Stress busting

I’m in Scotland this week, so updating via my laptop is all a bit of an experiment. Let’s see how it goes ... (very, very slowly, as it turns out)

Congratulations first to all RITA, National Readers’ Choice Award and Booksellers’ Best Award winners, especially Donna Alward, tireless champion of the Harlequin Romance line, who won the Traditional BBA for Her Lone Cowboy.

For a while there it felt as if everyone in the romance writing world was at the RWA conference in New York except me.  You can’t beat New York for glamour and excitement (or so I’m told) but I was very happy nonetheless to be here on the Colvend coast with friends.  It was one of those golden weekends when everything was perfect.  The sun shone, the sea was blue, the woods were green and tranquil. 



Busy afternoon contemplating sky



We walked along the coast and got sunburnt arms on the seaward side, then came home to cocktails on the terrace (Sex on the Beach followed by Sex in the Dunes – can’t recommend either highly enough) and decided we could give up our jobs and run the perfect writers’ retreat. 

Between us we could offer experienced plotting assistance, counselling (Why do you find it so hard to get down to work?  How do you deal with the Chapter 6 crisis?), legal advice, some do-as-I-say-and-not-as-I-do tutoring on the writing front (that was my contribution), not to mention fabulous food, top cocktails and a whole range of stress-busting activities: walking in the woods, lying in the grass and looking at the sky, drinking aforementioned cocktails.  And for the really tense, it’s hard to beat the relaxation of endlessly throwing a stick into the sea for a collie.



Stress buster supreme



But now everyone has gone home and the sun has gone in, and I am left to contemplate the immensity of plotting my time slip all by myself and my shoulders are stiffening by the minute.  Time for me to take Roxy back to the sea and find a stick to throw ...

What do you do when you get stressed?  A copy of The Secret Princess is up for grabs if you can suggest an alternative to stick throwing.










Sex on the Beach ... one alternative to stick throwing