The truth, the whole truth...more or less.

This week has been a fun week. On Monday I went to the Romantic Novelist Association Romantic Novel of The Year Award. Now as we all know by now, mainly because I have harped on about it at some length, I was longlisted but not shortlisted for this award. A fact which I am absolutely fine and not bitter about in the least little bit, in fact my support group leader (Longlisted But Not Shortlisted Romantic Novelists Annonymous) says I'll be over the rejection and dissapointment in plenty of time for next year. And actually when I got there I was partly glad that I wasn't shortlisted, because at least I didn't have the nerve wracking wait to find out who had won. It was a lovely event, Helen Lederer was head jusge and an extremely funny speaker and eventually the award went to Freya North, who is a very talented and deserving winner and donated her prize money to a cancer charity in memory of a friend, which was touching and admirable.


One thing you may not know about Romantic Novelists is that they party hard. In fact because I so rarely get to hang out with a group of them (Is there a collective noun for a group of Romantic Novelists? A small prize for anyone who can think of one.) I didn't know that they party hard. But no, the largely female company was very, very keen to get to the pub and I was sad that my commitment to the writing class I teach meant I could staying drinking long into the night with them. In fact one very famous and important RN left me a message the next day to say that her hangover was really, really awful. I shall not name names.

Later this week I went to Harper Collins to film an interview that will go on the new Ruby Parker website when it is launched. That was fun too, although the questions were hard and sometimes I had to think of interesting and child friendly answers rather than the flat out honest ones that first came to mind. If I'd have gone with my first impulse this is what the interview would have run like:

THEM 'What is your biggest regret?
ME 'My inability to wear a hipster jean.'
THEM 'What do you lay awake thinking about at night?'
ME 'Cheese'
THEM 'What is your idea of perfect happiness?'
ME 'Cheese on Toast'
THEM 'What was your most embarassing moment?'
ME 'Walking through Leicester Square in a wrap dress that had come undone and wondering why I was getting so many admiring glances (or looks of horror, depending on your POV)
THEM 'If you had a super power what would it be.'
ME 'Shopping. Oh no, wait - I have that super power already.'

If you want to see the answers I actually gave you will be able to see the interview on the new website up in March sometime I hope. I'll post a line when I have one. They don't involve cheese.