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Rayessa and the Space Pirates

December 12, 2012 by donnamareehanson

So I believe since my editor has mentioned the title during her blog tour, I can now mention it here. Kate Cuthbert is doing a blog tour and the interviews are interesting. Somehow she manages to vary the content or the particular personality of the interviewer puts a different slant on things. Links the her interviews are available here. I particularly liked yesterday’s one with Novels on the Run here.

So my young adult novella, Rayessa and the Space Pirates, is going to be released January 10. Nicole Murphy and I are going to brainstorm on the weekend about how I can celebrate the occasion with my friends. As the story features space pirates and a Centauri slave market, I’m thinking of a themed party where people come as space pirates (with a funny name to go with it) or in a’ I dream of Jeanie’ type costume (or male equivalent). I will have to think up some punch to go with it. (As a bit of history I am renown locally for themed parties, such as the Bad Taste Movie night (no dress required), Daggy Zombie Party (dress in clothes you wouldn’t be caught dead in) and the time travel theme for my 50th.) I’ve been busy of late with work so I haven’t done anything themed for a bit.

Where was I? Rayessa and the Space Pirates. This story started as a short story for a local anthology from CSFG Publishing called, Elsewhere edited by Michael Barry. However, at the time it was the longest short story I’d ever written (early days back in 2003) and I was thinking about how to end it when the space pirates turned up. I thought to myself, well that’s not helpful and gave up on it as a short story. I kept writing though wanting to find out what happened next. I ended up with my first novella. I sent it to couple of beta readers, young people mostly but their parents read it. I got feedback on the title, which was Lost Heritage back then and prior to that Space Audit. One parent said it was soft porn (which was shocking because there is no sex-though that might have been the tentacle reference) and the other parent suggested that a character was a bit risque at the end (one of the walk ins). Another beta reader, lovely Chris Andrews, gave me feedback. The most important dealing with a side character Gris. His suggestion was very helpful and made my main character better rounded as a result. Then it sat in my hard drive for many years.

I submitted it to a science fiction anthology looking at novellas. The comment was I liked it but not right. ( I thought year right. Humouring me). I sent it to a big publishing house where it was sent to the children’s section. Nice comments but rejected. I sent it to a small publishing house, which after many, many months I got a standard rejection. That’s it. That’s all it took for me to lose heart.

Over on the Canberra Speculative Fiction Guild’s email list we’ve been discussing rejections and how many times people have been rejected before getting sold. I learned that I’m an utter wimp and that I give up way to easily and for many years words of encouragement were disregarded. I thought those editors were humouring me, just being nice. So for nine long years Rayessa and the Space Pirates didn’t get out much at all. My partner Matthew read it and liked it, but you know I didn’t believe him either. Most of my other friends haven’t read it. It was that deep in my hard drive.

There is a story here. Don’t give up. Don’t let negative self talk get in  your way. I did. I was my own worst enemy.

I wrote Rayessa and the Space Pirates as an adventure story. It was only at the Romance Writers of Australia Conference in August that I also saw that it had a romance arc. (so I have cognitive issues as well so bite me). It was Harlequin’s announcement of Escape, their new digital imprint, that made me go back and look at the things that I write. There’s romance everywhere.

Digital publishing-so Rayessa and the Space Pirates is going to be digitally published. You know, I hadn’t given that medium much thought either until (the conference) and talking to Nicole Murphy. I have read ebooks, of course, mostly Angry Robot titles but I hadn’t thought about it. It’s growing of course, but I understand for romance it is already big.

I get with the Escape Publishing’s vision of bringing more titles to readers, of taking risks because there certainly has been a contraction in the print market. I’m grateful Kate and Keran inspired me to submit something. For me, a novella, is a toe in the water. I have other stuff hiding in my hard drive and other more recent stuff looking for agent and that dream deal. Fingers crossed I’ll get more published in future. I like the versatility of the digital medium. Put an ereader on your Christmas list.

A Rayessa and the Space Pirates teaser? Rae has been living on asteroid refueling station with just Gris, a brain damaged fellow, as company. They eke out an existence selling scrap from the station and a small hydroponics bay. One day a ship comes in, bringing an auditor from Allearth Corp and Rae’s life becomes very complicated.

This story was so much fun to write. I love the characters and the jokes and I love the imaginary world of the future where humans are living out in the solar system and beyond. Yes, the hero is an auditor. Odd I know. But I’m an auditor so I guess it’s a bit of write what you know.

I don’t as yet have a cover. (You can’t imagine the anticipation I am experiencing right now waiting to see it) but when I do and when I’m allowed, I’ll be sharing that with you, whether you like it or not.

Posted in Annoying advice, Digital publishin, Romance Writers Australia Conference, Science Fiction Romance, Young adult | 8 Comments »

Dictation Software Breakthrough

December 4, 2012 by donnamareehanson

I’ve been meaning to post this for some time, but events got in the way.
I’ve done a couple of posts about dictation software and how I used it to save my arms, by dictating emails and blogs. I felt it wasn’t that easy to write fiction but okay for work stuff, particularly audit reports.

Well I was working on my novel a couple of months back and my hands hurt but I really wanted to keep writing. So in desperation I put on my headset and started dictating a scene and it worked and I did it. Just like that. I made the cognitive leap. I’m not saying I prefer it over using my hands to type, but that I could dictate a scene.

The way it works for me best is to stop after a couple of paragraphs and make corrections. My version of the software reads back what I said and that helps a lot. It will also read what I’ve written, which also helps with picking up small errors.  If I go too far (and I did) the play back function gets dodgy if you have edited the text. That is, it won’t play back and you have to work out what you were trying to say.

Basically, I dictated the last quarter of the novel and it was quick too. I could do 6000 in a day with no aching hands. I use my hands to edit, but that was okay.

Later, I found out that my aching hands wasn’t a resurgence of the RSI but low Vitamin D. It causes inflammatory type reactions in things like your hands and feet. Now I’ve been gulping down a double dose of Vitamin D, the aches are gone. (It had dropped to 39).

Dictating fiction is possible. I found dialogue the easiest and the program  didn’t mind me talking like my characters. I don’t like anyone being around while I write. I’m a bit self conscious about it. I’m the same with practicing presentations and readings.

However, to make it work, I have a souped up laptop with 8 Gb of RAM, a $300 headset (wireless) and the premium version of Dragon Naturally Speaking. All this combined helps make the program work better and reduce errors. I still have errors but not the same level of frustration I’d have if I wasn’t packing mean machinery. I also had lessons and trained the software.

Posted in Dictation software, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Blog interview with me

November 29, 2012 by donnamareehanson

So over on Nicole Murphy’s blog, I’m being interviewed about how I got a publishing deal as part of Nicole’s ‘The Call’ series.

The blog interview is here.

 

In other news, my son, Taamati, came over to take some author shots. He’s pretty busy at the moment but he has to do things to them, including cropping and colour correction etc. So I could only choose 3 author shots.

Here is one that didn’t take the shot. I like it because it is out there.

Me in my not author shot

Posted in General excitment, Interviews, Publication news | Leave a Comment »

Interview- Rebekah Turner

November 28, 2012 by donnamareehanson

I am very pleased to bring you this interview with Rebekah Turner, an exciting Brisbane writer on the scene with Harlequin’s new digital imprint, Escape Publishing. I was introduced to Rebekah at Genrecon, as a fellow author. (Yes, there is a gleeful squee in that) and I was looking forward to read her urban fantasy, Chaos Born.

Chaos Born is a good example of the difference between paranormal romance and urban fantasy. Love is not the central driver in this story. There’s some sexual attraction and some ‘pinch and tickle’ and a maybe a promise of a happy ever after in a later tome. This story is hard hitting, gritty and complete with a quirky female, kick-arse heroine with attitude. The heroine, Lora Blackgoat is flawed, funny and frankly in a lot of trouble. Rebekah takes the tropes and puts them through a mangler, then she twists them, smashes them into the pavement then slaps them onto her broad canvas.  She has goblins, elves, half-angels, witches and demons and she makes it work in this fantastical place.

I had trouble putting this book down. This book rocks and the production is good. Congratulations and well done to Rebekah.
You can get Chaos Born from the Escape Publishing website here. Or from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, ibooks and other retailers of digital books. It was on special but it is now $4.99.

Rebekah thank you for letting me interview you .

So tell us a bit about yourself.Chaos Born

I live in Brisbane with my husband, two kids and a psychotic Boston Terrier. In my past I’ve worked as a graphic designer in the corporate world. I now work part-time and spend rest of the week being a child-wrangler and house-witch.  

How long have you been writing for?

I started writing when I was young, maybe around primary school. I loved creating stories and usually had illustrations that accompanied the fantastic tales of magical horses and snarky dragons.

What kind of genres to you write?

I enjoy making things up, so all things paranormal interest me. I also like a tasty romance. My first big story was a bloated fantasy mess, called Bane of the Flamebird. I wrote it in high school in my lunch break. It was about a girl in high school (cough, cough) who gets transported to a magical fantasy land. Once there, she had to find some magic McGuffin to get back home.
When did you start writing Chaos Born?
I wrote Chaos in 2008, when doing Year of the Novel with Kim Wilkins. It was originally straight up fantasy, and written in third person. After it was finished, I let it rest while I tinkered on other stories. Then I gravitated back to the story, because I’d had a lot of fun creating the world and the characters, but knew the story wasn’t quite right. In particular, the protagonist, Lora Blackgoat, was flat and uninteresting. So I re-wrote the story from her point of view and she emerged as a cranky anti-heroine that I found hilarious to write.

Do you have other novels in progress or is Chaos Born you first? (If you have others tell us a bit about those).

Other than a few short stories and book 2 in The Chronicles of Applecross series, I’ve been working on a sexy paranormal romance. The working title is Biker Werewolves in Tasmania and involves an ex-homicide detective who comes to her home town to recuperate after job burn-out, and a disgraced werewolf pack enforcer.

The Weald is a very fantastic place, with creatures from legend, steampunk, magic, half-angels and religion all blended in. Was this how it started out for you or did you end up with that mix?

The world evolved as I edited the story, but the creatures from legend and the religious aspect were always there. I used a few techniques I found online to flesh the world out more and did up a kind of scrapbook to help visualise what Harken City looked like. I wanted the city to be fantastic, but in a realistic sense.

Lora is such a likable but flawed character. She sounded fun to write? How long and how hard was it to get her just so?
Lora took a while to develop. I knew the type of anti-heroine I wanted, but she was difficult to get a handle on at first. The male characters came easier to me, while Lora read very flat. But I persevered and finally her voice came through after I re-wrote the story from her POV.

Her circumstances are quite out of the ordinary even for an urban type fantasy or even fantasy. She was adopted by a Satyr and an elf witch. I’m sorry to ask this question but how do you think that shit up?

Not sure. Though I didn’t have a television set when I was a kid, and had no brothers or sisters until I was seven years old. So I read. A lot. I used to wake up at 4 am so I could read more. I was also a huge C.S. Lewis and Robert Jordan fan-girl.

So how many goes did it take for Chaos Born to get accepted?
I submitted Chaos Born to publishers and agents when they had their doors open. Took about a year of rejections until it was accepted for publication by Escape Publishing, which was VERY exciting.

How did you manage to get through the disappointments? Did you have mentors and support groups to keep your spirits high?
I’m a member of a writing group called Sisters of the Pen and their support was fantastic. Chaos Born was a finalist in the 2010 Hachette/Queensland Writers Centre Manuscript Development Program. While Hachette didn’t pick Chaos up for publication, it was validation that I had a good story. The constant rejections were depressing, but I always managed to bounce back.

Where did you hear about the opportunity with Escape Publishing?

At the 2012 Romance Writers Convention at the Gold Coast. A panel of publishers pitched to the conference on why writers should submit their manuscripts to them. After hearing the Escape editor say they had a two week response time, I jumped at the chance to submit.

How did it feel to have Escape Publishing accept the MS?

Pretty awesome. It happened very fast and took a long time to sink in.
I believe you are working on a sequel? Can you give us any hints (without spoiling Chaos Born?)
The second story revolves around Lora killing a crazed griorwolf in self-defense. His grieving mother hires Lora to find out what happened to her son to turn him into a killer. Lora’s investigations put her into the crosshairs of the violent Reaper Street Gang and a corrupt city official with a taste for blood sport. Lora’s relationship with Roman deepens, and Seth, alarmed at the deepening affection between the two, redoubles his efforts to win Lora.

Thank you Rebekah for taking the time to be interviewed. I just hope you know that you interrupted my writing today ( on my writing day) because I had to finish the book. Now I have to hang out for the next one. I know you won’t mind, Rebekah, if I say I have a girl crush on Lora.

Here is a shot of Kate Cuthbert and Rebekah resting their feet after a hard day during the launch of Harlequin Escape in Sydney on 14  November.

Kate Cuthbert and Rebekah Turner

Posted in Interviews, Steampunk, Urban fantasy | 3 Comments »

Genrecon

November 25, 2012 by donnamareehanson

Sorry this is a bit overdue. Genrecon was at the beginning of November and now it is nearly the end of November. It’s really scary how I seem to be on a roller coaster heading smack into Christmas. My head is still firmly in fiction writing land and I picked up the paranormal romance I started in New Zealand and it’s like I’m obsessed. I want to find out how it ends. I have the outline I wrote on the way back from the Romance Writers of Australia conference, but I’m quite ready to toss it as the characters have taken off. I think perhaps I had too much plot but we’ll see.

Now back to Genrecon. What an amazing convention that turned out to be. It was a convention aimed at developing writers from crime, romance, speculative fiction, including horror writers, held in Parramatta. I’m not sure how many people were there. I’d say around 200.

We were late for the opening cocktail party as we had to drive up from Canberra after work. It was still going strong by the time we arrived. Matthew took refuge in our suite and I headed for the bar. Two panels sessions started, which I didn’t realise until I was ensconced in the bar. I caught up with people I new from SF cons, Jason Nahrung, Peter Ball , Chris McMahon, Jodi Cleghorn and others.

Breakfast was included in our room rate and when we went down, we found out it was combined with the conrate as well. (I’d booked too late to get the con rate so I got a priority awards rate instead). So the restaurant contained plenty of people we knew. Jane Virgo, Chris Andrews, Nicky Strickland and Damien Cavalchini.

My memory is a little frayed after a few weeks had passed. I remember it all worked really well. The mixture of genre writers created a new kind of tribe. Many were new to cons and others not. I caught up with Jodi Cleghorn, Abigail (@BothersomeWords) and met new people, such as the lovely Rebekah Turner @RbkhTurner, whose debut urban fantasy was released by Escape Publishing last week. To get the book ready for launch both Escape Publishing and the authors worked hard. Rebekah told me on her very quick turn around on edits and proofs. Her cover looks amazing. I met up with Kate Cuthbert (who I can now say is my publisher), Alex Adsett wonder person who gives advice on publishing contracts and is now an agent and I scored at pitching session with Ginger Clark, editor from Curtis & Brown NY.

I introduced myself to Dan O’Malley at breakfast. I’d written to him about Conflux 8 and 9 and I was hoping he would honour us with his presence. He was really nice and very popular as a panellist and the spontaneous kiss (Kate Eltham) during the debate knocked everyone’s socks off. If you caught the twitter feed people were saying he was pure gold.

At lunch I caught up with people. Here is a shot of Alan Baxter and Andrew McKeirnan.

Alan Baxter and Andrew McKeirnan

 

And Jodi Cleghorn and Alan Baxter

Jodi Cleghorn and Alan Baxter

There were three streams of panels during the day with main sessions combining all rooms. Genrecon had a lovely format for community partners to talk about what they  had to offer, Sisters in Crime, Australian Horror Writers Association, Romance Writers Association and Conflux. We all had 15 minutes to strut our stuff. The Conflux session was on Saturday afternoon and we had a prize draw. A stack of books, which I put together from our authors and from Angry Robot. That went off like a charm because the first person drawn preferred books to a membership. And luckily the second name was Amanda Bridgeman, who is a writer coming out with Momentum next year, won a membership. She was waiting in the wings to talk to me about coming along and wouldn’t you know she won a prize.

Later I had a pitch session with Ginger Clark. She was awesome but threw me a bit by telling me to sending her 50 pages and I’d only been there a minute. So I chatted to her about the Air NZ Hobbit themed safety video and blah, blah until the hook came to drag me off stage.

I went to the Pistols and Parasols banquet. I went to NZ so had to rush my bustle dress but I was pleased with the result. I also had a very pretty parasol. See picture that Matthew took below. I totally wanted to do ‘bustle punk’.

Me in my bustle dress

The food at the banquet was very good. The entertainment was awesome. First up Kim Wilkins, who was the MC, interview Kate Cuthbert about Harlequin’s new digital imprint Escape. Kate is awesome. She is an editor who likes to dress up!

Here is a shot of Kate Cuthbert and author Daniel O’Malley

Daniel (Fez) O’Malley and Kate (Cut throat) Cuthbert.

A shot of Alex Adsett and Dan O’Malley. Life is pretty awesome when even agents like dressing up.

Alex Adsett and Daniel O’Malley

Then Sarah Wendell from Smart Bitches, Trashy Books did an amazing talk including a cover snark of how Australia is depicted in US romance books. Absolutely awesome.

As I was leaving the banquet, I had to admire this dress. The lovely lady works for the Queensland Writers’ Centre and I think her name is Aimee (correct me if I’m wrong).

Aimee in her Edwardian gown

What was amazing about the gown, as well as looking fab, was that Aimee saw the dress in 1915 magazine and drew the pattern herself and then made it. How talented and patient. She said it took a month for her to get the pattern drawn well.

 

Here is a shot of Chris McMahon and one of Chris Andrews and Matthew Farrer (my Dweeb!).

Chris McMahon, author

 

Chris Andrews and Matthew Farrer both from Canberra

After the banquet we were moved on to the bar, except the normal people, (people from Rosehill Racecouse) were still occupying the bar. Apparently, it gets nasty and there are security guards etc. We had a letter and a pass delivered to our rooms in the morning to advise if we left the hotel we’d need a pass to get back in, because they tried to keep people out. It was very educational watching the drunk normal people behave very oddly. Eventually we got back in the bar.

While we waited I caught up with Cat Sparks.

Me and Cat Sparks

And I got to meet author, Charlotte Nash, who wore this Firefly inspired number.

Charlotte Nash

Matthew and I had to duck out because our room deal came with wine and a chocolate fondue. So we ducked up to our room and then I went back to the bar.

I snaffled a shot (a selfie) of me and Rose from @Fangbooks in the bar.

Rosie and me

Sunday it was one of the nerve wracking things were there were three panels I wanted to go to but could only get to one. I went to Sarah Wendell’s one about social media and blogs and marketing. I also went to a session on planning your writing career and copyright and contracts, which was a double header with Alex Adsett and Peter Ball. I haven’t written my plan yet but I’m onto it. Joe Abercrombie was interesting to listen to. I totally lost my smooze mojo when I spoke to him. I happened to mention that his first novel had very little romance. Things sort of dived from there and he choofed off quick and proper.

So overall a great atmosphere. It was totally catered, which I didn’t realise and I had bitched about the price so felt a tad stupid, particularly when Peter Ball told me it was all over the registration page. You don’t get that with cons normally and I wish we had enough $$$ to do at least one meal at Conflux 9. Conflux 8 did a lunch on the Saturday and it went down so well.

So thank you Genrecon for a great time. I totally enjoyed myself and thought it was very well done. The hotel was fab and the logistics of opening and shutting concertina doors was spot on. If I’m in Australia during the next one, I’ll be there. The next Genrecon will be held in Brisbane, backed once again by theQueensland Writer’s Centre and the Australian Writers’ Marketplace. Genecon you rocked.

 

Posted in General excitment, Genrecon, Steampunk, Writer conventions | 9 Comments »

Edits

November 23, 2012 by donnamareehanson

I received my edits for my YA space opera novella on Tuesday night. I had a stinking headache so couldn’t even glance at them. Wednesday being my writing day, I flexed by fingers in the morning and charged right in. I read the document through first to get a feel for what I was up against and I was pleasantly surprised.

I’m happy to say the edits were rather light. There was no taking out Australian idioms. Apparently I over used ellipses in this particular piece. I don’t normally over use them so I was surprised. I had to cut up a few chapters to make them similar lengths to the rest, which included new chapter titles and dovetailing the ends and the beginnings of those. Some very minor tweakage and I was done.

It’s short, 30,000 words so I finished the edits in the day. However, I printed it out to have a read over, which I did last night.

I do feel pressured so lucky for me my first time was only 30,000 words. I will probably freak when I get edits for a larger work.

The edits came in track changes, which I really hate mostly because of the RSI. However, I had something up my sleeve and also made the edits go rather quickly. My dictation software has a macro so that all I have to do is highlight the correction with the cursor and say
‘Accept change’ or ‘Reject change’. However, in my case I had just to say ‘Accept change’.

So last night, I emailed them off.
Time to go to work now.

Posted in Edits, General excitment, Science Fiction Romance, Young adult | Leave a Comment »

Delayed Conflux 8 post

November 18, 2012 by donnamareehanson

This blog post is also delayed. No excuses this time.

This will be a short post because I hung out in the dealers’ room promoting Conflux 9 (the 52nd Australian National Science Fiction Convention) in April next year. Link here. So I didn’t get to many panels (1.5 I think) so I can’t rave about how fantastic they were.

What I can report is that it went off swimmingly. The atmosphere was lovely and supportive and there were more people that I thought were coming.

I’d been helping out with payments in the lead up to Conflux 8, but the sheer luck of having the eftpos machine. The workshops were selling like hotcakes and so were memberships. So by helping out a little bit, I got an invite to the night before dinner with the committee and guests. We went to Sammys and that was awesome.

I met Tor Roxburgh at dinner, and she was great to talk to. She had been previously published in the young adult area many years ago. Took a break from writing and is now writing fantasy. Apparently, her agent doesn’t do fantasy so she went down the self-publishing route. I was very pleased to make Tor’s acquaintance. I got to say a quick hello to Keri Arthur, Traci O’Hara, Kaaron Warren and Dawn Meredith.

The interesting thing about Conflux 8 was that there was a lunch on the Saturday, included in the cost of the membership. It was a great idea and there was plenty of food and the theme was 1950s. There was a prize for the best 1950s get up and the best Hawaiian shirt. So all day I wore my lovely 50s dress and I’d made a little fascinator/hat thing with a veil. I don’t have a photo. Pooh! If someone has a shot, please let me know.

Kaaron Warren and I were the only ones to dress up. We tied for the prize. She wore her amazing pineapple dress she bought in a market in Nadi, Fiji. I was there. I saw her. She was very clever and told a story about the dress. Me…nah my head was empty.

At lunch I got to sit with Ingrid Jonach, who is soon to be published with Strange Chemistry. We had a long chat about her book, about books and about the convention. Fab Oh!

In the dealers’ room I had been tasked with supervising the decoration of Dalek cookies. This was fun and wiled away the time a bit. I got to mix with people. Pressure them into decorating cookies!

Here are some shots.

There is Yaritji in the purple scarf having a go at decorating the cookies.

 

One of the decorated cookies

I even have a shot with Nicole, who had the munchies, I think.

Nicole Murphy with her fire spitting cookie

 

Even the big Keith Stevenson got into the dalek action.

Keith Stevenson with the icing in his hand

On Saturday night I went to the book launches. I dressed in my jeans and t-shirt by then. I think there were five books launched, Craig Cormick’s, Greg Mellor, Jodi Cleghorn’s anthology, Gillian Polack’s and Tor Roxburgh. (I don’t think I left anyone out). That was a hoot. Jack Dann worked hard launching those books.

I got to hang with Keri Arthur, Janeen Webb and Kaaron Warren at the launch. Then we nicked down the pub for steak and chips.

Let’s see if this works.  Photo by Cat Sparx here.

Sunday I was in my Victorian gear to promote Conflux 9 and my ol’ time fav event, the steam punk themed high tea. This time Cat Sparks did manage to get a shot of me in it. I was wearing my new hat.

Let me see if I can link to Cat’s photo of me. Here.

I talked to people, got a few people to sign up to the high tea, chatting with KJ Taylor (as she was author in residence) and she talked to me about her latest idea and read a bit from her notebook. It was a fantastic idea and I can’t wait to read that one. I also caught up with Adam Browne, who also launched a book.

My steampunk themed cake was on display all weekend. It was getting photos taken.

Here is one or two here.

This is Katie Taylor checking whether her pocket watch matches the time on the cake.

Katy Taylor with the steampunk cake

 

I caught up with Keri Arthur and Cora Wright for lunch. We also dead dogged together. Keri is a very generous person. She shares her experience and gives advice and encouragement.

Here is a close up of my cake.

The cake

I managed to get into a panel session on indie publishing. Keri Arthur talked about her hybrid model. She is traditionally published but is also going to self-publish through her agent. The other panel I half got to was the one on point of view, but I got pulled out to attend to closing ceremony business.

At the closing ceremony there was more Jack Dann excellent shtick and Jack auctioned of my steampunk cake. I was hoping to raise some money for Conflux 9 and not bring the cake home to eat. Anyway, the lovely and excellent, Craig Cormick bought the cake for $100 on the condition that all the members of the con ate it. (Craig can’t eat cake himself) so it was cut up etc. Bloody amazing man. I hope we can lure Craig to more conventions because he is good value and way to clever and talented.

So that was my convention. I caught up with friends, Kimberley Gaal, Nicole Murphy (ok she lives up the road). Actually I spilled my tea all over her. Oops!

Here is a great shot of Kimberley in a hat borrowed from Lewis Morley.

Now for those photos from Cat Sparx try here.

Kimberley Gaal

 

 

Posted in Cake, Science fiction conventions, Steampunk | Leave a Comment »

The glitz, the glamour, the keys to escape

November 15, 2012 by donnamareehanson

Yesterday I was tweeting about a gig I had in Sydney. I wasn’t too sure what I was allowed to say because I’d been told it was all under wraps. However, I soon let it slip that I was at the Harlequin Escape launch (Twitter# goescape).

I thought people might think it was my amazing smooze power that had secured me an invite. But alas, I was invited because I am one of the authors. (to clarify not the goddess like debut imprint authors). My day will come in January some time. I realised I was allowed to say stuff when Pollina, the Harlequin Escape twitterer, tweeted a shot of me as the new young adult author. Then the questions rolled in.

So I drove up from Canberra and back again yesterday. It was worth the whole six hours in the car and the 2 am home time. What an amazing thing that launch was and what an amazing amount of author love (for the imprint’s debut authors!). Alas I am not one of the imprints debut authors but never mind because I don’t.

So the tweets came early in the day about hair getting done and a white limousine to show the four authors the highlights of Sydney and cosy chat with Harlequin staff. I was thinking  wow, this is some launch build up.

I invited my youngest daughter to the launch cocktail party. On arrival we had a photo taken on (maybe red carpet) and then we went into to get our name tags. I was listed under author, which threw me a little bit. Then we chose a key. The picture below is the Key(s) and the lovely invite I received.

There were four cocktails through the night all named after the books, plus wine, beer etc and stacks of people. I had met two of the authors launching their titles so I went over to meet them and congratulate them etc.

I met straight up, the lovely Jane who asked me what my title was. She was like “Hey, I’m going to illustrate that one next. I really want to read it too. And can you give me some ideas for the cover?” It was great, wow.

Then there was food. Oodles of food. The food was still going at 9.30 when I left (it started at 6.30).

I met Rosie from @Fangbooks and Abigail @Bothersomewords. I also met other editors.

Rosie from @ Fangbooks and me

Abigail from @Bothersomewords and me

My daughter took photos and found people to talk to, like Nina who has a book coming out the same month as me. It is a medical romance and my daughter works in a hospital. They hit it off!

Pollina and I slurping cocktails. #goescape twitter stream

My daughter made me pose for this pensive shot. I’m impressed she got the Harbor Bridge in there.

Erana’s shot of me being pensive.

Here is one of me in my lovely dress. (I  love this dress and the shoes). Shot taken by Pollina Harlequin Escape.

Me in my party dress! Photo by Pollina, Harlequin Escape

The big announcement moment came. The MD, Michelle LaForest, gave a great talk on what the Harlequin were trying to do with Escape. Also that answers were within 2 weeks and if accepted published in 3 months. A lot of work and corporate ingenuity was behind this imprint. After speaking to the staff, they are all in there working hard and getting it done. Awesome bunch of people.

So remember that photo with the keys above? Well the shiny one is actually a USB with the four books being launch on it available for free. ( I believe you get to download tem for free). Anyhoo what a clever idea! Who thinks up this stuff. Wow!

The other key, it was revealed, was for the Treasure Chest. I’m not sure exactly what was in there. My key didn’t fit. My daughter didn’t either but she said the girl behind her had her key fit. Part of the prize was a $200 voucher for Red Balloon and the surprise was an Iphone 5. Wow. Impressive.

The photographer wandered around snapping shots of people. I got a quick word with Kate Cuthbert (my editor/publisher). Here is a shot of her with Rebekah Turner. They had tired feet.

Kate Cuthbert and Rebekah Turner

My tired feet encased in pretty shoes.

For me it was great to see such pizzaz and marketing might behind this new imprint and also the innovative approach to selling the product. It was also great to speak to people who were excited about what I wrote. That just encourages me to send them more.

I managed to get a shot of my daughter in the lift as we were leaving. She said I was to invite her to the next cocktail party.

My daughter

And one final word, Harlequin Australian and Harlequin Escape are bringing Australian voices to international markets. Escape titles will be available in all the big stores, like Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Ibooks etc. All DRM free. As well as direct from http://www.escapepublishing.com.au. Link is here.

Posted in Harlequin Escape Imprint Launch, Publication news | 4 Comments »

Donna’s Breaking News!

November 15, 2012 by donnamareehanson

A while ago, I tweeted about receiving cry worthy happy news. Now I can talk about that news. I submitted a science fiction, young adult, romance novella to Harlequin Escape, a very new digital publisher, and it was accepted. Indeed, I did cry. I think it was from shock because I was in the car park at Queanbeyan and saw an email come in on my iphone. I thought I’ll read that rejection in the car. I thought there would be comments. As I sat in the car and scrolled through the message, I did a double take because it was an acceptance. So yes I cried a little bit in the car and rang Matthew to tell him the news. He brought me home lovely flowers. I might have a picture of these. Here it is. My first flowers from Matthew and they were lovely.

A congratulatory gift

I understand my title is due out in January. I can’t say what the title is because it is not official yet. I want to thank Romance Writers of Australia for it was their annual conference in August where I heard about this opportunity. I want to thank Harlequin for really going out there and taking risks with cross-genre works. I also want to that Nicole Murphy for basically twisting my arm to go to RWA Aus in August. I have been writing like a mad person ever since (I am that inspired). My house has not been cleaned properly since as a result. Long live the dust mites!

The next post will be about the fantastic, awesome and stunning launch of Harlequin Escape last night. I need to cook dinner first.

Posted in Sales, Science Fiction Romance, Submissions, Young adult | 6 Comments »

Still here

November 12, 2012 by donnamareehanson

I’m sorry my absence from the blog has been pronounced. I had my Conflux 8 post drafted but had to dash off to New Zealand for 9 days. I’ve been back for a bit but have been hard at it, writing, revising and stuff. I also popped up to Sydney for Genrecon, which was awesome. I’ll have a post and a few photos from that too. As I’ve been away for 3 weekends in a row I had a stay at home kind of weekend. I even planted some tomatoes. Even though I did not achieve the awesome house cleanliness goal I was aiming for, I am well satisfied with my domesticity this weekend.

Uni finishes this week. All I have left to do is listen to a lecture and submit my portfolio and then I’m done with Writing for Young People, which I really enjoyed.

I’m starting a new project at work, always fun. I hope to catch up with my blogs shortly.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

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