I’m about to fall asleep so I’m just going to say, “Happy New Year” to all who have joined me here over the past 11 months. I hope you’ll come back and visit often.

I see Sid has already posted on Kate Walker’s blog. Apparently he’s going to be the subject of a catcake calendar this year. He’s gorgeously photogenic — almost Hugh-in-a-towel quality. Better than, he’d say. He’s a definite charmer, so I look forward to his monthly poses. And I look forward to more correspondence with him over the next year.

As for here, I think we’ll just begin as we mean to go on and take another gander at The Man himself.

As the year turns over, I’ve been thinking about significant events and people who’ve touched my life or made an impact in one way or another this year in general. I hope to re-cap some of them in the coming days.

In the meantime, Here Come The Brides . . .

As I mentioned before, to celebrate the publication of our three “Bride” titles coming in February, Liz Fielding and Kate Walker and I are having a contest.

The winners get copies of all three of our brand-new books. And if you enter on each of our websites you get three chances to win!

Here are the books:
The Valentine Bride, by Liz Fielding, Harlequin Romance #3932

The Italian’s Forced Bride, by Kate Walker, Harlequin Presents #2605

The Santorini Bride, by Anne McAllister, Harlequin Presents #2610

All you have to do is find out the full name of the bride in each of our books and send all three names to us. Simple, huh?

The details of how to submit the names are on each of our websites — or they will be as soon as our webmistresses get them up (mine might be taking New Year’s Day off). In my case, just go to my website, click on the Contact Anne tab and send me your answers there. The contest ends February 1st, 2007.

I’ll be telling you more about each of the books in the coming days and, if I can, I’ll try to convince Kate and Liz to do a little “guest question and answer” session here. So stay tuned . . . and check back because you never know what those grooms might do once they find out about this contest!

Happy New Year!

Kate Hardy had an interesting “quiz” on her blog today that she pinched from someone else, so I decided to pinch it from her.

It appears that I am a “dedicated reader.” No big surprise there. I don’t know what the other possibilities were. You’re welcome to take the quiz by clicking on the link in the table. If you do, please come back and tell me what you turn out to be (although if you’re here, I can make a fair guess!).

Speaking of readers, I’ve just sent four boxes of books to my kids. Youngest son dragged them down from the attic while he was here (it’s an ongoing project, this de-stuffing the attic) and I went through them and put them into piles depending on who I remembered reading them most (and who has the readers among the grandkids). And then I called them to see if they wanted me to give them away or send them on.

And guess what! They said, “Send them on!” Every one. So I did. The books have departed. The ceilings sag slightly less. It is possible to wend one’s way from one side of the attic to the other without stepping over umpteen boxes. You only have to step over five or six now.

Some of the favorites were books we never had when they were growing up, but ones that had to be checked out on a regular basis from the library. Now even libraries don’t have all of them, so we haunt used bookstores to get the truly memorable ones.

My middle son has now collected all the Henry the Explorer books that he loved when he was a little boy. And there is a brand-new boxed set of Paddington in my office just waiting for him to say the word. (He doesn’t know to say a word, though, because he doesn’t know they’re here — unless he reads this!). But when they’re needed, they’re ready to go.

Of the ones that came down from the attic, all the horse books have gone to my daughter for her daughter. The Black Hand Gang and The Secret Hideout went to Middle Son. Youngest son decamped with something about motors. And all the sports books (Jordan and Magic and lots of Sports Illustrateds) went to Oldest son for his oldest son. Yes, truly, the attic is much improved.

Now, if only I could get them all to major in German and Japanese and Dutch and Korean, I could palm off lots of my own books written in languages I can’t read!

The Brides Are Coming . . . !

It’s almost time for the Brides to have their contest! Kate Walker and Liz Fielding and I all have books coming out in February with the word Bride in the title. So we decided to creat a “Here Come The Brides” contest beginning January 1st.

Watch this spot for info about all the books and contest details!

The consensus seems to be that the best New Year’s Resolution is not to make any because you’re setting yourself up for failure if you do.

Probably true!

All the same, I’m going to make three:

• to write at least 1000 words a week (not too difficult, that!) all the time I’m preparing for a book so that when I actually get into it I’ll have some material to mine for ‘good stuff’

• to keep my calendar at hand so I can see when things are due and get going on them before they become last minute projects.
• to go to Ireland.

Those I ought to be able to keep — I hope.

The bull riding part of this post relates to the third resolution — about going to Ireland. And i made it because of a comment today on a post I wrote back in November. It was about doing research — and in that post I said that having a ‘great idea’ was a nice place to start, but it wasn’t going to get you a whole book.

You need details for a book. You need an understanding of the ambience, of the way the landscape, the profession, the world your characters live in affect who they are.

Some, of course, you can do in books, newspapers, magazines, interviews with experts. But sometimes you need to be on the spot. You need to see things through your own eyes, experience the setting and the life first hand.

And in my case 11 years ago, it entailed going to bull-riding school.

The school was held over Presidents’ Day weekend in Helena, Montana. It was taught by Brett Leffew using the methods his father, Gary, had developed in his own successful career and which he then passed on to others in courses taught both at his California ranch and in various other venues around the country.

It was three days in a world quite different from my own. It was also one of the high points in my writing career. I loved it.

I knew rodeo and roughstock riding marginally in my childhood. My stepdad’s brother competed in local rodeos. But I didn’t live with it. But seeing it up-close-and-personal for 3 days was a wonderful experience. One of the joys of being a writer is being allowed into all sorts of different lives. Bull-riding school was one of them.

Those three days only added to the vast respect for the young men who pitted their strength and determination and know-how against animals who were so much bigger, stronger and equally determined not to be ridden. Watching them pick themselves up time after time and learn from their mistakes, intent and determined even as they limped a little more slowly up the steps to the classroom between rides, taught me as much about their character as it did about the mechanics of riding a bull.

It got me right inside my own character’s head. Not every man finds it worthwhile to attempt to ride a bull. So who does? And what does it tell you about him?

It told me a lot. It gave me pieces of the story I would not have had if I’d done my research only from books or even the ProRodeo Sports News. It gave me an inside view of the bullrider’s world.

And Matt Owen’s comment and thinking about what bullriding school meant to me — and to my book — made me resolve to get to Ireland. I need to see it first-hand. I need to know what Flynn’s drafty castle was like, what it felt like for him growing up there, why he was so desperate to leave. I know a bit of that. I am sure I will know more after I come back.

I may have most of the book written in first-draft before I go. All well and good. It’s the deepening, the texturing, the ‘reality’ that the trip will give me — and Flynn. It will give Sara something too – a sense of wonder, the chance to see Ireland for the first time just as I will (apart from the airport, that is!).

And there will be that ‘driving on the left’ experience, too. Ye gods. Well, I did it in New Zealand and lived to tell about it. I just hope the Irish will live to tell about it, too, with me on their roads. I’d take a train but somehow they don’t seem to go to castles.

I can’t imagine why.