Diamonds are a girl's best friend

I recently returned from the annual conference of Romance Writers of Australia. The conference always kicks off with a cocktail party sponsored by Harlequin — but it's a cocktail party with a difference. It's a costume party and it's always huge fun. This year the theme was Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend.

When I first joined RWAustralia, the cocktail party used to be called the Harlequin Meet the Authors cocktail party, and it was a quiet, elegant, fairly intimidating affair. A lot of people didn't attend. Those who did either watched the authors from a discreet distance, or were the authors. It wasn't really what you'd call a social mixer.

Then about twelve years ago, the conference was in an old historic hotel in Melbourne (my home town) and the organizer decided to make it a dress up affair — "Dress retro" we were told.

It was great — some came in gorgeous vintage outfits, some had made their own outfits, some simply wore a long scarf or a feather boa. (There's a funny story here from that first conference— about buying feather boas.) But it was fun and friendly and people talked so much more easily — the costumes were an icebreaker.

That first cocktail party, about a third of the attendees dressed up — these days it's getting on toward 80% or 90%  but there's no pressure to dress up if you don't like it. It's the ice-breaker aspect that's important, not whether you're in costume or not.

We've had some fabulous themes in the past, and i have fond memories of some of the overseas guests who've joined in good-naturedly.

So this year the conference had the theme of "Diamonds" with the cocktail theme being the 50's. I'm not one for glamour, but I love Marilyn Monroe and her Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend, and it occurred to me that Marilyn in her 50's might have let herself go, just a little bit... in pink jammies, dressing gown, rubber gloves, headscarf, and loads and loads of bling. Here's me with my friend Bron, who also managed to come to the party in  a blonde wig and her jammies.

In fact there was a positive rash of Marilyns. Here's me with Young and Gorgeous Marilyn, from Harlequin Australia.

The queen (aka Jennifer Kloester) graced us with her extremely regal presence.

The Queen, the King and an old version of Marilyn

Some took pink to extremes and still managed to stay tasteful.

And the Marilyns continue...

Thanks Harlequin Australia and RWA for a fun night.

I'll post some more of the costume pics in a day or two — the non-Marilyn ones.

PS: Just had to add in another couple of pics — my friend Keziah Hill took a photo of my hands in the rubber gloves, covered in bling — and had it made into a post card which arrived in my post box today. 

 What fun!

Thanks Keziah.

RWA conference & Destiny Launch

I've been away at the Romance Writers' of Australia conference, and I thought I'd share some photos. It was held in the QT hotel on the Gold Coast, so while it's cold wintry weather where I live, on the Gold Coast it was warm and balmy. This was the view most days from my room. Nice, eh?

And since it's the east coast of Australia, each morning we woke to bright sunshine streaming in the window. A couple of mornings I even woke at dawn and snapped a few pictures of the rising sun.

It was a busy conference for me, even though I'm no longer involved in any organizational work. On the Thursday we had Author Day — for published authors only — and a very informative day it was indeed. The first panel was on self-e-publishing, and that was brilliant. After that was a presentation by Louise Sherwin-Stark on Google hangouts and . . . all I can say is expect more of these hangouts from me in the future. I did one on the Saturday following with Eloisa James and Christina Brooke and some others and it was fun, even though I was battling with server problems and kept dropping out. I'll write more about it in a day or so — I'm limiting my time on this — need to be working on a book. See the hangout here.

In the afternoon, Penguin Australia organized all their authors for cover photos, with hair and makeup professionally done. That was equal parts of traumatic and hilarious — I am not photogenic! Some people were also interviewed for the Destiny website (see below)

On Thursday evening we launched the new romance digital-first line for Penguin Australia, Destiny. It was a brilliant launch, with pink champagne and strawberries, and yummy nibbles, and a few brief speeches, and then the four launch authors and I read a 2 minute excerpt from our stories. It was lovely — you could have heard a pin drop in the crowded bar.

Here are the launch titles. I've read the first one—Wish—and it's fabulous.

 And then they gave us each a beautiful bunch of flowers! How nice was that?

A friend of mine came up afterward to congratulate us (a famous author whose initials are AC) and she  SAT ON my bunch of flowers! Right plop on top of them!  

I shrieked and shoved her off them and . . . amazingly the flowers survived. LOL.

And why was I up there? I'm not a launch author, but my Scottish story "The Laird's Vow" will be given away free with the launch titles in the first month of launching. 

Here are all the Destiny authors who were at the launch, along with Sarah Fairhall and Carol George from Penguin Australia, the commissioning editors.

Thanks Penguin, for a brilliant launch.

Tomorrow I'll put up some pics of the cocktail party, which is always a mad dress-up affair. The conference theme was Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend, and there was a 50's theme for the cocktail party, and it was all huge fun.

Creative Procrastination

In my Twitter profile I call myself a creative procrastinator and it's true. There are times when I'm trying to nut out a scene or a plot point when I have to drag myself away from the writing arena and do something else — take a walk, or if it's raining or night-time, do some kind of fiddly craft activity. I find fiddling with small things helps free up the muse.

As well, if I'm watching TV I like to do something else at the same time. My mother was the same. In her case it was knitting, but I'm no knitter, so for me it's fiddling with small things — usually dolls' house stuff, or making Christmas decos or jewelry or on the odd occasion, I'll crochet.

These days it's mostly making jewelry and I thought I'd share with you this pearl set I made recently, while watching a Burn Notice DVD. I made it for the Romance Writers of Australia silent auction fundraiser. We've been doing this at the RWAustralia annual conference for years now since the first one was organized on the initiative of Harlequin author Carol Marinelli.

We usually raise money for medical research that will benefit women — we've raised heaps for research into breast cancer and ovarian cancer but this year the money will be going to the Heart Foundation. I did wonder if I should make something in red — a red coral necklace, perhaps, but in the end I went back to pearls and a crystal heart, though not pink pearls for a change. The pearls are baroque pearls, because I love their individual shapes and the tiny silken ripples on their surfaces.

One of the first necklaces I ever made was the black and white pearl necklace I'm wearing in my blog photo.  I'd never been a big fan of pearls until my dad bought me a triple string of white pearls interspersed with small chips of black jet. I love black and white and these were funky pearls, not boring,  and I wear them a lot. That's why when I came to make my first pearl necklace, I put in some black beads as well. I often mix my dad's pearls with the ones in my photo.

Below are some pieces I've made for the auctions in past years. Since they were for a "pink" (ie women's cancer) fundraiser, I mostly used pink pearls and crystals. I like to make them a bit different every year.

And below are the ones I made in 2010 for the silent auction - a mix of pink real pearls and white synthetic pearls.

This one was to raise money for  flood victims —grey pearls and crystals.

And the woven pink pearl necklace and bracelet was for last year's pink auction.

So it's fun for me to do, and nice that some money is raised for a good cause.

So what about you — do you do any craft? Are you a skilled procrastinator? Are you fond of pearls? Do you think I should make something in red for the silent auction, seeing the theme is heart health and we're supposed to wear red on the day?

A year ago. . .

I was in the USA for the 4th July. I was staying with friends in Dubuque, Iowa. Dubuque is a city built on the shores of the Mississippi and there's a high bluff that overlooks the valley. We were invited to view the 4th July fireworks from the Hancock House, a house built on that bluff — a perfect vantage point.

I adore fireworks, so I was keen to go and watch, but in the event, the fireworks — which were fabulous — were overshadowed by the beautiful house. I'll let the photos do the talking. That's the house, below.

It's a guest house, so you can stay in this gorgeous red bedroom.

Sunset from one of the bay windows.

Another of the fabulous windows — one of the things I loved about this house was the beautifully carved woodwork throughout, like the screen that framed this window alcove.

Another screen framing the entrance to the dining room.

This staircase was magnificent, as was the statue set atop it..

 And I practically drooled over this exquisitely carved fireplace surround and mantel.

The fireworks were stunning, but my camera wasn't up to any photos, even if I wasn't too busy oohing and aahing. But I managed to taste some of the delicious supper afterward. 

It was a wonderful night and though I was a stranger, I felt very welcomed there. And as I type this, I'm smiling at the memories. Thank you, Dubuque. Happy 4th July.

Rocky Road

I'm off to an 18th birthday BBQ this evening for a boy I used to babysit when he was just a cute little bean. He's now a 6ft string bean.

His mum asked me to make some nougat to make the table pretty, but I'm head down in the writing cave at the moment, so I took the quick way out and made my friend, Mel Scott's rocky road instead. Not quite as pretty as nougat, but I think it'll go fast enough.

Mel's recipe is what she calls "infinitely variable" -- so I varied it.

This is it part of the way through — snipped up marshmallows, and crushed Crunchie bar (honey comb). Then I added toasted slivered almonds, snipped up fruit jellies, some actual dried berries (in an attempt to  make it vaguely healthy) and baby M&M's to make it look festive. At this stage it looks much prettier than the final result, which tastes a lot better than it looks.

The final step is to mix in melted chocolate, then pack it into a flat tray and let it set. Dead easy.

The end result isn't nearly as pretty as the nougat my friend wanted, but this still looks a little bit festive with the M&Ms and it tastes yummy. This is it before I cut it up — well, part way through the cutting up process — I almost forgot to take a pic.

It's hard to believe this boy is eighteen. I've known him since before he was born, and I love him dearly.

Happy eighteenth, Charlie.

Glorious Autumn Color

Autumn has come creeping into my garden... Virginia Creeper, a bright scarlet splash against the honeysuckle vine.

 And enlivening the old fence with its glory.

What brightens your day at this time of year?

#Lucky 7 Challenge

There's a new twitter thing going around between writers. When you get tagged, you're supposed to go to the current manuscript, to page 7 or page 77, count down 7 lines and then post the next 7 lines of your manuscript on your blog< Then tweet about it and tag 7 more writers, including #Lucky7 in the tweet.


So I was tagged by Jenny Haddon, so here they are — 7 lines from page 7 (though I always change my beginnings around heaps, so they won't end up there in the final book, I bet.)

He scanned the ships in the bay. "Any of them bound for London?"

Ash nodded. "Devon Lass is. And Dublin Lass, too, but she's slower."

"A grand little lady all the same," Flynn said. Dublin Lass was his first ship and he was very fond of her.

"Devon Lass it is, then," Max said. "Sailing on tonight's tide?"

Ash nodded, his expression bemused. "Yes — but — you're sailing tonight? Because your aunt's letter is too polite?" He glanced at the empty bottle of champagne.