Donna Maree Hanson, Author, Phd in Creative Writing

I’ve been reading a bit with an editing eye recently and realise how important the dialogue can be in a story. Not just the dialogue in the first three chapters but the dialogue on page 110 and 315. That is, it is important all the way through.

There is no point in being lazy when writing and revising, saying to yourself that ‘It will do’ or the ‘meaning is clear’. Because if it is flat then it brings the story down. If the dialogue is just to pass the time then it is boring. Also, dialogue is not just about question and answer, it is meant to reveal something about the character. For example, their mood, their intellect, their truthfulness, their relationships. You must bring in their body language. Think of how much silence can say.
You might think that is odd, using silence in dialogue and even in the written word but it does work. I owe that tip to Cate Kennedy, an wonderful and talented Australian writer (contemporary literary). By silence I mean non answers and what is not said. I am filching from Cate here, but at the time she said she filched the example from a student of hers so here goes.

“We need to talk.”
“About what?”
“Us.”
“What us?”

With just this bit of dialogue you can see a lot from what is said and what is unsaid. I find it quite powerful. If only I could be so innovative in my dialogue. I keep striving for it though.

It’s been a good 20 years since I went to university, so it has been an interesting experience doing a post-graduate certificate in Professional Writing (Editing) and the University of Canberra. For me it has been like putting my toe in the water, seeing whether me and study mix.

The first subject was Introduction to Editing. No real choice here as there are only 4 subjects all told. I guess if I like the certificate I can try for the Graduate Diploma and then maybe a Masters. It really depends what I can get out of it and the cost, of course. Not cheap to do post graduate study.

The certificate will be useful for work. I write reports but also edit them. I could, in theory, help out with editing other reports when required. Mind you audit reports well they are not much fun and do take a lot to write and edit.

Next semester is Advanced Editing and requires a decent-sized editing project from start to finish. I’m still trying to figure out what I would like to do. I think I’d like to do fiction.

So this course has been interesting. Some parts were easy for me. I’ve edited a couple of collections, an anthology and a novel. I’ve laid out books, organised printing and launched them. So I have a bit of grounding in the industry and the course covered some of that. We covered substantive editing, copy editing and proofreading. We covered the various roles of the publishing team and freelance editing. We had editing exercises, some of which were challenging. Most of them were very interesting in that we had to think about what the text was to convey.

I found the major assignment tough. It was an editing project with a couple of written pieces such as the letter to the publisher with the approach and thoughts on the work to be done and a letter to the author as well as the mark up of the piece. The other exercise was developing a style guide. I chose Hammer and Bolter, the Black Library’s ezine. That was kind of cool and the class really responded well to the presentation.

Today we had the final exam. I thought it was reasonably tough, mostly because it was not what I was expecting. I had been swatting hyphens and correct words and grammar and there wasn’t any of that. I forgot to mention about the enforcement of the style guide in the answer to what is copy editing. Darn it. Very important thing to miss out, seeing half the learning was about that. I completed the test with some time to go over a few things and pick up more proofreading bits and reorganise the mark up on the major piece in the exam.

I think I passed the test. Of course I’m hoping I aced it but you know…I have to wait and see. My marks so far have been good. I do know that I have issues with proofreading. I lost marks in my assignments for stupid errors I made and didn’t pick up when I did my read through.

I’m free now to write, read, knit and veg in front of DVDs, well until next semester. Look out revision because here I come.

Reading is a very good way to learn the craft of writing, particularly if you notice something and analyse it. This is not always easy when you are enjoying yourself in reading a book. However, after awhile something jumps out at you as being quite nifty and it is worth the time to consider it.

This happened to me while reading Zoo City by Lauren Beukes. Okay so this book won the Arthur C Clarke award this year. It goes without saying that there is some good stuff in this novel and my example is only a very small part of it.

One particularly thing, which I will call technique or story craft, jumped out at me, probably because my partner, who is also a writer, suggested something similar to me in my rewrite/revision on my current MS.

Put simply, this is interweaving dialogue and action to vary delivery, convey other things other than just the words passing between the characters. If you think about it. It becomes rather tedious if all through your novel you have people nodding, sighing, standing up, pacing, sitting down…all real actions but very  mundane when piled up over the course of 100,000 words. When the characters are doing something else that can lift the dialogue out of its daily grind. I recall Valerie Parv giving some advice at a romance writing workshop. something along the lines of taking something ordinary, like a kiss or a marriage proposal and putting it somewhere different. A proposal at a restaurant is very run of the mill, make it the parking lot and straight away there is something interesting going on.

So I am going to relate the scene from Zoo City, which is a high end example of this feathering technique. This is because Beukes is doing a lot here with this scene.

The set up is that the main character Zinzi December has been tasked to find a teenager. She needs to talk to the twin brother, who being a teenager (and a pop star)  isn’t interested and is also playing a computer game. Seeing the situation as it is this is what she does:

“This is two player, right?”

“Yeah, but-”

“Killing aliens with S’bu Radebe. That’s profile gold. Credo will love it.”

‘They’re Cthul’mites actually.”

“Whatever. They all bleed the same.”

From the player screen, I select the huge black guy character with Mike Tyson tattoos on his face and whipblades mounted in his forearms. Nice to see game designers keeping up the stereotypes.

“You any good?” S’bu give me a sideways glance.

“Fucking terrible. It’s all you.”

“Oh great.”  But he cracks the slightest of smiles.

…..

Zinzi mentions she doesn’t want a beer because she doesn’t want to go into rehab in discussion with some of the other characters.

Then…

My health is dwindling, one point at a time. I’m down to 22 per cent. “So which rehab did you go to?”

“Listen, just ‘cos we’re both in recovery doesn’t make us best friends or nothing.”

“I did mine in prison. Involuntary.”

This is a cut up version of the actual text. Things are happening here on many levels. Beukes makes it interesting. It’s not just question answer. There’s action externally and internally. By playing a computer game with S’bu, Beukes is able to relate a lot of things about him. He’s not really interested in what is going on around him. He’s suspicious, distrusting and a typical teenager in many ways. The game playing, the game character’s health is signifying the amount of time she has to crack S’bu, to manage to strike a chord with him. As they play she dances around, taking the edges lightly. He’s fencing with her not engaging. His mates get some beer and her opening comes up. Just as she is running out of time/health she nails him. After this scene, he sits up takes notice, asks questions.

By feathering in the dialogue with the action, Beukes has been able to convey a deeply enriched scene.

Prior to reading this book, Matthew Farrer, my partner took a look at my prologue. He made a suggestion about feathering some thoughts into paragraph and how that might work. I was down on myself , thinking I’m not smart, I don’t think of these things myself. Now, particularly seeing it elsewhere, I recognise it for what it is: a technique, something clever you can do to craft your writing.

Here is my before and after example.

Before:

He smiled to himself as he tucked into his dinner of roast beef, crispy Yorkshire pudding and baked potatoes. His friend, Miss Blake, reportedly ran a very strict school. He had no doubt that all of Miss Hardcastle’s wayward ways would be curbed and that a nice marriageable young lady would be produced at the end of four years or so. He considered his role of guardian well and truly in hand as he sat by the hearth, sipping some very nice port and smoking a cheroot.

After:

He smiled to himself as he tucked into his roast beef. His friend, Miss Blake, ran a very strict school. He cut into the crispy Yorkshire pudding. All of Miss Hardcastle’s wayward habits would be curbed and a nice marriageable young lady would be produced at the end of four years or so. By the time he finished off the baked potato and soaked up the last of the gravy, he considered his role of guardian well in hand.

Here Matthew suggested the feathering the eating with the thinking. I also trimmed a bit. I think it works better. He cuts up and disposes of his meal, while he mentally cuts up and disposes of his ward.

I have since found some other scenes where I do this. I don’t want to over do it. So another little trick in the craft of writing.

I’ve been on a bit of retreat, trying to get that revision done. I told myself at first that I didn’t have a goal. Then I thought I would get half way through, which I did. However, that is just the first run through. Annoying as it seems I’m not done with it. I try to be one of those who write very close to final draft, but I find I am not. I don’t seem to be able to frame everything at the same time. For example, I’ll write an action scene and map it all out. I have to go back then to add the character, the thoughts, emotions etc. Checking the punctuation too often is done last. I put commas in and I pull them out. I rearrange sentences. Often  I find when I’m drafting I do the dialogue and I get so into it, they end up being talking heads so I have to go back and add the action, the scene etc.

This time I struggled with my frustration. I wanted to get it done and done right. Yet I had to own that I was really trying to rush things, being impatient, when what I needed was to take my time and consider what I am doing. This also leads to laziness. If it reads okay I’ll leave it alone. That’s just naughty I reckon. I’m so focused on making it to the end that I am not paying attention where I should. So I will plod along now and get things done in a focused, but considered manner. I go back to work tomorrow so I don’t have the luxury I had over the last week or so. This weekend is rather busy and I have to study for my editing exam.

My problem is that I love first drafts. I love being free to immerse myself in the story. Second and later drafts require thinking, hard work, perseverance, better writing and crafting of the story. So I wrote a story down but crafting it makes it better. It is making a scene edgier, scarier, grittier. Or it is making that dialogue sing rather than clunk, clever and elegant instead of a grunting mass of words.

Editing I find has processes like writing too. There’s the substantive or structural edit where things are moved around, re-sequenced to make the story flow, reorder it. Then there is the copy edit, fixing up the grammatical stuff, changing words, deleting things, fixing continuity errors. Finally, there is the proofread, which picks up everything (or tries to), making sure the sentences are complete and make sense, making sure all the editorial changes are correct, checking facts. For some proofreaders it takes a few run throughs to pick it all up. Myself, when I am working on a report, particularly the copy and proof stages, I will concentrate of different things on each run through such as headings, footnotes, then the tables and and the figures. When I think about it that way I don’t feel as bad about how many times I have to work on a draft. It sort of seems natural

So I should stop writing about it and get back to it.

Yesterday, as I mentioned we went off to the Hyatt to have high tea. Both Nicole (website) and I are partial to high tea. She outdid me by dressing up for the event.

The venue is rather classy. It is a buffet style affair, with little sandwiches, such as cucumber or smoked salmon and hot savories. The sweets were enough to boggle the eyes and overextend the stomach. I realise now that I should have taken a photo of the spread.

I like high tea in those individual tiered plates (again Nicole and I want to race out and buy one), but the buffet was wonderful. I have been thinking to host a shabby chic high-tea myself for some time. I’ve been buying Royal Albert teacups for the purpose (the chic), all mis-matched to make it shabby.

Matthew, Nicole, Erana (my daughter) and James (my son), went along together. The idea for the gig actually came from Matthew’s parents, who couldn’t make it. (we are going back next week for theirs).

Starting from 2.30 and at $35 per head, it is a lovely way to spend the afternoon. I have a few photos but some of the better ones are on my daughter’s camera.

It wasn’t crowded or anything and the adults were offered a glass of champagne, which was quite nice. We sat and sipped, chatting for a bit. Then I said to James to go to the buffet and start.

We all dug in and once we ordered our teas and coffees, the champagne glass was removed. I started with a finger sandwich of smoked salmon and Nicole put a cucumber one on my plate. Then I tried a egg/cucumber mayonnaise thing and tried a tomato/capsicum puff pastry and a vegetarian quiche. I think I went back for seconds but had just the egg/cucumber combo and another little quiche.

Then there was the sweets. On display were brightly-coloured macarons. I am very partial to those so I tried a green one, which was a bit disappointing. It had no flavour. James said I shouldn’t have had it because it was obviously all food colouring. Sigh. (the wisdom of youth).

I cut a slice of bread and butter pudding (warm) and poured custard and a dollop of cream on it. It was amazing. However, as much as I wanted to try the pavlova, the mudcake, the lemon meringue, the meringue with cream, the brownies and other stuff, I could not.

Here is a picture of the ceiling detail. I did not have the nerve to take a photo of the footman in their costumes.

Ceiling at the Hyatt Canberra (built 1924)

I ordered English Breakfast tea but was accidently given Earl Grey. However, they happily changed it and there was no marring of my enjoyment.

Me with tea

You see I forgot to stick my pinky out. Oh dear!

Here is a photo of Nicole and me with our bubbly! See how nicely dressed she is. Put me to shame for not getting into the spirit of things.

Nicole and me and bubbly

Matthew bought me a lovely gift ( a request)- a shiny red Ipad cover. Here’s me with James.

Me, James and pressie

Here is a picture of Nicole’s dessert plate. Not sure if that was her first or second helping…

No sign of weight watchers here

I don’t have a photo of me and Matthew yet. I have to wait for Erana to send me one of hers. Here is Erana and Nicole posing for another camera I think.

Nicole and Erana

The last photo for the moment is the awful group shot. All of us look slightly weird in it. Until I find a better…here goes.

An awful group shot.

Today’s the birthday…another year older when I really don’t want to count. I tried to sleep in, but grabbed my iphone and saw on Twitter  that the fabulous Lauren Beukes won the Arthur C Clarke award for her book Zoo City published by Angry Robot Books. How fantastic is that? Lauren is great. An excellent writer and a fantastic person. It blows my mind that she’s won. Cool. I have Zoo City in ebook format. I have now wrestled it onto my ipad for immediate reading. Then I went to the Angry Robot bookstore and bought more of their e-books. All this of course got me out of bed and onto the computer.

I ducked out thinking I was in a boot buying mood but found I wasn’t and came home. Then I thought I should do some writing…currently writing a fresh scene for Ruby Heart. Not struggling so much but I am generally fidgety for no reason. I think it is the birthday cranky, crazy mood swing stuff. We are heading out in a bit to the Hyatt in Canberra for high tea. I put a link here to the Canberra Hyatt as it is in a 1920s building and the footman where period clothing. Here

I think I’ll write more this evening as I’m officially still on mini writer retreat thingy  even though it is my birthday. (might sneak some champers later).

I am hoping to keep Ruby Heart under 100 000 words. It’s currently 90,000 odd. (How much easier are short novels compared to ones over 150,000?) I have decided to write short ones from now on. I think with what I have to cut and what I have to put in I’ll be able to manage it. I have to rewrite the ending, but I knew that the one I had didn’t cut it first time around.

Cheers

When I blogged yesterday, it made me think back to those 5 mss that I have been working on since I started writing back in November 2000. Technically, I wrote 700 words of a historical romance novel in May of that year, but was disgusted by my efforts. It doesn’t count. I started writing Relic in November, having a very strong image of, Leila, my lead character to get me going.

MS number one is Relic, a science fiction/fantasy with sex in it. I would probably die of embarrassment if I showed this to anyone now. However, it’s not quite in the toss out bin. Lucy Sussex advised me to keep it as the idea was good I wasn’t quite ready for the idea. So that is lined up for a full rewrite with some better ideas sometime in the future. I did start on a sequel to this as I had mapped out six books. However, I found it was more than I was ready for back then.

MS number two is Argenterra, a traditional fantasy, (Silverland Trilogy) which has a YA feel but I think is a bit too dark for YA. This has been revised many times. The beginning as recently as last year. I’ve had some good feedback on this…but I’m not sure how it will go in the wash. Currently, it is being considered by a publisher.

MS number three-The Crystal Gate, sequel to Argenterra, still in a draft form. I need to cut back on the beginning, from memory and re-sequence the ending. However, I’m pretty happy with it. I remember there was a strange turn of events in that story and it took me four months sitting on it before I could think it through. It worked out okay. I changed the ending I was planning and that led ideas for book three.

MS number Four-Dragon Wine, dark fantasy set in a post-apocalyptic world and a door stopper. This one got me a Varuna Fellowship and short listed for the Varuna MS development awards with HarperCollins. Current status: Rejected a few times: Some feedback from an agent saying it was too long and he hated the prologue. Also managed to talk to a couple of editors who had looked at it and basically it is next up for revision. Mission: to cut back on detail and get the story moving along at a better pace. I still think this is the best thing I’ve ever written in terms of scope and imagination.

Technically there is a novella in here-SF and YA. Can’t find a good name for it or a good home. Been rejected twice, mainstream and small press. Still, I have my thinking cap on. I really should resubmit it somewhere but that uses brain power and energy. It’s not going to get published sitting in my hard drive.

At a couple of retreats, I worked on Dragon’s Wane, (the sequel to Dragon Wine) but this is still a very rough draft of 160,000 words so I don’t call it a novel/MS yet because I haven’t gone through the agony of rewriting/revising. I really do have to find a new name for these creatures. Dragon give is such a cliche cast and it’s not cliche…need a new name for my monsters. I also worked on The Ungiven, the third one in the Silverland trilogy, but it’s not complete with only one character stream written. I got started on that because I had some interest in the first book then.

Oh and I forgot to mention my paranormal romance novel, which is at about 30,000 words so far. Don’t think I’ve looked at it this year though. I also started another fantasy novel, which I haven’t picked up for years…It was my first foray into dark fantasy.

MS number five-Ruby Heart, a Victorian gothic/steampunk romance meld.  Started this is January. This came out very quickly at 80,000 words at the retreat. I did a tidy up and sent it to 6 beta readers. One I probably won’t get feedback from at all. I’m about half way through the revision/rewrite/polish. I am hoping to send this out by end May to start the whole trying to get published thing yet again. Currently 90,000 words and half way through the revision.

I am hoping with this recent MS that most of my beginner writer’s quirk have been beaten out of me. I’ve written a few shorts over the years and quite a few last year . I find that this helps the prose because a short story needs to be lean. It’s a good discipline to learn. I do think writing short stories and novels are different things though, but there are cross over skills.

There are a talented few that write something great from the first time they try their hand. Some of us have to work hard to hone our meagre skills, driven on my the need to live in story, to create story, to get published. Whatever our dream is it is hard work. What have I learned in the ten or so years I have been practising?

Perseverance. Patience (I haven’t got this one worked out yet). Practice.

Since Wednesday 20th April I have been on leave as part of the Easter break. I have dedicated a lot of this time to writing. My partner, Matthew, is also taking time to write, although he has slightly longer than me. My planned leave was cut short because I have a work conference to go to next week. So he gets an extra week.

I have been working fairly steadily since Wednesday, navigating around various family/social activities. Wednesday was Ellen Datlow’s talk at the University of Canberra and then I stayed on there for my editing class, and did some writing when I got home. Thursday was spent with my mother, where I pushed a wheelchair around a lot. We were celebrating her birthday. On Friday, a bit more writing was to be had around a lunch for my daughter. Saturday I had my nieces around so we went to see Thor (excellent!) and more writing into the night. Although I must admit that I have been falling asleep rather early. Sunday I cooked Roast Pork but got a good day’s work in beforehand. Monday another good day and then today…well let’s say progress is occurring but slowly.

As I missed going to Swancon I wanted to make this writing stint count.

Recently, I have been reading novel submissions for a publisher. This experience as been invaluable, particularly when looking at my own work. This current MS, had the classic mistakes. Okay it was a draft. It is very young at just over 4 months old.

So what have I found and what have I done?

Firstly, the prologue was full of overblown language, trying to be too pretty and slowing things down. It’s got a Victorian era flavour. That’s derivative (I accept that). However, these days there’s not much point trying to write Victorian prose. Given the modern reader, I need the flavour, not an exact replica. So I thinned it out, getting rid of lots of lovely detail I didn’t need. One thing my editing course is teaching me is to look at something and ask what is the purpose of this, what is it trying to say? From a slush readers point of view: what is this author saying? Why do I want to read this further? Can I understand this? Is it relevant?

I did have an interesting twitter conversation about prologues. Particularly I wanted to ask about their purpose and whether people read them or not. I recall reading some in my younger days and not getting them at all. Last year, I read one annoying prologue and went on the read the book, which turned out to be excellent. Some prologues talk about things in the past. Some leave hints about what is to come. Some are the goings on of gods that the characters in the story are ignorant of. In this case, my prologue serves a dual purpose by introducing an event and creating a hook about what is to come.

So if you are reader who bypasses the  prologue then Chapter One is very important. As slush reader I don’t give up on chapter one if it’s not working, but it does set up my expectations. I had about 4 beta readers of my MS say that I got into my stride around Chapter Three or Four and then they couldn’t put it down. Eek! That’s no good. I need to be in my stride from Chapter One. I don’t think anyone will wait that long to get interested, unless they have been duly drugged or bribed.

So what was wrong with Chapter One? Too much back story, too much thinking, not enough forward movement, not enough action. My strength seems to be the dialogue so I needed to clip it down and shape it up. I did this, cutting heaps out, only to have Matthew tell me after I had cut it up that it had too much backstory/infodump. This was quite annoying. I was glad he hadn’t read the first cut. I realised he was quite right and took the plunge and cut the rest.(This had me worried so I checked a novel submission I have out there at a publisher and breathed a sigh of relief when I saw there was no back story at all in that. Phew! This does not mean they will buy the book, just that I didn’t have to feel silly about the submission.)

After cutting it up, I had the scenes flowing quite nicely, allowing me to get to the interesting bit and end the chapter on a high. Here is where some things I set up in the prologue started to gel, and I worked up the hook. What was interesting about Matthew’s feedback was that he felt more from a dialogue  scene than all my clever set up and why we were here stuff. This was encouraging and allowed me to trust myself and hack it out. You know, when you have your favourite sentence or paragraph and don’t want to let it go. When it is not doing what is it supposed to. That’s when you cut it!

The scene Chapter One ends on originally ended Chapter One in the first draft, but got shifted to Chapter Two in the tidy up I did before I sent it to beta readers. I was surprised how well it read without all my quirky character thoughts and observations on her past and the climax definitely belongs there.

Chapter Two required me to restructure the story and bring forward an event that was previously later on and entirely off stage. I had to drag it on stage, twine it around other events and add more hooks. This was true for Chapter Three too. However, the result was that it was much more edgy, clearly gave the flavour of the novel and the types of events unfolding as well as set up more tension and sense of danger. Some important feedback was that my otherworldly hints were so subtle that it could lead readers to think they were reading one thing and then get totally surprised by how it ends up. However, this feedback was split 50/50. I went with my gut feeling on this and upped the hints in the first section. I can trim them later when I finish and find it’s too much.

Then I started to get into the chapters that were flowing well and I tweaked, reread, tweaked more, cut bits, cut paragraphs. I am a bit worried I’ve been too easy on myself but there’s no point in dwelling on it. I needed to move forward. Lucky for me two of my readers were also editors so I had some mark up to help with some little things.

I had to write some new scenes and rearrange others both in these earlier chapters and later. An important point of view was added during the first draft, sort of like an afterthought. A lot of it told in flash back a lot later on the book. Common criticism from my beta readers was that it wasn’t working well. I needed more of him and I needed it to create tension and also balance my lead character. I think I’ve done this so far, but hey I’m only up to Chapter Nine and I have about Twenty all up.

I will be happy to get half way through by Sunday. Though I may get further along, depends. Tomorrow is editing class and I really do have to put in some hard work studying. I am back on deck at work, Friday 6 May, but not mired in work I think until 9 may. I’m hoping to get the bulk  of it done before then because work looks like it will be intense for the rest of the year.

Anyway what I’ve learned is:

• get the story going;
• feather the back story/information in little bits and preferably later;
• hook the reader as early as possible and keep them hooked;
• polish your prose;
• remember the punctuation: (I’m bad at this apparently!) and
• stay focused and keep going to the end.

Glenda Larke sent me this link. It is spot on.

Here

This might all sound obvious. It should be obvious to me. This would be my fifth novel-length MS. I was hoping I had learned something from those earlier works…I have a short memory obviously.

I’ve been busy of late. Lot’s of family stuff and work and uni too. (I’m doing an post grad cert in editing). My report gets tabled next week and I’m already on another project. No down time to organise my head but I did get some time yesterday to organise my office.

I didn’t realise how much the uni course would impact on my life. I haven’t entertained and I barely clean the house. I’m also renovating so I have more ideas for that than action going on. I’ve finished my assignments for uni so now all I have to do is catch up on the reading and ace the test in May (lol).

On the editing front I’ve been reading slush pile for a publishing house and I’m learning a lot. It is very interesting, challenging and time consuming. The pile seems endless. Perhaps I’ll blog about the experience later, when I have a hundred of so of them under my belt.

I have had good feedback so far on the Victorian romance/steam punk/gothic horror MS I wrote on retreat in January. Of course there are things I have to fix but overall it looks like the meld holds together. Whether I can sell it is another thing.

So Matthew and I have reserved some time over Easter to write, with a few additional days off. So starting next week end I’m not reading slush until May. (hence I’m trying to do a heap before then). I was going to work on Dragon Wine but looks like I’ll work on the January MS Ruby Heart instead. I’ve already thought up a sexy and then a scary ending as my beta readers have suggested. I knew the ending wasn’t cutting it. Then May and June will be busy work wise, but I will need to get into a routine. I’m pretty sure I will enroll for next semester Advanced Editing so gee that is going to be sucky. I will have to hang on to my writing day, which is now my study day.

I’m reading way too much, particularly Phryne Fisher novels by Kerry Greenwood. They are a good quick read too, which helps when I am busy.

I’ve read my galleys for Dead Red Heart and so the two anthologies (the other being More Scary Kisses) will launch at Swancon. I won’t be there unfortunately, so I better be productive instead, seeing I’m missing out on seeing my mate Glenda Larke.

The Autumn weather is lovely today and has been for most of the week. Maybe I should head out for a walk.

Mmmm

This is another anthology that took three attempts. Yes I am keen. A story setting that has been in my head for quite a number of years, finally found form with Beneath the Floating City. I join some great writers in Anywhere but Earth edited by Keith Stevenson, Coeur de Lion Publishing.

This is a cover mock up. Not exactly sure when it is coming out, but sometime this year.