I am back

Wow, I've not been here for nearly three years. I had a writer's block for about two years and only started to write again last year.

I hope my lovely readers are still around, as I am determined to take up writing more regularly and provide you with more interesting and humorous stories.

Happy reading!

Dressed to kill

An old post - Some romance stories are so predictable. When the heroine has a date, she will go shopping for frock. Yuck, can the authors be more original? Or is it the media which makes us obsessed with dressing for a date?

Here is an article from Sydney Morning Herald on How to Dress for Dating Success.

So are men really clueless when it comes to fashion - or merely maintaining a diplomatic silence?

Short skirt and hot car

An old post - BF sent me photo of this cool car.

How can a lady in short skirt gets in? Great curve and very sexy. I mean the car, not the lady. Do you have a sexy beast to share with me?

Happy New Year!

Happy 2015!

Sorry I wasn't very active last year. There isn't much progress with Darcy Chilling Proposal but I did fix the plot issues. So it's a matter of sitting down, re-read, write and complete the story.

I hope you will continue to read about Darcy and Elizabeth's stories, no matter who the authors are. Below is the link to my short story collection My Darcy Exhilarates...

Can't Sleep

Steamy Darcy wishes you a Happy New Year!

Dear lovely readers

Steamy Darcy has been down for a few weeks but now it's up and running again. We have 30% of the old stories up and will continue to upload more later on.

I hope you like the new look of my website.

Have a Happy New Year too!

Big hugs from hot Sydney

Enid

Merry Christmas from Steamy Darcy

Dear friends, readers and lovers of steamy Darcy, I would like to thank you for your friendship and support in 2013.

I am relieved that I did not resort to getting Caroline to nurse Darcy back to his health after I blasted him into a coma in The Angel Sees Grey. I’d like to write more mystery in future such as the sleuth duo Prince Darcy and his private eye. But I must return to Darcy Chilling Proposal soon and let D&E solve the duplicity in the Bingley/Hurst household. Have a wonder Christmas and New Year and thank you again!

Thank you Canada

I've thanked my American, French, British and German readers before. Today it's time to thank my Canadian readers. Over at Smashwords, who sell my books to Sony, Kobo etc, they have improved their reporting and I can now see who bought my books in Canada.

Recently there were readers from ON, AB, QC, MB, NS buying my books. I've only been to Toronto some 15 years ago, in the deep of winter. Perhaps it's time to see more of Canada. I hope in summer this time.

Photo source: dwgt.net

I hate shopping!

I've got some very old stuff at home and office, like my mac is still OS X Tiger. My Dell is Windows XP. My Toyota is over 10 years old.

I've been using my scanner this morning. It doesn't have the feeding function. So for over 20 pages, I've to do it one by one. It has taken me forever to do one scan. Nowadays the multifunction printer and scanners are really cheap. But when the machine is not yet broken, I just hate to buy new and become wasteful.

Do you still have some "historic" stuff you loathe to part with?

Photo source: livegreentwincities.com

So mean!

Do you rely on spell check a lot when you write? I must confess I'm very lazy nowadays. If I can't spell a word, I'll just type whatever similar and hope for the best during the spell check.

Yesterday, I was using Adobe InDesign software, which is a publishing software, and I let this old habit to creep in. But InDesign is not very smart with it's spell check function. At least it doesn't know the difference between meaningful and meanful. I guess their dictionary is rather mean...

Photo: mylot.com

Want to please your loved ones?

Have you been learning any new skills lately?

We've a change of staff in the office and I've been filling in to do simple graphic design job. It's amazing what the Internet has about anything and everything.

I've learned to touch up photos, change background etc by watching instructions on YouTube.

What do you want to learn in the next month, like giving your loved one a lovely massage? *wink*

Photo from: soglamorous.com.au

It's wet!

There has been rain, rain and more rain in Sydney for so many days. In fact, the rain has been pouring down in many parts of Australia too. Sydney's reservoir is full and roads and homes are flooded.

From all the news, I''ve just come up with a plot bunny: a pretty female emergency worker rescuing a stranded hunk, damsel in reverse...

Seriously, I hope you stay safe and dry, fellow Aussies!

Photo source: montgomeryrealestateinfo.com

I love libraries!

Last month, I've got some free books from my printing company. They messed up with some of my set up files and sent me free books as compensation. I've been dominating them to the libraries in Australia. If you want to check if my books are in one of the libraries near you, you can use the WorldCat website.

For example, Bargain with the Devil is available in:

Dee Why Library, DEE WHY, AU-NS 2099 Australia
National Library of Australia (NLA), CANBERRA, ACT 2600 Australia
State Library of NSW Dixson Library, SYDNEY NSW, 2000 Australia
Waverley Council, Waverley Library, BONDI JUNCTION, AU-NS 2022 Australia

More locations will appear in the WorldCat website soon. In fact, Bargain with the Devil is available in some USA libraries too, I think, thanks to some of you who either requested or donated it to them.

Indian Prairie Library District, DARIEN, IL 60561 United States
Indian Trails Public Library District, WHEELING, IL 60090 United States
King County Library System, Issaquah, WA 98027 United States
Laurel County Public Library, LONDON, KY 40741 United States
McKinney Public Library, MCKINNEY, TX 75069 United States

Happy reading!

Rest

Sorry, I'm not around much lately. I've been very busy at work and on Wednesday I absent-mindedly bumped into the car in front when I was driving.

Luckily no one was hurt but the front bumper of my new car was a mess.

Time to think less about work and rest a bit.

Photo source: dailypets.co.uk

Hallucination

I’ve very severe pain in the right shoulder for the past month and started using Voltaren.

Since then, I seem to have really strange dreams (though I'm not sure if that's the cause) and I can remember them vividly. Last night, it’s alien invasion on Earth and they came to kidnap pregnant women. I was trying to protect a woman from the aliens. How very strange!

Do you remember your dreams? What’s the strangest one you ever have?

Photo source: newanimal.org

Morning sun

I watched a TV documentary about body clock. It said that for people who have erratic sleep pattern, getting more sun in the morning will help. So I've started to sit outside in the balcony in the morning during the holidays. And I open the blinds in the office now.

One of my goals this year is to sleep better. Sound simple? A good uninterrupted seven hours of sleep has been elusive to me for quite sometimes. Time to do something about it.

Photo source: goeshealth.com

Watching tennis and writing commitment

It's tennis season in Australia and I've been spending way too much time watching tennis, Hopman Cup, Brisbane International and later Australian Open.

Nowadays, coaches are allowed to come onto the court to give players some pep talk. I find it very interesting. Some players didn't seem to take this very well. The coach kept talking on and on about what kinds of mistakes were committed and the players' eyes were faraway. You can see that they didn't take in any of that.

But some coaches gave very precis advice, like how to play the next two games and asked the players to agree to commit to the tactics. These kind of advice seemed to work better.

I think a mental commitment to a course of action can make or break your endeavour. Perhaps that's what I've to adopt this year. Be committed to two writing competitions a year.

I've written half a script for a competition. It's not yet up to the standard I want but I think I can complete it.

Are you committed to your next goal in life?

Photo of caroline wozniacki from fashiontrends.pk

Happy New Year - are you in control?

Happy New Year to you all!

I hope you have got your New Year resolutions sorted out. How is your dashboard for the new year like? A lot of to-do lists? Goals to achieve? Places to go and experiences to try?

For me, I want to be more creative in 2012. Pure and simple.

Photos source: Copyright (c) 123RF Stock Photos

And this dashboard should perhaps start from 2009 and have more future years on it. But never mind, you understand my point. Be active and do it!

Have a wonderful holiday!

Merry Christmas and hope you enjoy the food, wine and relaxation.

Copyright (c) 123RF Stock Photos. I chose this photo to continue the masquerade theme of The Spinster's Vow.

Thank you for the friendship throughout the year. Warm and wet hugs from Sydney (we're raining like cats and dogs now)

Rejection

OK, I've got a few rejection at work within this month so my mood is not that great. How do I handle it?

I read pick me up stories or edit my own ones. They tend to lift my spirit.

And some lovely chocolate and a game of tennis are my saviour. I'm looking forward to 2012 and hopefully it will be more fruitful for me then.