We are a week into the New Year and somehow the holidays are fading fast. Here is an update.

Real World Stuff

New Years Eve was a quiet evening. We had a couple of relatives over for a meal. Roast Pork and my famous apricot Pavlova for dessert. I did intend to stay up and watch the Midnight Fireworks at Sydney Harbour on television but everyone else went to bed and I was writing my Runaway Christmas Elf story for Wattpad and missed it.

The following day we went to Texas. Texas, Australia. It’s a small town of around 1300 people an hour or so drive west of here on the border of New South Wales. I haven’t been there for around 30 years. We had a picnic lunch and DH and my BIL took some photographs. I was interested to have a look around because I have a partial manuscript I started to write a couple of years ago for a Harlequin competition. The story is called “The Last Virgin in Texas.” I’m good with the snappy titles.

ARC Reviews

I’ve finished reading the ARC for the Secret Confessions: Down and Dusty set of short stories from Escape Publishing.  The set is a nice combination of Rural and Erotic Romance. Set in the very small town of Milpinyani Springs, (smaller even than Texas) the eight stories touch on the lives of eight very different women in need of some serious loving. Each one is written by a different Aussi or New Zealand author so there is considerable variety in story and style. They are all pretty warm and some of the language is explicit. I’ve done individual reviews on Goodreads for each of the stories.

Movies I’ve Seen

I took Mother Dearest and No.4 to see The Peanuts Movie this week. I always loved the Peanuts cartoon series as a child so I was interested to see what they did with it. I particularly liked Snoopy in his writing endeavours and his ongoing battle with The Red Baron. The story line basically followed a school year in the life of Charlie Brown and his friends. As an Aussi, this was kind of fascinating. There is also a touch of romance for Charlie Brown.

A dental trip gave me the opportunity to see a movie with No.7, my fourteen year old daughter. She picked Joy. I was curious to see it because it came highly recommended by movie aficionado and romance writer, Heidi Rice and her equally discerning sons. For a movie that wasn’t an action flick and wasn’t a romance, it kept me interested right to the end. No.7 thought it was pretty good too.

I also watched Need for Speed on television. It had a no-name cast apart from Michael Keating and was based on a video game but I enjoyed it. Now I want to write a road trip story.

What I’m Writing

I finished my Seasonal romance short which turned into a novella, The Runaway Christmas Elf, on Wattpad. They have a happy ending, but I’m thinking I might do a little epilogue for Ori and Holly when I have some time.

I had my first writing session for the year with local author Dakota Harrison. She’s working on some exciting projects at the moment. I’m finding it very motivating spending the time talking over progress and then getting into the writing. I spent the day getting up to speed on my Sekrit project. It’s a reunion novella with a musician hero and a nurse heroine set mostly in Brisbane. I’m around half way there so hoping to get it finished this month.

I’m still working on #Spymaster, the second in my Spy series begun with my SYTYCW15 entry. It’s nearly a month since I sent #Spymistress off to several publishers and into a competition. I know it’s a bit soon to expect to hear anything, holiday season and all, but I will admit to checking my emails extra carefully.

That’s about it for the moment. Thanks for dropping by.