Monday Minx - Jo P

I can't tell you how thrilled I am to be the newest minx on the minxy block!
I'm really pleased and privileged to join the group, so first and foremost, thank you to the lovely minx girls for having me.

Following on from that happy dance, I then realised that I'd need to introduce myself and have been in a mild panic ever since. Honestly, I've wracked my brains to think of interesting things to tell you about myself, and i'm sorry to say that I'm struggling!
I'd so love to be able to tell you that I live an uber cool and minimal lifestyle, in a designer house with a capsule wardrobe of camel & black pieces effortlessly put together from this seasons coolest collections.
I'd also love to confess that I holiday five times a year in far flung places with sugar white sands and turquoise seas ( all in the name of research of course! Charge it to my expenses account daaarling!)

However, it would all be big fat lies. The truth is that I live a haphazard lifestyle in the not-very-glam-at-all black country. For the mercifully uninitiated- it's in the west midlands, named for it's proud industrial history, mostly now gone. I guess i'd have to say that i'm proud to be a black country girl (even if it means that my accent is more Lenny Henry than Lady Diana), but I still have a deep hankering to run away and live in the country - preferably somewhere large and rambling in the beautiful patchwork hills of Shropshire please, if the lottery gods are reading this.
And my wardrobe? Well, it's most definitely not capsule! Bulging with mismatched clothes that I really ought to have given away to charity years back is closer to the mark, but hey ho - the diet might work one day and then i'll be spoilt for sartorial choice...

Did i just mention the diet? Hmmm. That brings me neatly to my love for chocolate and cake, preferably cupcakes with sparkles on the top if given the choice. Or carrot cake. Or chocolate cake. Or, ooh err, a cream horn!

Which finally brings me rather smuttily around to the actual purpose of this post- my love for romance, both the reading of and the writing of.

I am loud and proud of my love for Mills & Boon, and will happily confess to a deep abiding affection for a cockle warming romance. There's so much angst and heart breaking news all around us every day, but you can always rely on a good romance to transport you temporarily to a better place. Between the covers of every romance lies a new hero to fall in love with for a few hours, and a new heroine to root for and envy. You get to visit those far flung places from the comfort of your own armchair, to rub shoulders with princes and billionaires, and you might even get diamonds and Manolos thrown in too if you're lucky!
I've read them forever, and I have no doubt that I always will.

My personal romance writing journey only began around a year ago.
I'd wanted to put pen to paper for more years that I care to remember, but I let myself use every excuse in the book to not be brave enough.
I was too busy with work. And then I was too busy getting married and having babies.
I read the forums and blogs voraciously, but it was seeing the launch of the 2009 Mills & Boon writing competition that finally gave me the push I needed. Like many others around the globe I sweat blood and tears over my entry, and I was completely over the moon when I got the call to say that my entry had placed as runner up in the competition. I've never won anything before in my entire life, so to say I was shocked was an understatement! That was back in December last year, and since then i've re-written the synopsis and substantially changed that lucky first chapter, written and revised the partial, and I'm now waiting to hear back on the full manuscript. Throughout this process I've also come to realise that I have the patience of a gnat, which is an unhelpful trait that I need to work on if I am to have a hope in hell of staying on the aspiring writer roller coaster.
It's certainly not for the feint hearted is it?

I can't believe that I waited this long to start doing something that has very quickly become my consuming passion. It honestly makes me tingle with happiness when it's going well, and kick the wall and swear like a builder when it's going badly.
But whatever happens with this manuscript, i'm in it for the long haul now, because I've finally discovered something that I truly love.
I think I might even love it more that chocolate.
Cupcakes, even.
Maybe there's hope for that diet after all then...