Tomorrow will be a sad day for me – and for so many other authors who write for Harlequin Mills & Boon, the editors too.  Tomorrow I have to attend the funeral of  Penny Jordan.  It will mark the end of an era, the passing of a star in the romance writing galaxy, and most importantly the loss of a lovely lady who left this world far too early but yet left behind her an amazing legacy of books, stories, and words.

As you probably already know, on the last day of 2011, Penny  Jordan lost her fight with cancer and died at the age of just 65.  There have been many tributes written to her, so many words posted across the internet –  you can find some  on the Mills & Boon site, The Pink Heart Society,  I heart Presents – I wrote my own here just after I heard the news that she had died.   And  so many of those words, as you’ll see if you check out those tributes paid to her have repeated the same things over and over again.  Warm, down to earth, friendly, kind . . .  She was a major star in the romance writing world but she never acted the diva, was always approachable, and was one of those authors who would welcome an established writer with a smile  or  encourage a beginner with the same sort of  smile and a practical piece of advice that she gave generously, whether in just a conversation at some conference or event or at the meetings of the writing group she set up near where she lived.

It’s that Penny that I shall miss the most. In my time as  a published writer I’ve met many of the  established authors, big names  in Harlequin.  Some of them I have to admit  thought they were the big names. They wondered  – and asked me – why I helped new writers – ‘training up the opposition’. Not Penny.  She  even bought several copies of my 12 Point Guide to give out to her writers’ group at her own expense.

So perhaps it  seems appropriate that I actually first met Penny in the most down to earth place possible – the queue for the Ladies’  at one of the Author Days that Mills & Boon  ran years ago.  I’d known and loved her books before that of course – starting with Falcon’s Prey and Tiger Man, and then grabbing any other title I could get my hands on.   The then Senior Editor Jacqui Bianchi advised me to read her work when she said that my second submission  got one of those ‘not quite’ rejections. That research was no sort of hard work!   And I’ve followed everything she’s done – category romances, single titles, sagas under the name of Annie Groves ever since. I find it so hard to believe that there will  be no more new  Penny Jordan titles after the ones coming out between now and May this year.

But I’ll find it harder to believe that I’ll never again see Penny herself. A petite, elegant figure, she was always so stylish, always so perfectly groomed – and always, as everyone has said – with that warm, shy smile that was so  much a part of her.

Last night I reread Tiger Man and it took me back to the days before I was published and  reminded me of the excitement I felt discovering Penny’s work for the very first time. And tomorrow when I get home I’m going to reread Falcon’s Prey to mark the way her category romance career began back in 1981 – and I’ll raise a glass to her memory. Not just to Penny the author  whose huge achievement was so amazing – but to Penny the person who will leave a hole in so many lives for her family,  her readers, fellow writers and friends.

Rest in peace Penny.

Years ago  – more
years than I dare actually admit to,
when it was my son’s very first Christmas,  and I was planning  how to make everything special,  my mother  warned me
to be careful what I planned. Anything I did this year, she said, would
become a ‘tradition’  for the future.
Something the family would expect to happen again and again and again.

And she was right. As I prepare for
Christmas 2011, many years away from that very first time,  I remember when I first thought some of these
ideas would be  lovely – or exciting – or
just plain fun  and that now they have become a vital part of
a family Christmas that I must remember and that  – well that just mean Christmas to us.

So the cats must have their fancy glitter collars to wear on Christmas Day.
This was a  fun idea  and it worked fine –  with those first cats.  They were sweet natured, middle aged cats who
were used to wearing ant flea collars and identification. This year we have
Flora and Charlie – both still young, who have had anti flea injections and
micro-chips – they HATE wearing collars! And the day is spent watching them tug
off the offending thing and throw it aside.
Though they don’t mind the other tradition which is that the cats always
get a large packet of cat nip  in their Christmas
stocking – OK – yes – the cats all get stockings as well as the humans in the
house.  Stockings are vital  – one of the best parts of Christmas . Even
though my son is now grown up  and living
in his own home,  I still have to get out
the old pillow case I decorated for him when he was  3 – before that we had a smaller home-made
stocking -  and fill it with lots of
silly gifts.

At least I no longer have to deal with the goodies set out
for Father Christmas and the reindeer.  I
(or rather my DH) never minded helping with the mince pie that had to be eaten –
but there also had to be a carrot for the reindeer – all 12 of them!  So there were always the ends of the carrots
left with teeth marks in them to show that Rudolph and his friends had enjoyed
their snack  too.  And the rest of the carrots went into the
dinner a day later but no one noticed.

Being a veggie household, there is always a nut roast to
make.  Some recipes are a bit dry and unexciting
but  years ago I found a tasty recipe
with breadcrumbs, nuts, red and green peppers . . .  and it’s something we all enjoy.    Except for the cats of course – another Christmas
tradition is that they go next door for some leftovers of the turkey the  meat-eaters have enjoyed.

We always eat our Christmas dinner in the evening but in the
morning we have a  special breakfast  at the carefully decorated table. Fresh
rolls, boiled eggs, coffee – and there must always be Morello Cherry jam. Not
Black Cherry – Morello Cherry is a very special taste, This one dates  back to my own childhood. My mother had spent
some time in Switzerland and loved the taste of Morello Cherry jam so each year
we had to find some for Christmas.  Back
then it was often difficult to find – but this year I have 2 large jars ready
and waiting.

Oh, and talking about food – when my son was little he was
often too excited  about the thought of
Christmas  and those presents all wrapped
and placed under the tree to eat properly. So
in his stocking he would always find a small pack of a sandwich and
a  nut bar or something similar – left by
Santa as a  thank you for the mince
pie!  At least this way he got  some food into him. (These days I have no
trouble getting him to eat anything!)

And one final tradition  about those stockings – they always, always
contain a brand new, unread book. In the past it was always an annual – Dr Who
or something similar. The rule was that we knew he was going to wake up early
(doesn’t everyone?) and find that Father Christmas had sneaked into his room
and left an exciting stocking at the foot of his bed. The whole family open their
stockings together , with a mug of tea to hand, when we’re all awake. But  the book/annual could  always be opened first – and reading it would
give us parents a few extra minutes or more of sleep.

So these are some of my traditions  at
Christmas  – there are more but I’d be
here all day!  Traditions are what  make Christmas special  and that leave us with memories  when all the excitement and feasting is over.

So what about you? This post is Day 4 of my Countdown to Christmas and I have a special giveaway to send to one lucky commenter  just in time for Christmas. Today’s prize is the 3 in one volume The Alcolar family (you can find the details here on my
blog http://www.kate-walker.blogspot.com/

So tell me about your family traditions and you could be in
with a chance to win. And if you visit my blog every day for the rest of the 12
Days of Christmas, there will be another giveaway every day – just comment and you’re
in with a chance.

And I can’t end this post without wishing you all the happiest of times at Christmas – I  hope you have
a truly lovely day with all your loved ones – and lots of great books in your  Christmas stocking or under the
tree.

Happy Christmas!  See you in 2012!

November is a difficult month in the UK. I’m reminded of the
poem by Thomas Hood that starts like this –

No sun–no moon!

No morn–no noon!

No dawn–no dusk–no
proper time of day–

No sky–no earthly
view–

No distance looking
blue—

And it’s true that sometimes the grey, foggy November days
can feel like that. But this morning when I went for my daily walk  – I call it walking to work  and once it’s done it doesn’t matter so much
that I spend the rest of the day  BICHOKing -  bum in chair, hands on
keyboard  – I saw something that really  made me smile – and think .

Everymorning at the time I’m out, so are dozens of other people walking their dogs. Big ones, small ones,  HUGE ones. I evensaw one lady with 3  great big deerhounds – she was struggling a bit with 3 such big dogs.

But the dog who really made me smile – and made my day
completely – was the little black creature who was rushing about, sniffing at everything, burying his nose in the fallen leaves, chasing the ball  his owner threw him.  He was so happy, so full of life – and it wasn’t until I came really close to him that I realised what was special
about him.

He only had three legs. His back right leg had been
amputated at the hip – but  did it hold
him back? No way – he didn’t even seem to notice and probably never even
considered that he was ‘imperfect’. Lots of people were saying ‘Oh poor little
dog’ – but he didn’t think he was poor – he was having a wonderful time and
enjoying every minute. And by doing so he brightened my day.

So I came home smiling, feeling so much brighter, and
determined to take a look at life and find reasons to be cheerful rather than
focus on  the stuff that has been so
difficult this year.

So here you go – reasons to be cheerful

1. One little black three-legged dog
2. The heron I watched take flight from the lake
   and soar over the water.
3. Christmas is coming – yes, I know, it  does cause a lot of work and craziness but
   just think how dark and dull winter would be without it.
4. Rather late I know – but last week I received
   two new wonderful reviews for The Return of the Stranger.  One was on eHarlequin – and the best bit was
   that this was written by someone who doesn’t usually read Presents. To  get such a
   rfesponse from someone reading outside their normal choices is fabulous:
   She said :

This story is based on Wuthering Heights—of
doomed love and unresolved passion. Kate Walker takes this antithesis of a love
story and turns it into a love story. For people who pretty much read only
HM&B Presents/Modern books this might end up being a hard story to swallow,
however for this reader, The Return of the Stranger, is a brilliant example of
storytelling. KW’s writing is poetic, florid and all that most Presents are
not. This is an excellent example of showing a story through prose and not
telling a story through dialogue. In some ways I’m shocked it was published by
HM&B—kudos to them for taking the risk to publish something outside of
their usual story type—it is taking their new buzzword, unpredictability, and
running with it. This is an excellent read and I’m so glad I took a risk on
purchasing this book. This is storytelling as an art form, beautifully
executed.

And the second review was over on
CataRomance where Julie the reviewer gave it 5 stars and said:

Kate Walker has taken Emily Bronte’s
classic novel of greed, passion and revenge and made it her own. The Return of
the Stranger is a dramatic, tempestuous and immensely enjoyable tale packed
with intriguing characters, searing emotion, heart-breaking conflict and
breath-taking romance. Kate Walker has raised the bar and totally outdone
herself with this mesmerizing story of sacrifice, redemption and everlasting
love.

Wonderfully written and powerfully told,
The Return of the Stranger is an outstanding achievement for this exceptional
writer of contemporary romantic fiction

Thank you to both these reviewers for
brightening my week.

5.
And finally – I just learned that my April book
-  The Proud Wife has been shortlisted
for  the Best Presents Extra in the
Reviewers’ Choice Awards in Romantic Times magazine.  I am so thrilled. As you might remember I won
this award last year with The Konstantos Marriage – so I don’t expect to win
again but I am delighted to be nominated 2 years in a row.

So there you are. 5   lovely things to
brighten a dull, grey November day. They put a
smile on my face and made me want to share.

And now I’d like to put a smile on someone else’s face  – so
how about you share with me some of your reasons to be cheerful – go on
I know you can find some!  And then I’ll
get Charlie the Maine Coon to pick out a name – someone who can win a copy of
either of those 2 nominated books – The Konstantos Marriage Demand or The Proud Wife (or another of my backlist title if you have these already) – and I’ll
send it to you to brighten your day too.

I can’t wait to read all the things that made
you smile recently.

Kate’s latest  novel THE RETURN OF THE STRANGER is released this week  in Harlequin Presents in USA  and Mills & Boon  Sexy  in Australia. the 12 Point Guide is in its 3rd edition – and can now be downloaded to KINDLE   at the press of a button. You can follow her Great Big Blog Tour , read great posts and have the change to win great prizes all through October and November.

And you can catch up with all Kate’s latest news and  books over on her blog site – or  her web page.

Charlie was out playing in the garden – hiding from me in the fog so I had to go and  find him. But when he realised that he gets some cat treats to pick a winner, then he soon got down to the job – and the winner is  DENISE

Denise please contact me Kate   AT kate-walker   .com

So the Top 21 entries in the New Voices Contest  have been announced and congratulations are in order.

Congratulations for  the ‘winners’ ? Well, yes – but for me the emphasis should be the other way. The  first congratulations should go to the total of 1088 entrants all of whom are, in  my mind, winners. Winners because in a world of people who want to be writers,  they put their words where their mouth is and wrote.

So congratulations to the 21 whose chapters were chosen this  time. I hope this is the start of your journey towards becoming a published  author and writing stories that people want to read. Congratulations to all the  writers who submitted a chapter – I hope this is the start of your journey  towards doing more with your writing, submitting again, finding the story you  want to tell, ‘winning’ first chapter or not.

I can’t give you the  ‘secret’, the ‘formula’ to being published – because if there is one then I  honestly have never ever found it in the past 25+ years – or the 30 before that!  – but I can tell you the one thing that will guarantee that you’ll never ever be  published and that is if you give up now. If you can’t take the risk of  rejection, then you’re making sure you’ll never know the joy of  success.

Thinking about my 25 years of being published and the books that  have my name on it, I’m also well aware of the ‘ones that got away’ – the  stories that never made it into books. The ones that were rejected. But did I  let them stay rejected ? No – I waited, I put them aside then I looked at them again – I reworked them, rewrote them polished them – and  most of them were accepted as published books.  I wrote about one of them – Chase the Dawn -  on my blog yesterday.

You should never waste anything you’ve written – it might need more work, it might need pruning, polishing, sculpting  – but as they say you can always edit a bad page – you can’t edit a blank one.

So remember  -

And as this is part of my Great Big Blog Tour   Stop 11 – with  today’s giveaway  I hope to give you encouragement to keep on keeping on -  so today I’m giving away a copy of the 12 Point Guide To Writing Romance.   All you have to do is to post a comment on today’s blog – tell me how you’re doing in your writing career – have you submitted? How many times?  Have you had any response at all from an editor (and response it like gold!) What line do you want to write for – and why?   Why do you want to write romance? Anything!

And Charlie will pick a winner who’ll receive a copy of the 12 Point Guide to Writing Romance -  something I hope will help you pick yourself up, dust yourself off and start all over again!

Kate’s latest  novel THE RETURN OF THE STRANGER is released this week  in Harlequin Presents in USA  and Mills & Boon  Sexy  in Australia. the 12 Point Guide is in its 3rd edition – and can now be downloaded to KINDLE   at the press of a button. You can follow her Great Big Blog Tour , read great posts and have the change to win great prizes all through October and November.

And you can catch up with all Kate’s latest news and  books over on her blog site – or  her web page.

It has been a month – or more  – of memories and  thoughts about the past. There was the   sudden and shockingly sad death of romance writer  Sandra Hyatt  at only 46 while at  the Romance Writers’ of New Zealand conference.  The sombre and carefully
observed tenth anniversary of 9/11 – the moving ceremonies that brought back all the shock and horror, the terrible loss.
Then on Tuesday it should have been my sister  in law’s wedding anniversary

Almost thirteen years ago, my beautiful sister-in-law was killed in a shocking car crash. She was on her way to work, to the junior school where she taught, and her car collided head-on with a van coming round a very tight, sloping corner on an icy road. She was my husband’s  little sister – the baby in the family – she had two young children, aged ten and twelve, and her
death devastated us all.

The following July her birthday came round as a desperately empty date. There were no presents to wrap and deliver, no cards to send. But we had to mark the day somehow, So the Babe Magnet and I went to the local garden centre where I bought a beautiful rose bush. The flowers are a deep, burnt orange colour with a golden centre, and the rose’s official name is ‘Remember Me’. We planted the rose bush in our garden, with the other roses we have.

It has now been there for  years. The other rose bushes grow and flower and are beautiful all the summer. This rose, known as Julie’s rose, has three separate flowerings Every summer, it puts out leaves, then buds, tightly curled
buds that only unfurl slowly- slowly. Other roses around it flower much earlier, but this one seems to wait to open into full bloom , without fail, in the week of July 5th – my sister-in-law’s birthday. The next time the beautiful blooms appear is in September when it should be her wedding anniversary. And then, in November, the week of her death, in spite of the cold and greyness of the weather, there is always one last tiny rose opening up as if in memoriam.

I’m not quite sure what this really means. I’ve tried to do things in ways that might change them slightly – prune the rose bush slightly differently, feed the roots more – or less . The weather conditions should surely affect the way it flowers? But nothing seems to change its flowering pattern in any way. And this week, it’s just the same. This, as I said, is the week in which Julie’s anniversary  falls and the rose that illustrates this post is her rose, photographed this week,
blooming beautifully to celebrate right on cue.

And it reminds me once again that love is the strongest possible force humanity has. Love is the strength we have to carry on in the face of horror, tragedy and loss. That’s why I write about it.

But it also reminds me that life is so very fragile and theborder between here and beyond so easily shattered. We need to live this lifelike there is no tomorrow. So it seemed appropriate that on the same day that was Julie’s wedding anniversary the big new Mills and Boon New Voices Contest started up again, with the web site going live for the first time.

And dozens of entries poured in.

I’ve been cheering on everyone who entered  – not just for their courage in submitting, but also their commitment to going after their dreams. Dreams need to be worked on, action taken – they need to be grabbed with both hands if we get an opportunity to try, because who knows the next chance may never ever comealong.

I know all about the way life or people can dump on your dreams. When I was young I was told I would never be a writer – that I should give up such a daydream, do something sensible. For a while I listened and let those voices stop me from going for my dreams – until I realised that the dream of being a published author was bigger and stronger than any warning from someone
who thought they were right. So I went for it
- and here I am – with my 59^th title The Return of The Stranger out in the UK right now and appearing  in America in Presents Extra next month. And I know I didn’t miss the chance to do what I’ve always longed to do.

So go for your dreams – reach high-  if you aim for the moon you might just reach the stars.  And if – as will happen in the New Voices contest  -  you don’t end up in the Top 20 or with any sort of callback from an editor – don’t kick yourself for it. You succeeded in taking your courage in both hands  – and going for it. And  that is always something worth doing.

And I wish every one of you the special warmth that love can bring in your hearts today – and always.

This post is part of a big Blog Tour that I’m doing to celebrate the publication of The Return of The Stranger  .  Over
the next couple of months.   So to mark this occasion, I’m launching a great big Blog Tour all over the internet for
the next few weeks. There are  27 different visits between now and the end of the tour,  27 different places where I’ll  be visiting and posting about different topics.

These posts will also introduce you to lots of interesting blogs all over the internet. Some you’ll have seen before – The Pink Heart Society, Tote Bags ‘N’ Blog,  We Write Romance,  I heart Presents  – others will be new to you.  And I hope to have some sort of a give away of a book or so at each stop along the way.

The  you can ‘stalk’ me along my journey and end up with 4 signed books as a special prize just
in  time for Christmas.  You can find the full blog itinerary over on  the great Author Page that Nas Dean from Romance Book Paradise who has been helping me with this has set up for me. There’s the list of all the blogs I’ll be visiting – and there may be a few more yet along the way!   I hope you’ll join me as I travel all over the blog universe!

And today I’m giving away a signed book from my backlist to someone who comments on this blog –tell me about your dreams- how you’re working towards them  – or how they came true . Anything.  And I’ll get Sid the cat to pick out a winner.

And I’ll see you at the next stage of my Blog Tour – The Pink Heart Society Blog tomorrow!