlers to interview, columns to write and a body to sculpt!

It's been an interesting year - I bounced back from rock bottom on the day job front but in the process life has sorted out the wheat friends from the chaff (or the chaff from the chuff, as my mother says) I thought I would have been too old to be surprised, but it seems not. Still, nothing is ever wasted when you're a writer and I've lived through my research for THAT book, when I have a little more distance from things, that is.

So, would be writers of books, we're almost at a new year - make this the one when you break through from 'wannabe' to 'doingit'. Best of luck and Happy Christmas to anyone who is reading!

November

I just found out the Birds and the Bees will now be coming out 4th February 2008 , a month early, which is great news. Especially as, in reality, that means it could be in the shops as early as mid-Jan. Oh and the audio rights have just been sold on the unabridged version. That should be fun to listen to with all those accents going on. Can't wait to see which actor they pick to read it out.

I'm collecting lots of raffle prizes for our grand book launch in February. All proceeds to Barnsley Hospice. I've got a huge amount of giveaway shortbread from bonny Scotland (thank you lovely Walkers!) and my wonderful author friends have given me their signed books - thank you Katie Fforde, Carole Matthews, Lucy Diamond, Mil Millington, Matt Dunn. And the delicious Hotel Chocolat have sent me a voucher. And that's just in the first week!

As well as having great fun researching for my local history wrestling book (and having not great fun following a 'wrestlers get fit programme' in the gym) I am gearing myself up for picking up book 4 again after Christmas, which isn't a sequel to the Yorkshire Pudding Club, but it does pick up a thread of the story - that's all I'm saying about it.

November, I think, will be a quiet month. I've done a few newspaper articles but they're in reserve until the new book comes out. I had the nicest review in The Bookseller (my first for the Birds and the Bees) from the lovely Sarah Broadhurst who says:

‘I loved her first, The Yorkshire Pudding Club, and this sounds equally charming, a tale of manipulation and jealousy, of changing partners to win back the original. Her writing is very addictive.’

Here's hoping people enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Oh and I made my first gossip column! What fun!!!

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Mo Hayder - Ritual

RITUAL

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