Thursday Thirteen #1

Thirteen Things about Kim Rees

1… For a romance writer, I have far too many books on how to kill people… *grin*
2… I’ve been inside 3 pyramids, despite being claustrophobic. They told me to stay on the bus… were they kidding?? LOL
3… I have no tattoos what-so-ever. A terror of needles has seen to that.
4… I have all 8 seasons of Stargate… What there are ten? Really? 😉
5… I have a degree in Fine Art. Don’t ask me how.
6… I’m counting the days until the DVD of Hot Fuzz comes out. Go and see that film. Really. For The Wicker Man scene alone.
7… The book that got me hooked on romance is Persuasion by Jane Austen. I read it twice a year. Can’t get enough of Captain Wentworth *grin*
8… I live exactly half way between Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields. Honest.
9… My DVD player is broken. ARGH!
10…I really want to learn another lauguage. So far I’ve tried Spanish, French, German, Arabic and Ancient Greek, but nothing’s sticking.
11…I often get mistaken for Kate Winslett… What…?
12…This is my first Thursday Thirteen, and I hope I did it right… *gulp*
13…And of course, I really should be writing,LOL

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Building a story: Theme

I blogged here yesterday about my trials of starting a new project.

And today, I learned something else about successful story building… well for me any way.

Find your theme.

I’m usually a one word theme-ster. Chosen was Choice, for example LOL But there were variations on the word. Having no choice. Making the right and the wrong choice. I realised when I started writing Chosen, that having even a single word theme helped me with a stuck plot. When everything died, I went back to my theme and *bing* out popped the next part of the plot. Cool. I might have actually hit on something useful for me. For a change *grin*

I remember stressing over Past Lies and having no idea what the theme was. Then I had to think of a new title. Out popped the above. And guess what the theme of that book is?

I wish I had a direct line to my subconscious. It would make life so much easer…

Chosen is away… and hello! to Nimue’s Price

I did it. It’s gone. Finally.

Chosen is gone!

I think this is the first story I started and completed in one go. That is, without twiddling with something else and going back to it in a couple of months. And even then, some days I struggled to write more than a few words. I wrote the final 8000 words in the last fortnight, and 6000 of those since Saturday.

So it seems I need an external deadline to finish anything.

And I should have several projects on the go at once, so I don’t lose interest in writing completely, LOL

And yesterday, Nimue’s Price popped up on the Coming Soon pages at Samhain.
This is a link to the author’s page, as the Coming Soon pages are transient.
Kim Knox

But here’s a picture… couldn’t resist…:

I am here…

… and I will update my Roma adventure.
But first I have to get Chosen out the door, help with the Past Lies cover, which is coming along very nicely thank you, and rugby tackle edits for Past Lies too.

I thought I rubbed the copy clean when I sent it in, but there are ‘D’uh!’ mistakes that I simply didn’t/couldn’t see on the final sweep. I am sooo bad at seeing my own writing clearly, LOL

I’m back…

The mostly rough first draft for the the Samhain Dragon Anthology is done. Hurrah! It’s taken me forever to write this one. The words just wouldn’t come, and those that did were mostly pants *sigh*

But it’s been printed out and on Thursday I plan to attack it; then write the dreaded synopsis. Eeep.

The deadline is 2 March. The best three are chosen on 16 March.

Fingers crossed!

Placing in the Preditors and Editors Poll!

I just checked the results in the Preditors and Editors Poll… and Buying Mackenzie’s Baby placed #28!! Woo hoo.

I was stunned when someone nominated me for this (really, it wasn’t me, LOL) and then enough people voted to get it into the top 30 books for 2006.

Beyond happy *grin*

Oh, and more on Rome soon. A certain Dragon story is playing havoc with my time at the minute *sigh*

Wot I did on my holidays… *grin*

I really should have typed this up at the time, but the marathon walking sessions every daymade anything other than collapsing on the bed and sleeping almost impossible, LOL So here’s what I can remember. And given that it was a week ago now and I have the memory of a thing with a very bad memory, it might not be that long. There may also be visual aids.

We escaped Runcorn with much cursing and a whopping delay of 15 minutes and headed south. We’d both only had about 3 hours sleep as we’d left everything to the last minute and then Samwise had decided that it would be a fantastic idea to throw up during the night, LOL Grandma Gandalf hadn’t had much experience of the full Exorcist drama that could unfold. In the end, because this time he wasn’t full of milk at bedtime, it was only a minor excursion into the land of vomit. Thankfully, there are no pictures of this.

We arrived at Heathrow at 9ish and sat about till 12.30.

Now I must admit that I am the worst flyer in the world. The absolute worst. I loathe it and haven’t flown since 2000. So The Ent for most of the flight had a crushed hand and bruises on his arms where I clung to him as we hit turbuence. Also, for those insane people who fly more regularly than me, have you noticed how many aeroplanes there are in the sky? It’s like flying in formation.

I survive the flight, and The Ent has regained feeling in his left arm. We trundle off to find the Leonardo Express to Termini Station. All of our information has been gleamed mid flight from our Rough Guide to Rome. See, not prepared at all, LOL

Our hotel, The Piranesi was just off the Piazza del Popolo. This I do have a picture of:

Well, that post was longer than expected… but it did get me to Rome. I have to stop now as a very wet Samwise has just trudged in from the garden. He, Frodo and The Ent have been washing the windows…