I get so annoyed at myself. I have these great ideas for blog posts and then it’s so hard to get to the computer and all those wonderful ideas leak out of my head. Pfft! Gone.
Originally I thought I’d be writing a post a day on the PhD and wouldn’t that be fun. But hey, the PhD makes me busier than I was before so no way. I could write a post a day on the PhD but then you’d all explode in flames!
The Phd research (feminism in popular romance fiction ) so interesting in almost all aspects. The difficult part is settling in to a new place, new regime and a new focus. I’m loving the reading, the mind expanding study of feminism and philosophy (for the methodology), the ideas for my creative work and the reading of romances. I wish I could fit much more into my day. It’s addictive. The physical body and mind though has to have a break. I can assure you I’m pretty good at taking breaks.
I took a week off to go to Contact in Brisbane over Easter. I was even on a panel or two, I had a table for hats for a day, sold a few and hung out with people. Met new people too. The Hotel Jen in Brisbane was amazing. I ate at the hotel because the menu and prices were so good. The room was lovely and the service good. The Contact program was well designed. The downside was that not that many people came. Not as many as you’d expect to a national convention. For that I feel bad for the Brisbane organisers. They deserved better support.
Here is some pics from Contact. I really wasn’t drinking all the time.
Me, Deb Kelly and Keri Arthur.
That’s us again.
My good friend, Glenda Larke, asked me to give her acceptance speech if she won an award. Well she did! She won the inaugural Sara Douglass award for a series. Here’s the trophy. I nearly cried I was so happy for her.
A pic of my hat table.
Sitting around to say good bye. with Keri Arthur and Louise Katz and Gillian Polack at the back.
Random pic of Brisbane. I went to by swimmers for my trip to the Gold Coast.
Now I’m back at Uni and working pretty hard. In fact, I’m on lunch break, getting ready to attend a workshop on being a better PhD researcher! This makes me laugh, but I’m doing it anyway.
In other news, I’m publishing a book. Argenterra, Silverlands book 1. It’s a story I’ve worked on since about six months after I started writing. This book has been with me to Envision in Brisbane back in 2003. I was planning to throw it in the bin, but my tutor Louise Cusack said not to do that. It’s grown so much since then as I have as a writer so it holds a special place in my heart. It’s the first fantasy I wrote. It’s light and bright but had some darkness there too. I’m doing the Indie publishing thing. So I’ve had a cover done by the brilliant Les Petersen, an edit done and a great proof too. It will soon be ready to go. Just need to get the blurb right. Lucky, there are great writer friends out there who help. So stay tuned. The ebook will be out by the end of the month with POD for June and Supanova in Sydney!
On a more personal note, it’s odd but the busier I am the more productive I tend to be. I’ve been suffering a bit with the spine, but I’ve been taking the meds and today I’m feeling the best I have in two weeks. Yay! Yesterday, in a bid to keep fit and take a break during the day, I walked down the road to the pool, where I walked in the water for half an hour and came back. It was such a lovely day that I was happy and content.
Donna Maree Hanson, Author, Phd in Creative Writing 
Glad to hear things are going well with the PhD. I find that some ideas are blog-sized while others aren’t. I suppose it’s similar to the way some stories are novella-length, others are Mills & Boon length and some turn out to be sagas.
Hi Laura, great to hear from you. I’m having a fan squee. I have one of your articles to read in my pile. Happy dance! I’m lucky to still be in the excitement stage. I sure hope it stays that way.
I think it’s probably like any other kind of writing: in my experience it’s most fun in the phase when the ideas are bubbling up and a bit less so when you have to get them down on paper in a coherent, polished form. That can still be quite satisfying, though.
Is it my article about Mills & Boon and feminism you’ve got? In my latest book I’ve got a chapter on one novel in which I look at changing gender roles and it made me think there might be more to be said about the romance heroine, gender and her use of violence because the heroine in that novel’s in the military and the hero’s a virgin so there’s definitely some challenging of gender norms going on. I’ve come across other romances e.g. ones with police-officer heroines and one by Jo Beverly which includes a trans/non-binary secondary character which also made me think that because violence has traditionally been considered “masculine”, one way for authors to show the heroine as the hero’s equal and to explore gender roles is to demonstrate her capacity for violence. It’s there in some of Georgette Heyer’s novels too (and I know there’s been a bit written about her cross-dressing heroines so this probably intersects with that topic). I also have a vague memory of a book about violent heroines in urban fantasy (not romance) which might be relevant.
Not sure if any of that’s of interest/relevant to the angle(s) you’ll be taking but I couldn’t help sharing.
Yes. That’s the article. I’ll see if I can get the uni library to buy your book. The gender stuff is amazingly interesting. My creative work will probably use that. My supervisor mentioned some analysis of the Hunger Games and Katnis taking on a masculine role when she fights and fends for her family. I just read Hard Core Romance by Eva Illouz which kind of said that modernity is making us androgynous! It was a fantastic essay. Very thought provoking with lots of discussion of sexuality, the traditional romance and violence. I’m only two months in and I know I have so much interesting stuff to read and analyse.