Donna Maree Hanson, Author, Phd in Creative Writing

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.

I also have a story in Russell B Farr’s latest anthology, Dead Red Heart. This is being launched during Swancon in Perth in April. So sorry I won’t be there. I am very happy to be in this anthology. Russell comes up with some interesting ideas for anthologies and I’m so happy when I can come up with something that works for it.

My story, The Life Stealer, appears within. I am with some very distinguished company. So looking forward to reading it myself.

You can purchase a copy of the anthology at Indie Online, Amazon and Book Depository.

It took three attempts to get into this anthology.

My paranormal romance story, Phantom Lover, appears in it. Unfortunately I’ll miss the launch at Swancon in April in Perth. House renovations have sucked up all my money. I’ll be writing instead.

Here is Ticonderoga’s website

Books can be ordered from Indie Online and Amazon.

I realised today that I haven’t updated this blog since January and that is very naughty of me. I have no real excuse, except I’ve been writing and also caught in the river of my life.

I revised the manuscript I drafted at the writers’ retreat in January. It feels very weird to have something almost fit to read in less that 8 weeks. The MS, tentatively titled, The Ruby Heart, is out with beta readers at the moment. I think the story is a meld of Victorian romance, steam punk and gothic horror. I will get an idea from my readers if it works together or not. I’ll have to be patient to find out. It is now almost 87,000 words. I’m hoping for about 90,000 as the final count.

I have drafted a short story,which needs to be edited and then sent off. I have had a few short story rejections, though nice rejections.

I have a couple of stories coming out and will blog the covers etc.

My other excuse for not blogging. Work–I’ve been busy. Study–I have commenced a graduate certificate in Professional Writing (editing), which means writing days are now study days and I have assignments and nasty text books to read.
I’m also slush reading at the moment, which is great fun and so interesting and instructive. It goes nicely with the study at the moment. I am currently studying Introduction to Editing.

I am also beta reading an MS for someone else. If I did not have a headache today I would have finished it off. It is a ripping read and I think I’m almost done.

I have been reading books to but at present. I have almost finished the collection of Victorian Vampire tales and I also have my nose into the Return of Sherlock Holmes.

I have been back from Oberon and the writers retreat since Tuesday. We blogged over at our shared retreat blog. Here or http://fantasywritersonretreat.wordpress.com

Since then to tell you the truth I’ve not done much writing and not because I am resting on my laurels or my arse (actually I am currently sitting on my arse). I did spend all of Wednesday on my computer reading emails, dealing with stuff, revising a story and submitting it and then submitting a few others. Then Thursday I was back at work. I had a great day, not particularly for work reasons. On Christmas Day my hot water service went. It was difficult to get it fixed between Christmas and New Year and then I went away. Amazingly (and thank you ACTEW AGL) but I got a quote on Wednesday, payment plan approved Thursday morning and gas boosted solar hotwater installed in less than 24 hours from quote. Bloody fantastic. I thought I had to wait weeks. I also went to get aircon but didn’t have enough credit to put a deposit on it. I needed a third and I had slightly less.

So come Friday. Not a good day. I’m not feeling crash hot. And well something I am working on at work well I can’t say, but I’d like to. Friday is hot. I feel tired and ick and have strange pains in arms, knees and ankles. I start reading Prosper Burns by Dan Abnett, which Matthew bought and gave me. It is a Warhammer 40K novel in the Horus Heresy. Yes well I’m not usually a reader or a fan. I loved The Thousand Sons by Graham McNeil. Abnett though writes so bloody well that I’m hooked, I’m learning what good writing is and bloody hell the story is good too. Saturday was much of the same, hot, feeling blah. I surrounded myself that evening with a G&T, iphone, ipad, Kobo, Prospero Burns and a book on Regency and Victorian England which is research for my new novel, which I wrote on the retreat. I read it from cover to cover so I guess I was sort of working.

Sunday begins. It looks promising. My daughter texts me at 7.00am saying she wants to come over. she turns up at 10.00 and we watch The Last Airbender, which I enjoyed. I loved the magic system in it. I know it didn’t get a good rap by critics etc but I liked it. I thought then I was able to come to the computer and write. I open the manuscript. I look at the words and my head starts to pound. Eek! So basically I spend the day with my daughter and little Yumi. I’m fairly knackered now.

Anyway I have been reflecting on retreats and why they work for me. Writing dates also work. When I have something to write, I can be quite productive. I think I can write around 1500 words in an hour. I’ve done this at lunch times at work so I know. Also I have timed myself. The issues is having something to write and the time to write it at the same time. Usually at home there are things like work, cleaning, cooking, invites to watch dvds, procrastination, avoidance, naps, walks, washing, sunshine, going out, cups of coffee, conversations, friends visiting, wine drinking etc.

How does this change on a retreat? I think there are a few things at play. For certain I could go to a retreat and do nothing. That’s a choice. Mind you I’d be bored shitless. Mostly I think for me it is giving myself permission to write and minimise the distractions. So I’m not in my own home so I don’t have the usual avoidance things going on. I’m usually sitting at a table with other people writing so that inspires me. So with a word production of 1500 per hour then getting to 6000 words in a day is not that hard. I can go for a walk and start at ten. I can take a break at lunch, chat, shoot pool, walk around and then I can come back again and keep writing. I can take a nap, too, if I want. I think one day I was so involved with a scene I accidentally wrote 9000 words so I went back in the evening and added another 1000 just filling in bits around the talking head dialogue. Of course one day Nicole did 12700 so well poo to 10,000 word days!

I did a bit of planning for the novel I worked on but due to other distractions and a complete lack of inspiration I didn’t do much.  A few chapters a least to get the feel of the characters. So bascially I was inventing on the run with a vague sort of idea where I thought it would go. Of course, it went in a slightly different way, the main character’s love interest being reversed and the proposed goody turning out to be the baddy and the magician also not being the person I thought it would be. However, I think it is all doable.

So why did I apply myself. I have a work ethic (so does everyone else at the retreat) and I tell myself I spent the money (it’s not cheap) and the leave to write and it’s about my only chance in a year to get a good stretch at writing. It is these two weeks at writers retreat that I find some very real creativity happening, I get to a stage where I am inventing, I’m into the story and it just comes. This doesn’t happen during the rest of the year when I work.

I mention writers dates. I usually do these with Matthew once a week. Most days I am a good girl and get stuff done. 2010 was all about short stories. I wrote the most ever in my life last year. I think I have more inside of me. In a similar way it is deciding to put some time aside and write. It may only end up being a few hours but it is the time I have put aside to write. Sometimes we also do the library on Saturday afternoon. I’ve done about 5000 words in there on a couple of occasions. I usually revise and stuff at other times.

I think I used to be more productive and I used to write most days, when I was working on novel length. I guess because these haven’t sold, I’ve become less enthusiastic about devoting my time to novel writing. The other thing in play here is my family. I have to make choices to be with them. For a while there I wasn’t available and I made the choice to be more available and that impacts on the writing too. Writing usually involves sacrifice, tv, social life etc. I have gone for a model where I can have both. I try not to get angry or peeved if I don’t write when I plan to, for example when my daughter visits me, or I go out for a coffee, or I’m just too buggered.  I am very happy when I can write and more so when I do.

Now that I have downloaded my iphone photos I can share the amazing delights of the miniatures gallery at Warhammer World. This post is dedicated to Mitchell Sweeting. When we took these photos we were thinking of you!

Upstairs from the fantastic gaming space with the myriad dioramas ready for different types of play from fantasy to 40,000 is beautifully wrought and presented miniatures from Citadel Miniatures, the sculpting arm of Warhammer.

I don’t know all the names of these things but they took my breath away.

A Chaos Defiler with me and my hand.

Reaver Titan (downstairs in the shop)

I really want one of these but apparently they cost a lot and you need a guru to assemble and paint it. Pouts! It was very impressive in the flesh so to speak.

Assorted variation of the Blood Thirster -a Chaos Daemon

I’m so lucky to have Matthew Farrer here to tell me what these things are.

An Oliphant from Lord of the Rings (I knew that one!)

There’s more….

Spare Marines-Ultramarine with dreadnaught

Drop Pod -Ultramarines

Dark Angels Dreadnaught

Dark Eldar=Talos Torture Engines on the left and a raider?Defiler

Dwarf Slayers (?)

A couple of dioramas and then the big mother from outside the building.

A Tau Diorama (?)

Imperial strong point

Imperial buildings with ruined tank in foreground

Ruined high elf tower

Imperial fortress with eldar webway gate in archaelological dig

Cityscape

Big dude! Space Marine standing at arms.

Some of those dioramas are fething amazing!

Sorry life intervened since the last post. Too many hassles, work, family, you name it I dodged it not so successfully. So where were we? York I believe.So in York we went to Leeds, to the Royal Armories, then  Nottingham and Bath. It was not much more than five weeks ago and now it’s minus temperatures and lots of snow. The poor peeps.

So to the Armories. Lot’s of armour and stuff, lots of photos.

Nice little archer there on display

Inside the caves under the city Nottingham.

Nottingham and caves.

A cave tannery-Nottingham caves

Mathew and James with the lovely Marc Gascoigne

Dirt layers under the mall where the caves exist

Then a quick trip to Chatsworth House where the camera had a dead battery. Lucky I had an iphone.

Baby carriage from inside Chatsworth House

View of the ground from within Chatsworth House

That famous veiled statue.

You would have seen this in the Keira Knightly version of Pride and Prejudice. I had a nice fanish ooh moments all over the place.

There was also lots of statues, Greek, Roman and Egyptian.

One of the Eygptian statues on display Chatsworth House

Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire as Diana, portrait from Chatsworth House

The Grand Staircase Chatsworth House

Oxford. We stayed in Woodstock, right next to Blenheim. No pictures of the inside of this palace was allowed but I have a few of the outside and the town of Woodstock and the bloody noisy carnival that was outside our room at the pub!

Exterior shot of Blehheim Palace Oxfordshire

Another frontage of Blenheim Palace

A couple of statues just hanging about on Blehheim Palace's outer wall

That’s Matthew and James gasbagging in front of the palace. This was my second time to Blenheim Palace. I am fascinated by Consuelo Vanderbilt’s story so this time I bought her autobiography. There is also a lot of Winston Churchill paraphernalia here too as he was born here, proposed to his wife here and was related to the Duke of Marlborough family. The grounds are lovely too.

Lovely shot of the lake and the bridge Blenheim

There was a film crew there at the time of our visit. No intelligence on what they were filming nor any famous actor spotting. We did visit a film set in Leeds, but that’s another, damp story.

More countryside porn coming up as we did a walk around the gardens, got lost a bit and then took the side entrance out to Woodstock.

Statue in garden

A tree I liked

Too many photos. Next one is the detail from the arch on the way out.

Gate to Woodstock

Street view and that darn carnival which played very loud 80s music till late.

A narrow lane Woodstock, Oxfordshire

Carnival glare

Matthew and his slice of coffee cake at Blenheim Palace

I had a number of reviews up on Specusphere this month.
Walking the Tree by Kaaron Warren
Small Moon’s Arms by Nalo Hopkinson
Death Most Definite by Trent Jamieson
and A Thousand Sons by Graham McNeil

Check out here http://www.specusphere.com/joomla/index.php

To see these.

I also wrote a review of Gail Carriger’s Souless, Changeless and Blameless. Unfortunately due to some confusion my review wasn’t needed for the site and I am too lazy to go looking for an alternative review home. So I thought I’d post it here rather than waste it.

Looks like I did a lot of reading and reviewing rather than writing last month.
Soulless ISBN 9780316056632
Changeless ISBN 9780316074148
Blameless ISBN 9780316074155
By Gail Carriger
Orbit Books
Gail Carriger brings a lot of fun to the fore with the first three books in The Parasol Protectorate series. This is paranormal romance set in an alternate Victorian England, complete with corsets, manners, lots of cups of tea and a parasol. Enter with steampunk influences, werewolves and vampires, who live openly with humans, and you have an addictive setting. Ghosts hang around near their dead bodies and interact with humans. In fact, the prosperity of Great Britain seems to be owed to these supernatural creatures. Ghosts can make good spies, for instance. Carriger’s witty dialogue and penchant for humour carries this series off, perfectly well.
Soulless
Alexisia Tarabotti is a spinster, living at home with her mother, step sisters and step father. Her real father was an Italian so she has a dark complexion, an unfashionable nose, is buxom and has an ample behind. Combined these awful characteristics leave her entirely unsuitable for marriage. Then there is the fact she has no soul, which makes her an anathema to the supernatural. Her touch can stop a werewolf turning and make a vampire human again.
Enter Lord Maccon, big, tall, handsome, gentry and a werewolf besides. Here the sparks fly as attraction battles life threatening attacks, strange automatons bent on kidnap and Lord Maccon’s temper, to which Alexia seems able to match. The wooing begins, with clandestine meetings, improper touching (including searing kisses) and mother hysterics.

To this rich tableau Carriger adds colourful characters, such as Lord Akeldama, a rather gay member of the beau monde, who leaps off the page with drama, flamboyant clothes and vampire fangs.
The Victorian England in Carriger’s books is convincing enough to be fun, but may not assuage the grumbles of the purists. Carriger is half-English, so I think she has the tea consumption down tight. While the language endeavours to be period, there are a few present day colloquialisms interspersed throughout to raise the eyebrows. However, as the work is so much fun, these little flaws are barely noticeable and do not detract from the overall effect. If you love Austen, period romance or a good paranormal fantasy then Carriger’s Parasol Protectorate is going to set you on fire.
Soulless was a lot of fun to read, so good in fact that Changeless was soon devoured in a similar fashion.

Changeless
Changeless of course, picks up where Soulless leaves off. More interesting characters are introduced, including a female French inventor, who dresses like a man, talks to ghosts and has a passion for pretty young French maids.
The steampunk elements evolve further and so too does the exploration of what makes a werewolf and a vampire and Carriger has her own little variances on the tropes that work well within the story. There is more exploration of what it is like to live with a werewolf pack too, including more than a pinch of sex and male nudity.

Alexia is an alpha female, not a werewolf mind you, but she does know how to throw her weight or parasol around to get overzealous males and werewolves to pay attention. She’s a member of the Shadow Council, where Queen Victoria deals with the supernatural concerns of her kingdom.

While there are intrigues in Scotland, there is also someone trying to kill Alexia. Egyptian artefacts also put in an appearance as well as some Scottish clan infighting to spread the action thickly around.
Changeless ends on such an emotional punch, it was lucky that Blameless was right there beside me to continue on as I experienced something very much akin to shock at the latter developments.
Blameless
It is difficult to discuss Blameless without sprinkling it with too many spoilers. Needless to say the ending of Changeless drives the opening of Blameless, such that Alexia goes to France and encounters more people (or supernaturals) bent on killing her as well as Knights Templars, who could be saviours or captors, depending on their mood.

Whacky machinery follows Alexia around, usually for lethal purposes, such that even her souped up parasol is exhausted. Further information comes to light on what kind of man her father was and what being soulless really means. Meanwhile, there are happenings afoot in London, kidnapping, disappearances, transformations of an unwelcome kind and some humble pie from Lord Maccon.

Overall a very satisfying read over the three books.

Save yourself time and angst and buy all three books at once. You’ll regret it otherwise.

Gail Carriger: Bestselling Author

As promised I will try to give brief update and photos on trip….

After Games Day UK, we hung in Birmingham for next day and then headed to York. We stayed at Feversham Lodge, a converted Methodist Manse, about a 10 minute walk to York central. Actually it is just up the road from the hospital. I’ve stayed at this B&B before so I knew it had a good position and great hosts.

York is a special place, full on history and picturesque to boot. It’s like the Venice of England. The Romans were there for 400 years, twice as long as white man has been in Australia.

We only put our heads in the Minster and didn’t pay the hefty fee to go inside. The major attraction is the large stained glass window which was covered over for renovations. We did go to The Treasurer’s House.

Part of the York Minster

This is a picture of the detail from the stained glass window in the Treasuer’s House.

A view of the Treasurer's House York

This place had an interesting history, including being built over part of the Roman ruins and road. We went on the ghost tour in the cellars, where a plumber many years ago saw horses and Roman legionaires walking. We didn’t see anything but I did take a shot of the base of the pillar in the cellar.

Base of Roman pillar

There was also a lovely garden.

The Treasurer's House garden

I forced the others to go on a historical walk. Here are some random shots.

One of the gates (Bar) -York

The Shambles

Section of Roman wall with medieval wall on top

I have much better shots of the Roman wall but wordpress is not being helpful. Note the Roman coffins in the foreground.

Medieval church in the process of restoration

I have some shots from the inside of this church, again on my iphone. The seating was all in boxes, which was slightly unusual. That’s all for now.