Donna Maree Hanson, Author, Phd in Creative Writing

Aurealis Awards-A quickie

June 2, 2013 by donnamareehanson

I’m late with this and I don’t have many photos, but what I do have are awesome.

Sydney completed its third wonderful Aurealis Awards. As it was so close to Conflux I wasn’t certain I was going to make it and with one thing and another I didn’t think I could afford it. Nicole was of the same mind. While we were on a writers’ retreat with Cat Sparks and others, she told Nicole and I we had to come and she even offered accommodation close by for free. That made it doable and of course, we didn’t want to upset Cat.

So like Uncle Jed, we loaded up the car and moved to Sydney for a night. We had Kaaron and Jasmina with us for the road trip. All arranged very last minute but accomplished successfully.

The ceremony was once again at the Edwardian era, Independent Theatre in North Sydney. Venue info here.

We had dinner first at the Thai restaurant next door and we were pretty wowed by the food including braised lamb shank in a coconut curry. (Oops no sidelining to food got it!)

So before the ceremony is a cocktail party, with nice bite sized food and bubbly, wine and beer etc. I was so full I only managed one canape. Oh dear! I managed to squeeze in two glasses of bubbly. This was the time for smoozing and catching up with friends and acquaintances. We got to say hello to Robert Hood, Thoraiya Dyer, Alex Adsett, Amanda Pillar, Cat Sparks, Kaaron Warren and others. (older persons’ memory cells), before being ushered in to the ceremony itself. I didn’t take a photo inside the theatre though it is lovely.

Scott Westerfeld hosted the ceremonies and did a bang up job. He was funny, wooed us about how awesome spec fic genre is and was generally very cool. Margo Lanagan won so many awards, she of course got teased about it. One of them was shared. The young adult novel with Kaz Delaney.

Here is a link to the press release with the winners.

So then we rock on to the after party. We all mingle outside, grab photos before heading to the bar. My shots come from these. I managed to snag a few winners with their awards.

This is Thoraiya Dyer and Kaaron Warren with their awards. They were giggling a lot. The shot below is them posing a bit better.

They were so happy!

Outside I managed to capture Margo Lanagan.

This amazingly talented author couldn’t carry all her awards. Okay I’m kidding. I’m sure she had them there somewhere.

In the squeeze in the bar I managed to corner, Daniel O’Malley with his award in hand and the Aurealis Awards convenvor, Tehani Wessely.

I was dressed in retro and so was Amanda Pillar (editor!) so we begged someone to take a photo of us. (I had a little red cardigan but dropped it. Lucky Sydney isn’t as cold as Canberra so I didn’t freeze).

Nicole Murphy is the person to watch.

She was having a fab time after all that work co-chairing Conflux with me. It was fun just to hang. Wasn’t it Nicole?
To tell the truth she could have been minding my glass of champagne.

The party moved on to Rydges North Sydney.

I grabbed a shot of Alex Adsett (agent and in red) and the lovely Kaz Delaney (must buy her book too), who tied with Margo for young adult novel. She told me she is a romance writer. Yay!

I was feeling pretty tired myself, so I parked myself in a chair with Steve Dunbar and then chatted to who came along.

Here is a shot of Kaaron looking happy and replete after her award win. She said it’s the second one but with a big gap between. She won for A-Positive in 1998 and now with Sky in 2013.

And then I took passing shots of people who were at my table. Here is Cat Sparks talking to Steve Dunbar.That’s one of Amanda Pillar talking to Robert Hood. It was late by the time we went home. I was knackered and guilted Nicole into going home earlier than she would have liked. She was having a ball. We arranged to come back to the hotel for breakfast, which gave us a chance to catch up with the people we didn’t catch up with. Highlights for me were Liz Gryzb’s and Kirstyn McDermott’s shoes. Just being there in the buzz and the announcement that Canberra is going to host next year’s Aurealis Awards. That’s right. Conflux Inc, with Nicole Murphy at the head will be hosting the next ceremony sometime in March. Here is a shot of Nicole explaining to the Conflux committee about what her vision and strategy is for the next awards ceremony. You think after Conflux she’d had enough but no, Nicole the dynamo is charging ahead. Me? I’m going to just linger on the sidelines, although I have signed up to judge the graphic novel section of the 2014 awards. Don’t forget to come along to Canberra next year. We know who you are!

Posted in Aurealis Awards, General excitment, General writing industry news | Leave a Comment »

A blog about stuff

May 9, 2013 by donnamareehanson

I’m back at work. I’ve uploaded everything I need to this semester in the Masters yesterday. I went to Veronica Parsons’ book launch for Murder in the Moat at Paperchain last night. I thought I’d have my head together. But, it’s taking a bit longer to settle down to work after Conflux 9. I have to transition from logistical tasks to cerebral tasks. The uni work sort of should have done it but didn’t. However, I will be switched on tomorrow. (Positive affirmation). BTW one of my daughters wants me to get counselling about my Twitter addiction and live more in the real world. (Probably concerned about email, Facebook, Blogging and writing too).

Sad news in twittersphere with Jay Lake’s diagnosis on his blog here.

I admire him greatly and don’t know what to say. Life sucks.

I met an old acquaintance at the book launch last night who related how his wife had a severe car accident last year. He had to put her in a nursing home last month. It was very emotionally difficult for him.

I guess it’s a fact we have to take into account in life. Anything can happen to change something in our lives. We tend not to think about it otherwise we’d curl up and not do anything.

I don’t think I’m being maudlin. I’m just thinking-live in the moment.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

Conflux regency banquet

May 8, 2013 by donnamareehanson

I’ve snaffled Trudi Canavan’s blog posting on this. I didn’t get a chance to take photos.

Try it here.

It was so much fun. Trudi looked fab and I loved my green dress.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

Nearing the end-or at the beginning

May 8, 2013 by donnamareehanson

After Conflux9, after the retreat, I’ve been busy working on the stuff I need to do for my Masters in Creative Writing. This year I am doing a manuscript writing workshop component and this semester Cultural Research. I’m almost there. Friday is D day.

The reason I’m blogging is that I’m really excited about my fiction component, the manuscript I am doing for my Masters. The goal is to write 20,000 words across the year. Last year it was 50,000 words but it changed this year. So this sounds easy right? Actually the word count doesn’t bother me so much. With Conflux9 I’d only been writing uni stuff anyhow-just.

So writing is not a big deal. I can do word count and I had a number of ideas to work from. Note ideas, not outlines. I chose a story called Into the Dark Glass. It was an idea I got when an editor and I were discussing Argenterra, a fantasy with romance that I had submitted. To make it a romance fantasy I would have needed to gut the story and have it focus on just one couple, with less world building. I’ve almost finished that trilogy and thought I may as well write a new story than gutting the old one. That’s when the idea for Into the Dark Glass came. Just the idea about the girl, the mirror and the guy and the world being steampunk.

I started the course and had to hand in the first 500 words and a 250 word pitch. Easy peasy. You think? I still didn’t have an outline of the plot. I couldn’t find the girl’s voice and kept changing her name and his name. His voice was easy. A month later we had to hand in 2000 words and do a presentation. I managed that, but I still had issues with the girl’s voice and I had enough plot for three chapters. However, the way we were doing this manuscript was completely against what I’d normally do. I don’t stop and polish and submit, I keep writing.

The next big challenge for me was that I wanted to lift the bar, push myself higher in the writing game. I’d chosen a young adult/romance/fantasy in an alternative steampunk world. I wanted it to rock. I was nearly pulling my hair out with the girl’s voice. I usually get it eventually but I hadn’t written enough of the story to get to know her. I had to keep going back. After the presentation, where I confessed I was having a tough time of the voice, I got it. The whole thing fitted into place. I rewrote the first chapter. At the retreat I did the next two. I wrote another 15,000 words of the story. I finally figured out what the Lady of the Dark did and then near the end of the retreat the rest of the plot came to me on waking so I jotted the notes down on the Ipad.

I had reached a point where I could relax. I got Matthew to read it and he said it was the best he’d seen from me. (He’s not read everything of mine but it was a huge compliment). He said there were a few little things. My spirits soared after that because my revisions had aced it (to my mind).

Today I read it through and it does rock. (I know I’m not supposed to say that but it really does). I leaped the bar I’d set myself. I got her voice, pace, action and a bit of attraction going. I’ve uploaded the bugger now!

Now I just have to finish the story, which I think might be 80,000 to 100,000 words and submit it somewhere. I plan to submit the final chapters for second semester. That’s if the excitement wears off. I’m finding it hard to settle down. (too much or too little stimulation)

I must return to the research project now. I will be disseminating my research paper here at a later date. Like when I get my marks and feel that it’s good enough.

Posted in Paranormal romance writing, Steampunk, Writing, Young adult | Leave a Comment »

Donna’s retreat

May 6, 2013 by donnamareehanson

Sigh. The retreat is over as Nicole says. It was an excellent way to unwind after running Conflux 9. It may seem like a weekend for the attendees but it was nearly two years in the making and a lot of planning. I’d been in the Conflux zone for a couple of week leading up to the con.

I didn’t think I’d get much done during a week long retreat. We normally have two weeks and before Conflux began my RSI had kicked in. So I wound back my expectations a lot. Also, I had two weeks in which to prepare my final assignments for the Masters in Creative Writing.

So I revised 10,000 words and I think I aced it. I’ll know when the grades are done, but I think I’ll know more if if sells. I think it’s an exciting YA/steampunk piece. The other chore was writing up my research report on whether being published by a digital first/digital only imprint changes reading preferences. I had already sent out my questionnaire, it was a matter of analysing and pulling all the bits together and doing some reading. I made a pretty good start on it at the retreat.

I also revised a couple of short stories and wrote a new ending to another one. I was planning on writing a new steampunk romance short story for an upcoming anthology but all of a sudden I started continuing on with my uni novel. I wrote 15,000 more words and scoped out the rest of the plot. Now I have something to put in the synopsis I also have to submit. I had to stop myself writing because of the RSI. I really can’t afford to have a full blown RSI episode. I have a report to write for the next few months and I go back to work tomorrow.

The house we used for the retreat was nice and interesting. It was a rambling thing with rooms off rooms. For example, we snaffled the end bedroom, mostly because Matt sleeps late and we didn’t want people feeling bothered by walking through. To get to our room we had to pass through Cat’s. The girls (Kim and Shauna) shared adjoining rooms, but to access their bathroom, Shauna had to enter Kim’s room. Nicole snaffled the loft bedroom but had to share a bathroom with the boys. The boys’ room was in a room that connected to the girls.

All passed of well. As usual food, but nearly as much as normal. There was more bitching than usually, lots of writerly talk and heaps of silly talk. Chatham House rules and all that.

Rob Porteous cooked (as Nicole said) an amazing chicken cacciatore, which we devoured in one go. Ian cooked us vegetarian pasta and a salad and left overs. I made two lots of crumble. One apricot and one apple and berry with both gluten and gluten free versions. I have no idea why I put on weight. It must have been the chips, chocolate, biscuits, nuts etc. We did get the munchies a number of times a day.

As there was no internet inside the house (or mobile coverage) we did take a few trips into town as well as out into the paddock. A power outage for over three hours on the Thursday was a bit hard to take, particularly after we went into Boorowa and our fav cafe didn’t let us plug in to charge phones and ipads. Matt managed to get my phone charge before they unplugged him. Curiously, Matt was also productive. I’m not sure if that was because I didn’t nag him. He was very good to me (besides shooting me with a nerf gun) and massaged my very sore feet every day.

I caught one walk with Nicole and Cat and we went for a group walk one evening around Rye Park.

Now to share with you the obligatory photos. The house, showing the loft area.

A more framed shot of the house.

The first thing I did was… you guessed it. Pose on the chaise lounge.

The driveway (deceptive as you go straight ahead).

The Telstra exchange that provided no mobile or internet coverage, even if you stood outside it.I guess it’s just for normal phone lines.

We were going to post in front of it with our phones in various postures of seeking the bars of access. We left too quickly.

We talked alot. These are shots of the girls who were talking. No men in the room at the time.

There’s Nicole.

Kim

Shauna (looking very thoughtful. I think she may have had an idea).

Cat looking like she was going to pounce on me for taking a shot. We’re all in daggy trackie dacks.

Okay. She was talking and not taking notice of me sneaking photos. I can feel the smack on my bottom already.

Then there’s me. A selfie.

(Gawd. I’m such a poser! but I was trying to capture the leisurely moment as we chatted about important things…just can’t remember what they were.

On our walk, we took some photos. First a church that someone had converted to a house. Cat said the town would be a great setting for a post-apocalyptic movie. Except for this house, I think.

Another shot of the church, being all inspiration like.

Further down the road was an old butcher, called Palmer’s butcher. I had family of that name here in the 1800’s.

Further on is an example of why this is a sad place.

A collapsing water tank and many dilapidated houses. The land lady said that Sydney people are buying into the area and that the town is reviving. You have to drive 30 kms to get a pint of milk as there is no shop any more. Why it’s the place the Internet forgot! (Actually teasing aside it was a lovely shallow valley).

Here is a shot of sunrise. Don’t get too excited because the hills delayed the sunrise so it was like 6.30am or something when I took the shot. I was waiting for Cat and Nicole to go for a walk and they went without me. I saw them down the road and ran (I said ran) to catch them. Knackered me for the next two days. I haven’t run for nearly 5 years due to knee surgery.

As I said we had no internet, so we had to go outside. After a while we put out chairs. This is the famous internet chair.

One evening we went for a walk. The light was fantastic, all golden. Here is a tree shot.

This might be Nicole’s tree and her shot is better. Same walk.

Next to our house on the way back, we realised we had a cemetery next door. Colonial or pioneer graves. Not easy to read the inscription.

And today Nicole and I walked around the lake. As much as we loved the retreat and the surrounds at Rye Park, we love being home.

And I want to say how much we missed Russell Kirkpatrick and Kylie Seluka and how much we enjoyed having Kimberley Gaal, Shauna O’Meara and Rob Porteous join us on this retreat.

Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »

Conflux 9-the aftermath

May 6, 2013 by donnamareehanson

Conflux 9 is done and dusted. It went off very well, a fitting culmination of nearly two years work for Nicole Murphy, me and the committee. A lot of fab people came and enjoyed themselves. Some we were expecting and some who showed up unexpectedly. Like Margo Lanagan!

Big thank you to Karen, Tara and Maddison for manning the rego desk. Actually, Karen told us to bugger off (or words to that effect) so Nicole and I let her go for it. Much less stressful for us.

Before Conflux started we picked up Marc Gascoigne. This is a piccie of Matthew waiting for him.

We took Marc out kangaroo spotting to help him get over his jetlag and then out the next day exploring the countryside around Canberra. We ended up at dinner with Kaaron Warren. Here is a nice shot of them both.

The hotel was great. Rydges Captial Hill excelled in helping the convention run smoothly. I managed to get to a few panel items, Marc Gascoigne’s guest of honour interview, Nalo Hopkinson’s guest of honour interview, Kaaron Warren’s guest talk and half of Karen Miller’s guest of honour talk. This is quite a lot! I also caught Taboo Subjects on Thursday night. Other things I participated in directly were my babies:the steampunk high tea, which went of well. The coffee and tea part could be improved but I think everyone was okay about it and the costumes were great.

Here is a picture of the setting with the steam punk angels that Nicole made.

Here is the high tea food tray, with our steam punk Ninja, Thoraiya Dyer!

and a picture of Kaaron Warren in her steam punk gear. I don’t have many photos but I got in a couple.

And a begoggled Lily Mulholland.

The pitching sessions, with excellent help from Lily Mulholland (Time Nazi) and Jane Virgo. These went down very well. The idea was stolen from the Romance Writers of Australia conference and they made great sense. Instead of authors circling the editors and publishers like sharks during a convention on the off chance they might get a chance to meet, and then maybe a chance to talk books, the organised pitching sessions gave people the chance. The feedback on both sides indicates that it went better than planned. Well done you lot.

The next thing was the Regency Banquet, with special guests Earthly Delights. Again Lily came to my assistance, writing out the name cards, helping me coil ribbon around the menus and just being a fab person. The banquet went off very well, with dancing and laughter and I had lots of great feedback on that. We have not mixed dancing with the banquet before but it went off well, better than I anticipated, as much as anyone can anticipate something they have no idea of. I came away sweating, after John made me do the Regency Waltz. I had this terrified, caught in the headlights look in my eye (from my perspective) afraid to put a foot wrong but loving how he explained things and showed me figures and hand holds.

My next baby was the Romance Gauntlet and what a fab time that was. The readings were awesome. Craig Cormick did a bang up job of MCing, cheeky as he is and Valerie Parv did a fantastic job of judging.

Here is a piccie of Rob Porteous, wearing a cod piece, which he did demonstrate to us.

There were also chocolate cupcakes with pink fondant hearts for refreshments.

Then it was downstairs to the Junkyard Cathedral masquerade disco where I was grabbed by Ken Moylan and started dancing until it closed down. The set up for the disco was happening at the same time as the set up and running of the Ditmars. So I was running between floors a bit. Big kudos to Kyla Ward and her fab design and DJs Sean Williams, Dave Cake and Marco Gascoigne.

Kyla wanted a white manniquin, which had to be wrestled to various places. Here is our program guru, panellist wrangler, Maxine McArthur and Co-chair Nicole Murphy getting it on with the body bits.

By the disco, the pressure was easing off as Sunday was a pretty easy slide to closing. I didn’t get a drink in the bar as it had closed on Saturday night but I did get to have some inebriated conversations with the hangers on. I didn’t get to a room party, but I was pretty happy to crash around quarter to two in the morning but had to be up again at seven to get ready for workshops. By this time my feet were numb to my knees and I’d only been eating breakfasts with one lunch over the four days. I hadn’t eaten dinner. Justin Ackroyd and Kaaron Warren sat with me at breakfast on Sunday and Justin mother-henned me about the food (nice man). He was going to have words with Matthew about not getting me to eat. Running the con is so much about adrenalin and running here and there that is very hard to sit down long enough to eat. Breakfast was where I was most relaxed. Except for Sunday where I was dogged tired and feeling queasy.

Sunday I had to get the mannequin out of my room so I asked Lily for help. We giggled alot pretending we were looking for somewhere to stash the body. Nobody is supposed to be sensible on a Sunday, fourth day of running a convention.

(sorry not a good shot. Lily was probably laughing.)

Craig Cormick our wonderful MC, did some amazing screen shots, which I nearly forgot to add. He did dress me up in some weird get up and embarrass the crap out of me and Nicole at the closing ceremony. It was a bit of fun. Nicole organised a collection for my birthday and the congoers gave me a voucher for an underbust corset! Wohoo! And they sang happy birthday. How lovely. I’m technical beyond the age for celebrating birthdays but you know I appreciated it.

So those screen shots. Craig is one funny guy and he went to a lot of work to engage the Conflux 9 mob.

This was just inspired. Hello guests. Look what the MC has done to you.

Then this is what he did to Nicole and me.

By the end of the day my feet were the big players in my life.

Sore feet snazzy shoes.

By then it was pack up time and I went to Realm’s Ostani Bar for afterparty drink ups where I got sozzled and as we went past the hotel we caught Marco, after he’d had dinner and there I proceeded to drunk talk him until he ran from the room. Actually he told me to go home!

There the Dweeb, the lovely Matthew Farrer put me to bed, but woke me up again to give me my birthday present.

A clockwork phoenix.

I can’t name every moment or capture the photos I didn’t take, but I hope those of you that came had a fab time. Thank you to Nicole too, for making this an enjoyable experience and for sharing the load.

Posted in Conflux 9, Science fiction conventions | 2 Comments »

The Conflux 9 countdown begins

April 12, 2013 by donnamareehanson

I have been shamefully absent. This means I have been absent from my blog and I’m shameful about it.

I have excuses though. Good ones!

I was up in the Torres Strait for work for nearly two weeks before Easter. It was beautiful and so very humid that I nearly expired with the heat. Once back, I’ve been on leave and I had an intensive manuscript writing workshop at uni and a test and I’ve been plodding along with my two masters’ subjects. Eek! So in the next four weeks, I have a national science fiction convention to run (with Nicole and the team), two uni assignments to complete and a writers’ retreat. Doesn’t sound like much when I put it like that but there’s heaps to do on all levels. Then it’s back to work to report writing.

As well as the above I had to revise and resubmit a manuscript to a publisher and hopefully I’ll hear back about that soon. I guess I have a new outlook on crazy busy. Oh yeah, I forgot. I’m making some new outfits for Conflux 9. A new Victorian bustle dress and a new Regency dress and last night I dreamed of making a cake. (I need to be sedated. Pronto!)

Last night I had my first Conflux inspired insomnia episode.

Conflux 9 is going to be great. There’s a great positive vibe, a good swag of people coming (over 200) and fantastic guests and panelists. We have cool events. And some creative people designing and managing the things like the Junkyard Cathedral Masquerade and the Ditmar Awards on Saturday.

I used to enjoy doing this stuff, but I realise that I don’t have the youth and vigour I did 9 years ago when I chaired the last Natcon in Canberra. Thank god I’m doing this gig with the powerhouse Nicole Murphy. She is awesome, brilliant and visionary. However, I shall be hanging up my con running hat after this. It’s time to truly concentrate on the writing. The best part about organising a convention and choosing the guests. We have fab guests, Marc Gascoigne from Angry Robot Books, Nalo Hopkinson, Jamacian/Canadian award winning author, Karen Miller, who is too prolific to list her titles, Kaaron Warren, a very talented and award winning horror writer and Rose Mitchell our Fan Guest of Honour. Rose has a long history with Conflux. I couldn’t name all the highlights and favs of this convention, but it is thrilling to be able to bring workshops and pitching opportunities to the writers among us. We have some top class panelists and some very cool topics to discuss.

Hopefully, after I put the house back in order after the carpet cleaning today. (so mundane! so necessary) I may blog again when my head is less full.

Cheers D

Posted in Conflux 9, General excitment, Masters of Creative Writing studies, Science fiction conventions | 1 Comment »

I’m part of an escapade!

February 13, 2013 by donnamareehanson

As you might have read, I was published by Escape Publishing in January. To date, Escape Publishing have signed up more than 30 authors so far, Australians and New Zealanders mostly. These writers are a creative bunch, some like the amazing Ainslie Paton, have amazing ideas and vision. These ideas are a bit like a virus you see and we’ve all caught it.

So I’m part of an escapade to write a group contemporary romance novel, which starts appearing tomorrow! Valentine’s Day. We all get to write 200 words. I’ve not seen an outline so this is extreme pantsing if you ask me. I have seen the opening. I have no idea what happens next and I have no idea what I’ll write until my turn comes up. What I’ve seen so far is pretty …well…hot and racy and extremely edgy.

Here is a little logo thing that Escape Publishing have put together. ( They are totally excited about this idea).

Here is a link to the Escapade blog. http://escapepublishingblog.wordpress.com/2013/02/12/an-escape-love-story-and-we-brought-friends/

Posted in escapade, Romance | 2 Comments »

The year is hotting up

January 30, 2013 by donnamareehanson

The first month of 2013 is almost over. Wow! That went quickly.

University starts next week. I’m doing two of the subjects that are the compulsory core subjects of my masters in creative writing. One is a manuscript writing unit and the other is cultural research. Looks like both are going to be online so easier on the petrol but intensive as far as time goes. I need to start planning and committing to the novel I will write for the course. I had two ideas and then I had another. It’s a toss up whether I should do the literary SF post-apocalyptic novel, set in Australia and examining feminist issues (Bearded Women), or the dark, SF novel featuring future societies take on incarceration (Prison Ship) or the new idea for a slip fantasy, darkish steampunk/romance ( Into the Dark Glass). I’ve got till next week to make up my mind, write a pitch and cough up some wordage. (votes here will be cool)

I’m back at work. I’ve whinged on Twitter/Facebook about being sick on 2 writing days in a row. Today I’m not sick. I had some errands to run but I did get up early and write (ooh over 2500 words-just checked) on new chapter. This new chapter was as a result of beta reader feedback. When I didn’t write it before I was in half a mind to, but thought I’ll leave in some suspense. My beta reader felt cheated!

Today, I went down to Queanbeyan and spent money. I came upon a hat themed calendar and bought it. When my eyes alighted on it, it jolted me a bit. I’ve enrolled in a millinery course but I haven’t had any correspondence from the technical college. So I had to add that into the mix, along with Conflux 9 and work! I really must put up the scheduler and fill it out.

I had an episode of aching hands over the new year period. It was intense and weird. I went to the physio late last week and she said my RSI is controlled and I don’t have to keep coming. However, we discussed my hands and I had to go to the doctor for further assessment. Blood tests and xrays. I’ve been a bit worried that it’s rheumatoid arthritis and then I tell myself it can’t be. That can’t happen to me! I know I have osteoarthritis but apparently it doesn’t have flare ups. I had aching hands about 6 weeks before that and I thought then it was the lack of vitamin D. However, I have been taking supplements religiously for 3 months now. So that’s two flares up in 3 months. I tell myself when I’m not obsessing that it might be a virus. I guess I’ll just have to wait for the results and then deal.

I am desperately trying to polish at least one of my MSs before next week and life starts dishing it up. I am looking forward to the second half of the year when I don’t have so much on. I might have World Fantasy Convention in my sights. I have tickets. I have the will. I might even have the time off. It’s the $$ that is preventing me at the moment.

Posted in Beta reading, RSI, Writing | Leave a Comment »

The launch party

January 22, 2013 by donnamareehanson

Finally I blog about the launch party to celebrate the launch of Rayessa and the Space Pirates, my first longer form publication. Technically according to Romance Writers of Australia I am still unpublished because Rayessa is only 30,000 words and you need to publish at least 40,000 words I think to qualify. So I’m chasing that goal right now. I also don’t want to be a one hit wonder!

So Saturday night was the launch party. In the lead up I caught a virus/cold/nausea bug that laid me out. Nicole Murphy was suggesting that I postpone it. I was close to deciding to do so. Friday I was still sick in the morning but I started to come right in the afternoon. I also had ideas that I could supervise cake baking and meatball making etc.

Friday night I baked the UFO cake (not decorated) and the base for Yumi’s princess doll cake. Then I flopped into bed.

Saturday well we were all at it. Erana, my daughter, Nicole came at 10 am and Matthew was here. Flat out we were painting props, cleaning, decorating etc. Lucky I had bought a few things in the lead up. I had black sheets to cover my retro eyepopping curtains, painted cardboard tubes, glowing stars, a plasma ball light, disco ball. I ducked out for a red police light etc.

I had to buy the food so I was at Aldi at 8.30 waiting for it to open. Erana and Yumi (6) made the meatballs.

Here are a few shots of the result. Remember this is a kitsch SF, dilapidated space station setting. We figured that Rayessa would have done up this sign and put it at the entrance.

Then there was the entry. There is a bit of a story about the red tape. I got this set of 5 coloured masking tape from KMart. I tested it on the floor and it didn’t leave a residue. (story continues later).

I’m not sure it translates that well, but after you walk through a black crepe fringe with star shaped lights, you walked in here. I thought it looked awesome. Matthew did a great job on it.

Nicole painted wall panels and made signs. This was in the hall. Basically it’s a very defunct refueling post.

Everyone was getting into it. Nicole made this for the wall. I thought it was very cool. Matthew started getting ideas and there were signs going up everywhere and new funky things being created.

This is a shot of the black sheets covering the curtains and a glimpse of a sign done by Matthew and the power generator created by Erana.

Here is a close up of the generator. We haven’t broken it down yet.

I had created things for the sample bag. I couldn’t get out to buy bags so Erana’s mother-in-law Wendy gave me some bags from her shop. Then Erana got the idea to put a design on them at the last minute. She did a great job. Inside was a small can of baked beans, a sample of hard tack (not as hard or as big as it should have been), a highlighter pen (my other daughter asked me why there was a pen shaped like a tampon in the bag), a little pack of smarties (protein pills), a glo stick bracelet, a space food stick (not shown), a Rayessa postcard, a welcome to Outpost 311 (like on Rayessa’s blog) and her Emergency Checklist.

Here are a couple of tubes. This may be arranged post party. I painted those and I thought it was fun. I had visions of doing movie props and then I tried painting something important and came back down to earth.

The food had a theme too. Asteroids, because Outpost 311 is in the asteroid belt, with a smattering of outpost possible food. I also wanted to cater for friends who were vegetarian, gluten intolerant or lactose intolerant as much as possible. I also didn’t want to go overboard.

So we had beef as well as chicken asteroids (meatballs gluten and lactose free), vegetable asteroids (jacket potatoes) and sweet asteroids (gluten and lactose free chocolate crackles)

We had mining shaft moss ( avocado dip), scum from the reclamation unit (a mustard aioli), spume from the air filter tanks (sour cream) and some other spicy salsas.

Then we had chili beans, green beans, brocolli and mineshaft fungus (mushrooms), lettuce leaves and tomatoes.

This actually was quite filling. And there was the UFO cake.

Drinks. This wasn’t my idea. I wanted to buy a punch bowl with little glasses, but Matthew said you have to serve the punch out of a bucket, one marked with the hazchem symbol.

So,

Alcohol was in the hazchem bucket (vodka, a cranberry juice, sparkling grape juice). It was purplish. The red bucket had a mango and apple juice with lemon sparkling mineral water. It was quite refreshing.

I had a great bunch of people over to help me celebrate the launch of the book. I’d been at this writing gig for 12 years. I didn’t think Rayessa would be the first thing I published, but there you go, you never know. I wasn’t planning on a ‘launch’ per se, rather a celebration. However, Nicole snuck in to my study and printed out an excerpt of the book and I read a bit. I had a lucky door prize, which was a Millennium Falcon USB memory stick with a copy of my book. However, the USB memory stick did not work. It was bust (I must speak to Think Geek), so I gave one of my Rayessa mugs away and emailed a copy of the book to Sharon Ding, the lucky winner. Nicole had also organised a pass the parcel. It was hilarious what she had people doing. The prize was a three foot long green tentacle. Bob Phillips won that but I think there was some angst because others coveted it.

I had a great time and caught up with some lovely friends. Some couldn’t make it at the last minute. So sad. A big thank you to Cat Sparks and Rob Hood who drove from Wollongong (2.5 hours away). You can see Cat’s photos here.

The party could not have happened without the dedication and hard work of Nicole Murphy, Erana Loftus and Matthew Farrer. Thank you all.

Because I was sick I didn’t get a chance to get a poster printed, but here is the cover again.