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Category Archives: Writing

Research As You Go….

I am busy writing my Marquess and Governess story, due next week, and my brain is consumed with the story. I thought you might be curious about what research I’ve done for this story. Most of it has been done as I’m going along. Here are some of the things I’ve researched so far (In [...]

More on Heroes

On Tuesday, my friend and fellow Risky Regencies blogger, Amanda McCabe/Laurel McKee talked about the romantic fantasy about reforming the rake, a theme we repeat over and over in our romance novels. This got me thinking about romance heroes, one of my favorite topics. In 2006, I blogged about Romance Heroes and I thought I’d [...]

Risky Regencies Monday – Downton Abbey II

I have some thoughts about the first episode of Downton Abbey, Season 2, at Risky Regencies today. What makes me want to keep watching. Some insights about character and story. What did you think of the beginning of Season 2? See you back here on Thursday!

Happily Ever After

A couple of weeks ago on one of my loops my friend Cecelia Dowdy mentioned this blog. The blog is one of those supposedly positive articles about romance writing which winds up to be insulting anyway. “You only have to read one. They are all the same.” Oh, yeah???? “These books are admittedly too simply [...]

Writing on Demand

November is NaNoWriMo…National Novel Writing Month…where writers everywhere gather, virtually and otherwise, to spur each other on to write a novel–or 50,000 words–in a month. I’ve known about NaNoWriMo for a few years, but never signed on before. My problem? Writing on demand. As soon as you tell me I must write something, I find [...]

I Love Research!

This is the first week my new Undone has been released. In celebration of that fact, I’m giving away one copy of Regency Improprieties. Comment for a chance to win. I’ll announce the winner here on Monday. The Liberation of Miss Finch tells the story of what happened to Claude Mableau, the boy my Three [...]

The Lonely Life of the Writer? No Way!

I was fishing around for an idea for my blog today and looked at some of my old articles. I found this one, written in 2004, for the Warner Forever website when I was writing as Diane Perkins. Lots has happened to me since–including me happily settling in writing for Harlequin–but it was fun to [...]

Writers Retreat

Last weekend I went to Berkeley Springs, West Virginia, for a writers retreat. I joined writing friends Michelle, Marjanna and Elise in a vacation house surrounded by woods and quiet. The cynical among you might assume we spent the whole weekend talking, but you would be wrong. We worked. A lot. Almost the whole time. I [...]

Scrivener

Earlier this year my husband gave me his Macbook. I was delighted because I’d always wanted to try a Mac but never wanted to invest the money for fear I could not adjust. Turns out after one week I was a Mac convert! One of the reasons I wanted to try a Mac was I [...]

Guest! Lizzy Ford

Saturday I met a friend for a late lunch/early dinner. The friend, Lizzy Ford, is someone I only met in person once before, and I have only the dimmest memory of that event, the Washington Romance Writers Christmas party six years ago. What I do remember very well was the email exchange Lizzy and I [...]