What lies beneath the apron?

It's official. Men who can cook rock my world.

They say that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach don't they? Well, you know what? I reckon the same goes for us girls too. A man who can make dinner is a keeper in my book.

My other half, for instance,  is one of the most practical and intelligent people i've ever met, so why is it that the sight of a food processor is enough to bring him out in a cold sweat? He wields a chain saw around like a toy, yet would back away in terror from a hand whisk. Ditto the oven, it's all way too much for him to compute (much like the washing machine actually, but that is a lament for another day lest this should become a personal grumble about domestic inequality chez moi...)

Back to the pleasurable business of men who can perform culinary magic. That sounds almost dirty doesn't it.  Ooooh err!

First up for your delectation, the bad boys. The type of man you just know is all kinds of trouble and arrogant as hell, but that doesn't stop you imagining him without his apron.

Gorgeous Gordon...

and mad Marco...

Phew! Did it just get hot in here? Let's turn up the heat to full on sizzle and throw in everyone's favourite all rounder, the delectable Mr. Oliver. He's one of those men who just gets better with age isn't he?

But my personal favourite has to be the very naughty Gino D'Acampo. That gorgeous italian accent and cheeky smile is a killer combination, and he has just cooked naked for the nation on morning TV. What's not to love? 

Don't say we don't make an effort to brighten up your Mondays.... Enjoy!

The wonderful Donald Maass

Today I’m dipping in to a fantastic book.
Writing the Breakout Novel, by Donald Maass.
I gave myself a present of this book when I received my last R, basically because digging into yet another box of consolation chocolates (that go straight to my hips, and stay there, unfortunately) seemed wrong. And learning more about writing, and buying myself a shiny, new book on craft was guaranteed to cheer me up!

Here's a review of it by someone else:
“Don Maass describes the business of writing novels in a clear, concise, and brutally honest fashion. If you want to learn to write bigger and better novels, this book should be first on your reading list. It is the best book on writing bestsellers I have ever read.” —Dean Wesley Smith, bestselling author of 60 novels


I’m only half way through it, but there are such gems in this book, that I thought I’d blog about it today.
I wasn’t disappointed. After all Donald is a legend. His agency represents more than one hundred fiction writers and sells more than one hundred novels per year to top publishers in the U.S. and oversees.

Donald investigates the myths of success and blasts them out of the water. And tells all of us writers why a reader gets excited about it. And the most exciting element of this, for me, is that the answer is available to every writer, published or unpublished. Agented, or unagented.

Here it is… today’s words of wisdom to inspire us.

In reality there is one reason, and one reason only, that readers get excited about a novel: great storytelling. That is it. End of story.
Hold on! It cannot be that simple! There must be a trick! Sorry, there is not. There is only craft-that and inspiration, sustained effort, luck and timing. But mostly craft. Sound scary? It should not. It means the most important component of success is in your own hands. You control your fiction career.

More from this great book in the weeks to come!

Author Spotlight - Talli Roland

Very exciting guest here today, it's Talli Roland! At the time of writing, Talli's debut novel, The Hating Game is still flying high on Amazon in the top 100, and she's currently hogging the number one spot for Women's Literary Fiction and Literary Fiction, and the number two spot for Humour. I wish I could tell you that even though she's a fantastic writer and an e-book sensation, she's horrid, but alas, the very opposite is true! Anyway, we put Talli under the spotlight, and here are her answers to the minxy questions...

1. Where were you in your writing career 5 years ago?

Five years ago, I wasn’t even writing! I had a very demanding job in recruitment, and I was working almost 10 hours days. By the time I got home, it was all I could do to crack open the bottle of wine and drown my corporate sorrows. It was only after I stopped working full-time that I finally got down to writing seriously.

2. Where did you get the idea from for this particular book?

I love reality shows – they’re kind of like a modern-day Coliseum – so I already had plenty of ‘research’ under my belt. I knew I wanted to write a novel featuring the phenomenon of reality TV, but the show in my book had to be something different than what was out there. I conducted more research (yay!), and finally the idea of having my main character date her way through her exes came to mind. It had such great possibilities for conflict as well as character growth. Originally, I wanted to call it The Ex Factor (in homage to the lovely Simon Cowell) but sadly that title had been taken. I’m really happy with the title we did come up with, though; I love that it plays off The Dating Game.

3. Where do you hope to be in 5 years time?

Hopefully, still writing fun, humorous romantic fiction, with a few more published novels under my belt. I try to write at least two drafts a year to keep the creative juices – and the sense of discipline – going.

4. Which was the last book you read that you wish you'd written?
Oh, there are so many. I really enjoyed Katy Carter Wants a Hero by Ruth Saberton, because it deals with some serious issues in a very warm, comical way. I also fell in love with The Time Traveller’s Wife – I’m in awe of the serious plotting that must have gone on there!

5. Was there any particular author or book that made you want to be a writer?

I don’t remembering ever not wanting to write. But if there is one very influential character who gave my creative impulses validity, it’s Anne Shirley from Anne of Green Gables. I loved that she was always scribbling things down, like me. Since the whole Anne series took place very close to where I grew up in Canada, it had an added impact.

6. Do you find writing love scenes giggle-worthy or cringe-worthy?

Oh, definitely cringe-worthy. I’ve never written a very detailed one, but I’m always conscious of sounding too cheesy or over-the-top. Every time I contemplate going into more detail, I feel like I’m a naughty schoolgirl about to be rapped on the knuckles for doing something inappropriate.

7. What's the most romantic moment of your life so far?

I’m going to have to say when my husband proposed – I had absolutely no idea it was even in the works! It was the night of our fifth anniversary together, and he took me back to the same concert hall then the same restaurant on London’s South Bank. Afterwards, we walked over to the spot by the Thames where we’d had our first kiss, and he popped the question. I was so surprised that I laughed (not so romantic) and asked him if he was serious! And then, of course, I said yes.

8. What do you wish you'd known about being an author before you were pubbed?

I wish I’d known how stressful it is to put your work out there for public judgment! Sure, I heard authors talk about it, but it never really hit home until my first novel was about to be published. Still, every little bit of stress is totally worth it when you hear someone say how much they enjoyed your novel.

9. What's the best writing advice you've ever been given?

The best piece of advice I’ve heard is from Nicola Morgan, who runs a wonderful website called Help! I Need a Publisher. She said it’s not enough to be persistent – you need to be able to learn from your mistakes as a writer to get better! It sounds obvious, but that was a light-bulb moment for me. I’d written a few novels without really taking the time to assess what I was doing wrong and how to improve.

10. Tell us about your latest release.

The Hating Game features Mattie Johns, a man-eating woman who decides to go on a dating game-show to win the prize money she desperately needs to save her recruitment business. She thinks she’ll sail through the show no problem… but little does she know the male contestants aren’t just anonymous strangers, they’re her very unhappy exes. Add in an ambitious executive producer whose career depends on stopping her from making it to the end, and you have the recipe for lots of on- and off-screen drama!

11. What’s next for you?

Up next is Watching Willow Watts, about a country girl whose small English village is overrun when she becomes a YouTube sensation overnight. It’s due out in November as a paperback and the e-book will be released a couple months before.

Thank you for joining us on the Minxes today, Talli. The Hating Game can be found here.

Innovation

• Write what you know
• Write what you love to read
• Be true to your voice
• Every writer has their own, distinctive voice
• Write from the heart
• Innovate, don’t Imitate

Since the RNA conference last July, when the editors from HMB repeated that last phrase over and over, we Minxes have discussed ad nauseum what exactly they meant by it. I'm pretty sure I asked “What kind of airy fairy advice is that? Of course they don’t want us to imitate what others have written, but what do they want?”

It took The Vampire Diaries (see my series of previous posts) to make me realise that actually all the above advice, which we’ve heard dozens of times, phrased in endless ways, all boils down to just one thing: when you write, you have to be true to yourself.

I imagine that a lot of you blog readers out there might be going “duh!”. You probably know this already. But it was something I only discovered after a couple of days wallowing and wondering why I even bother to write when clearly my work is nothing more than mediocre, and if there’s one thing I don’t want to be it’s mediocre. I want to be stellar. (And just in case you think I’m being a tad arrogant here, read my earlier post, which were not entirely about The Vampire Diaries).

For me, realising this was a bit of a bombshell. Being true to oneself is the theme of my published novella, Let’s Misbehave. I try to live this in my every day life. So I’m not sure why it took me so long to cotton on when it comes to applying it to writing!

I’m not entirely sure of the answer (feel free to help me out here) but I suspect it might be because I haven’t yet discovered where my voice lies. I think that I fall somewhere between HMB’s Modern Heat and Romance lines (now wonderfully combined into the new Riva line in the UK) because that’s what I love to read. But is it really what I need to write?

We all know (we’ve heard it often enough) that you have to be passionate about what you write, because that passion will come through in your writing. I’d like to take this a step further and add that if you want to be extraordinary, then you need to be more than passionate, you need to write the stories that only you can write.

At last I understand what the editors at HMB are telling us. You have to write the stories that are true to your voice. And your voice is you.

So this is how we can each be extraordinary. By knowing ourselves, by being true to ourselves, we can rise above the mass of romance novels that are being published every day and we can each reach extraordinary heights.

Don’t imitate. You will never be able to write Harry Potter or Twilight, Frankenstein or Wuthering Heights. Not because it’s already been done. Not because you’re not a great writer. But because you are not JK Rowling or Emily Bronte. You’re you, and you should celebrate your uniqueness by writing the stories that are yours, and yours alone.

I know this is easier said than done, and might take a while to figure out, so I’m heading off now to write, and write some more, until I find where my true voice lies. While I’m off finding myself, please feel free to leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Have you found your ‘voice’ yet, or are you still searching? Have you tried to write for a certain line and got nowhere only to discover that perhaps your voice lies elsewhere? And do you have any magic tips on how to fast track all this soul searching and jump straight to extraordinary?

Man of the Month Poll: The Scottish Hotties

Before you feast your eyes on this month's picks, we need to announce the winner of our Welsh Hotties. Due to some last minute pleading for votes by Romy Minx, Timothy Dalton was beaten out (just!!) by Ioan Gruffudd who topped the poll. Given the mature vote is proving very popular, we have another in this month's poll :-)

As resident Sporty Minx, I was very embarrassed to discover this guy for the first time when having to do my (very) extensive and time consuming research for this post. This is Dario Franchitti, naturally of Italian descent but born in Scotland. He is a racing driver and a previous winner of Scottish Sports Personality of the Year award and could be a dark horse for winner of our Minxy poll, too :-)

Next up is Minx favourite David Tennant, the former Dr Who. According to that mine of information, Wikipedia, he will become a father in the next couple of months.

Our next offering is Ewan McGregor who, despite his immense success, is probably still best known in Britain for the cult film Trainspotting.

 Next up is an actor who has had parts in many of Britain's best loved series including Taggart, Casualty and more recently, Coronation Street.

Gray O'Brien's character is unfortunately no more but hopefully it won't be too long until he is back on our screens :-)

I'm not too sure what I can say about our next hottie that hasn't already

been said in the last 81 years. I was amazed when I read that. I can't believe here we are, in all honesty, offering you an 81 year old man as a hottie but how good does he *still* look? Sean Connery definitely still has it!

Paul McGillion is another actor, best known for his role in Stargate Atlantis. This is another Scottish hottie new to me. Never before have I been more grateful for the beauty of research :-)

Last but more definitely not least we have another Minx favourite, John Barrowman. I must say, I thought his short appearance in Desperate Housewives

was fab. I'm hoping against all hope that he somehow survived the explosion because I really loved his character. Gotta love a good looking villain.

So, what are you waiting for? Find the poll on the right hand side bar and get voting for your favourite Scottish Hottie. We're looking forward to seeing who will win the poll at the end of this month :-)