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Archive for the ‘am wrinting’ Category

Spicing things up on the writing front

Posted in Steampunk, Edits, fantasy, A writer's life, am wrinting, general excitement, self publishing, new release, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on August 20, 2026| Leave a Comment »

Yesterday, Amethyst Way word count increased to 20,000 words. All that pool inspiration is working. I have a lot more to do just to jazz up the three scenes I have targeted. But, the edits for Gentleman Magician have come in and this morning I diverted to them. Not that I’m racing to get it out the door and published as that takes a bit of work.

I publish wide and a do a print version so this means I have ISBNs to assign, which in turn means I need to work on a blurb and assign the different ISBNs. Admin work, but still work.

I need to register the book with the National Library of Australia so it makes the catalogue.

If I do a preorder, which I can as I have all the things I need, I would then need to register the book on all my sales platforms and that takes more time. More admin. I would also then need to do the layout, which in Vellum is pretty easy, except I have to do things like write author notes, update also buy links and well more admin.

Then there is the proofreading. This time I will do this myself by reading the story aloud. I had a good copy edit so am confident that the MS is pretty clean. This may take a while because I hate people hearing me read aloud. Go figure. But if I sent it for a proofread I would need to book it in and wait a couple of weeks or more for the proof to be completed, then take up the changes.

Then when I am happy I will upload the final manuscript to all the ebook retailers. And then I will know the physical page count so I can do my cover template to send to the cover designer. Then when she sends me the cover, I am ready to upload the print book. The printer (Ingram Sparks) does an eproof and then I can hit print if everything is okay.

Then there is announcements, soft launches, ordering copies and so on.

Admin is the opposite of creativity! Like doing your taxes while trying to draft a massive fantasy novel. For me, admin is the pits and the bane of creativity. I don’t know why because I was a public servant and they live for admin! Hahaha!

I also have some logistics for the physical book launch of The Founders’ Legacy in Canberra upon my return.

However, nothing compares to a good new book unboxing. You find most authors will show photos, videos, post you name it. Because their baby is born. Anyway, it is possible, Gentleman Magician will be out in the world mid-September. In time for Books and Beyond in Ourimbah or Ozcomicon in Sydney earlier.

It is official. I’m excited. Here is the awesome cover again.

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The funnel path

Posted in Food overdose, Travel, A writer's life, am wrinting, Singapore, tagged , , , , on August 18, 2026| Leave a Comment »

When I came to Singapore this time, I thought it was a long time, but it is going very quickly indeed. I’m in the funnel path to head back to Australia. Technically, the 27th will be my last day as I get up at some incredibly early time to catch a 7.15 am flight on the 28th. Nine days left. My son gets back from his work trip tomorrow, so yay!

I’ve been a bit sick-not sick, sick, just you know a sinus/cold thing that made me pretty miserable, particularly, yesterday. (Neg RATS) (I think it picked it up at the cinema!)Today at least I felt well enough for some gentle exercise in the pool. I think I have trimmed a few kilos during my stay. I have a fatty liver and liver inflammation so I have to lose some weight and change my eating habits. Luckily, Ferdi advises me when we eat out and cooks really lean and less salty food when at home. The last couple of days she has cooked feasts! I shall share photos. Things my daughter-in-law and I planned went on hiatus and maybe we can revive some of those plans. I believe the deluxe hair spa will open up again before I leave.

On the writing front, slow progress compared to normal me. 16,000 words into Amethyst Way with scenes in my head fighting over their placement. A good thing you can select sections and relocate them in a document without too much fuss. If I had more energy I could get back onto restructuring and revising Tainted Lady, but it appears my energy is on holiday somewhere. I still write everyday about 1000 words.

And what did I mean about a funnel? Well, I have one weekend left and my son, some friends work 9-5 so that is the last opportunity to meet people and get together. There is a YumCha lined up for Saturday so that’s excellent.

When I get back to Canberra, I shall be working logistics for my first physical book launch in an age. Years, and years. I am very grateful that Dr Craig Cormick has agreed to launch The Founders’ Legacy.

Now some awesome food photos.

This was dinner, the first day I was pretty incapacitated by a cold/sinus. Ferdi went to get live prawns. We already bought this delicious pineapple. I must mention the soup. Soup is a must.

Next was lunch the day after. We don’t normally have such big lunches, but there were left overs from the above.

The prawn leftovers were mixed with squid, and the egg omelette had snake beans in it.

Then last night!

Steamed egg with tofu, Japanese curry chicken with potatoes and beef ball and broccoli and mixed fruit, including flat peaches that were divine.

Thank you Ferdi. I think we can eat out tonight so you can take a break from looking after me.

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Mad about maps

Posted in A writer's life, am wrinting, Maps, Creative passion, tagged , , , , , , , , , on August 14, 2026| Leave a Comment »

In a recent post, I talked about losing Russell Kirkpatrick. Yesterday, I dug up the maps he made for my books over the years.

I remember him telling me to draw a map and on one visit to Australia from NZ I showed him my hand drawn map of Argenterra, of which I was very proud. Of course, it was a bit like the expression his family included in their powerpoint about Russell at the memorial. “That’s terrible. I appreciate the effort.”

Although he may have been a bit more scathing. Lol. (I do really suck at this map thing). He was ‘Mad about Maps’ and I think his Twitter handle was ‘Insane Mapboy’ and you can imagine him seeing my pitiful drawing compared the carefully crafted maps he drew for his books. They were real places to him, everything considered carefully, cause and effect, geography, perfectly envisioned. And there’s me with a map, my head in a story and not really able to imagine and draw the place as well as him. However, he was helpful and liked to instruct.

The map helped me navigate the land in the Silverlands series and he sat with me to talk about naming conventions and how languages changed over time. I had a place called Two Rivers Meet and he said that it would be better as Trivers Meet or something similar. He also talked about some place names and from whose perspective they were named from. It was an incredibly helpful discussion and he also helped me flesh out a few things about the geography. He also prompted me to give the place a few more names so it wasn’t just empty in places. I also had the Lake of Reflections drawn way to big!

This is the map of Argenterra he did for me, based on my drawing but with extensive Russell improvements.

The next set of maps we worked on were Dragon Wine maps, three in total. It wasn’t a matter of just handing him a rough drawing. No, I had to sit with him and learn stuff too. Dragon Wine opens in Shatterwing at the prison vineyard and this is how we envisioned it. It was Russell’s idea to have the vineyard broken into types of grapes and we also had fun naming the rivers and things to fit in with what I had mentioned in the book. This map was included in the Pan Macmillian version of the book but somehow slipped out of my self published version. I’ll be fixing that soon.

The other map pertinent to the first and second books, Shatterwing and Skywatcher, is the map of the Sartell region. They also work for Nightwings and Bloodstorm. It also shows where the prison vineyard is, where the observatory is and Vanden town as well as Sartell. Some of these places are explored in the rest of the series.

For the last two books, I needed a map of the whole world of Margra. As it was post-apocalyptic, after a moon fell, there would be significant changes compared to the past, which is unknown. The map needed to be a sort of pieced together map that identifies past continents, swamped shorelines and maybe even conjecture. Russell did a bit of research on this and also drew on past experience of seeing maps where things were guestimated rather than measured and so on.

So for Skyfire and Moonfall, we have a different map. I love the little note at the bottom saying it was compiled by Nils of Barr. Sitting with Russell to do this was not easy because I had to have the names of all the things I referenced and then explain them to Russell. Some are just mentioned in reference to pre-Shatterwing and are not actually travelled during the story. I think Russell wanted to educate me but I can’t replace him with regards to maps. Some people are just good at visualising. Me not so much.

If I do maps in the future, well not sure how that is going to go. I use sketches of houses and things to navigate and describe but not publish them.

Russell thank you for helping me envisage worlds. You taught me so much but I have a lot to learn still.

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Deleting the past and reminiscing about change

Posted in A writer's life, am wrinting, tagged , , , , , , , , , on August 13, 2026| Leave a Comment »

My gmail accounts are too full and I’m running out of space. I can’t just do a global delete on terms like Twitter because random stuff gets pulled in. Someone may have their twitter handle in their email signature etc. So it’s a manual process.

It was funny as I was deleting all these notifications. Why did I have them turned on in the first place? I think after a number of years I did turn them off. But going through that old stuff, from way back in 2012 and maybe earlier, brought back memories. There was a Conflux that Nicole R Murphy and I ran and all the old emails for that. Twitter because I used to love that place and it got me thinking how I left because Elon ‘turned the evil and joined the dark side.’ Those people who I loved connecting with but now don’t at all.

And that got me thinking about Doctorow’s Enshitification theory and then my brain went into a feedback loop. Companies and people making super profits is just way wrong. Consider, I have bought maybe a dozen copies of Microsoft Office over the years. They used to be stand alone one off purchase and then I could never find the disc with the code or I’d buy a new computer and just get it loaded. I had Adobe Creative Cloud stuff and that stopped working and next time it was a monthly rental fee, way more than I ever earn that would pay for it. And now I pay a yearly fee Microsoft Office for something I bought over and over again. Loyally and legally. Microsoft are making huge profits so why am I paying still?

Okay so I’m stupid maybe but why?

Why isn’t it a token amount? They still get a profit but it is not exploitative profit. Same with banks and all of them, really. They just want more profit, more money and it’s accumulating in too few people.

There was an uproar on Threads recently because Canva is moving stuff to a professional level and has also changed the QR codes that were available on the free version. To be honest I hadn’t twigged when I did a recent back of QR coded bookmarks. It had a little c in the centre and I looked but didn’t see if you know what I mean. I suppose this means if I don’t keep up my subscription the QRs won’t work. And I use that subscription maybe once every few months so not really worth the $20 for me. I’m not very arty.

This rent I’m paying for these things and will probably soon pay for everything is crazy. Soon I’ll have to stop having things because I’m retired now and on limited income. Somethings are optional, like streaming. Britbox, for example, put up their fee by 50% this year so I’m going to unsubscribe because at the same time they were offering a cheaper price for new sign ons. I feel I have to watch Britbox because I paid so much for it. However, I don’t have to watch. I’d rather by physical media anyhow. I stick with Netflix because they were forerunners but I am spending too much on them so really need to adjust my plan.

But things like email and stuff like that well aren’t as optional. Iinet, for example, who I have been with since it was Ozemail, decided they didn’t want to do email anymore. They peeled that off to the Messaging Company, who you ended up having to pay for something that you already had included in your price. Then that price doubled the next year with the new mob and I closed my iinet email account. It was a huge job to change it and annoying but I felt it wasn’t fair.

Which reminds me I must quit iinet for my nbn, too. because hey that whole we aren’t doing email anymore thing sucked and I’m angry and no longer loyal. I’ll be looking for better price and better service elsewhere.

Life is not all about money. There used to be such things as social good, community, the greater good, public good and so on. Why does everything seem to be all about money and power? I feel trapped in some future dystopian SF novel but it’s reality.

I’m currently in Singapore. I don’t consider myself poor but I’m definitely not rich. And all the designer stuff I see, I wonder who can afford that stuff and why? It blows my mind, really.

Then there is AI and accusations about people using it, people using it and lying about it and so on. Before I retired, the department wanted people to use AI to write emails, read reports and so on. I don’t think an AI has my life experience to pick up things that I would if I read and analysed a report. And if AI wrote all my emails, where am I in this? I tell it what to write. But then I sound like an AI wrote my email.

As I was going through my emails and deleting old Twitter, Ebay and other notifications I saw all my drafts of books that I’ve sent myself over the years. I’m not deleting them because I might need them one day when someone claims AI wrote my books. AI companies used my books to train their agents btw without any compensation or permission. So at least I have the evidence that I wrote them, some of the attachments have very crappy drafts that don’t reflect my final product but they do have the dates.

For creative arts, like writing, composing, scriptwriting and art and illustration, I firmly believe you don’t need AI to write for you and I think using it for cover art is a kind of theft from the real artists. I also have views about AI translations and audio books. I saw some people on a book group I am in talking about massive profits from AI translations. I wondered why if they made so much money why they couldn’t pay a real person to translate for them. A thought I did not voice. I also saw one that will clone your own voice to read your audio book. I know my reading sucks but I’d rather read my own than artificially appear more articulate than I am. Also, reading your own work has value. You find typos and you learn some of your sentences and word usages are too complicated to read. Lol.

For finding information, for repetitive tasks sure why not? But the energy AI data centres consume and the water? Do we really need that drain on resources? AI is going to take jobs, I know. Technology has been taking jobs for maybe 150 years. I remember the huge stagflation (high inflation and high unemployment) in Australia in the 1970s with the oil shock and the advent of computers. In those days it was punch cards at the stock exchange, for example, that I had direct experience with but eventually years later the trading floor was not full of humans anymore and trading is now done through a computer system.

Right now we are in a oil shock and a technology shift. I don’t think we have had the full impact yet. We have protectionism, tariffs used as weapons, as well. We have crazy international stuff going down. If I was a doomsayer, and believe me I have those tendencies, I would say we are in for a rocky ride.

Stop the ride! I wanna get off now.

PS now back to writing fantasy to escape all this nasty reality.

PSS I bought a book and have been doing some research and this has fueled ideas. I’m happy about that.

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How can it possibly be June already?

Posted in A writer's life, am wrinting, Creative passion, Life, the universe and everthing, Romance fiction, tagged , on June 4, 2026| Leave a Comment »

I feel I’m in a time tunnel. Egads! It’s June already and I’m pondering what happened to May. Oh well.

Since my last post, I have sent The Founders’ Legacy off for a proofread. It’s due back later this month.

Gentleman Magician is waiting on some beta reader comments.

And I decided to publish my Regency Romance Tainted Lady, under my Dani Kristoff name as Dani’s books are more mainstream paranormal romance. I found a great cover. It features an older heroine and is a second chance romance. And being me there are feminist undertones.

I am currently restructuring Tainted Lady. I thought I had mostly restructured it but alas, I had not and I need to work through it carefully. It is only the beginning that I’ve chopped up, after feedback from a Romance Writers of Australia competition. Fab feedback btw. I also need to make a few tweaks to my hero. However, for some reason I keep getting stuck on chapter one. I mean you can rewrite a chapter one a gazillion times, you know.

In other news, I am vacating my craft room for my grandson. However, this is cathartic and important. I’ve built up a bit of a mess since I last moved back into my craft room so it is good to sort through things, find bits of patterns and work out what I want to keep handy and what can be safely stored. I have made it quite clear that everything needs to be accessible so I am labelling as well as sorting and tidying. This is a threefold problem as the garage needs to be sorted and that is long overdue. For where may I ask will the craft stuff go? I have a floor loom that needs to be moved and I may want to you know weave something. I am hoping for a garage that is tidy and accessible. I have been in there to look for a power tool and said I’m going to buy a new one as I can’t find the one we have. Yes, it is that bad. The major sorting was instigated by a collapsing ceiling in the garage and then roof repairs which has a ripple effect. The other element is rearranging the library, which is currently a dormitory, and working out where to put stuff. All very disruptive to one’s writing routine.

I am progressively going through my hard drive and will publish more things perhaps next year. It’s clean up time!

Next appearance is Newcastle Next Book Boyfriend Link here. Saturday 13 June, 2026 93.0 to 4.30

Geek Expo 18-19 July at Epic. Link here.

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Sometimes writing is a struggle

Posted in A writer's life, am wrinting, Creative passion, revision, Trying to focus, tagged , , , , on March 18, 2026| 3 Comments »

I wrestle with feelings of inadequacy a lot of the time. I doubt myself and I definitely have imposter syndrome. When I studied for my PhD I had these feelings. But my supervisor told me he had imposter syndrome too and that most of the academics at my faculty did.

Thoughts like: Why am I bothering? No one cares! You aren’t good enough? Stop kidding yourself. You can’t write good stories.

Naturally, I don’t like this negative self talk. Just like I don’t like telling myself I look bad or old or fat. I’ve been doing that for years. My youngest daughter says it’s body dysmorphia. I look at photos and think, hell I looked good back then, but I thought I was fat, ugly, old. Hahaha!

I had very low self esteem growing up and I have fought long and hard to get where I am. You know the drill, one of many siblings, dysfunctional home life, child abuse and so on.

You think at aged 65 I’d know better. Sorry to disappoint. However, I try very hard not to let these negative thoughts win. I focus on what makes me happy and I write stories because I like to do that, I enjoy it. Well most of the time. It is not always easy to sit down and write. Inspiration doesn’t always come when you want it, even when you know the story you want to write. I think that’s where the negative talk comes in, when it is not easy. The evil part of my brain starts telling me to just go watch some screen, or go shopping, or do other things like craft. Believe me I feel negative feelings about my craft too. I can pick holes in anything I make and I know where I could have done better.

I just have a weird brain.

Yesterday, I was thinking about how long I’ve been writing. I started around 2000 so nearly 26 years. I didn’t get published until 2013 with Rayessa and the Space Pirates, but I had written a lot in that time. The funny thing is that Rayessa and the Space Pirates had been sitting in my hard drive for years. It originally started as a short story for a CSFG anthology called Elsewhere. I was working at the audit office and I thought it would be cool to have a space auditor and the story was going along very well, but when space pirates turned up, well I couldn’t finish it. So I wrote another story for Elsewhere called ‘Other’ and continued on with Rayessa and the Space Pirates as a short novel. Now, I did submit it to places but didn’t get anywhere so it lingered in the darkness until I went to my first Romance Writers of Australia Conference where several publishers were seeking submissions for ebooks. It was then I realised that my SF story also had a romance arc. So Escape took it and published it and the sequel Rae and Essa’s Space Adventures. I don’t know if I’d call it a success. I did earn royalties and it is my most pirated book judging by the Google alerts.

So, one lesson, don’t throw stuff away. Just because the stars don’t align, they might again in different circumstances. Anyway, time has moved on, the rights came back to me and now I have self-published my previously published books and my new stuff. This doesn’t mean I’ve given up on traditional publishing. I dabble but my life isn’t going to stop. A lot of things need to align with traditional publishing. It’s great when they do but they don’t always. If you try an agent, then they need to like what you are writing, have an idea of where to market it etc. Then, publishers need to like it too…but then there’s the acquisitions meeting where other people weigh in, the marketers, for example. I have had a few turn downs after acquisitions that said the Australian market was too small. With Ruby Heart a senior editor told me how much the liked it but then it didn’t get picked up.

Moral of the story is don’t give up. Haha! But also don’t listen to your negative talk. Write because that is what you live for. Sure, I’m going to give up one day. But right now I have ideas, I have drafted manuscripts that I’m tinkering with or trying to get an agent for. I have been writing for a very long time so I have a backlog. I hope to move some of these this year.

So I’m working on Gentleman Magician – a Cry Havoc novella and I have another novella planned and Book Five to write. Hopefully this year. I’m a bit behind on my plans (yes I made plans) but I hope to get there this year on these.

I have a Regency Romance The Tainted Lady I drafted before 2016. Sadly the market has changed and where I was going to submit that is a dead end. However, I did get some valuable feedback on it from a RWA competition and I’ve started revising it and I know what I need to do to get that dusted. Don’t be surprised if that gets published this year.

I drafted a young adult portal fantasy called Into the Dark Glass, that too is in a state of redraft. My then agent didn’t like it and couldn’t tell me why so in the intervening ten years I’ve been mulling it over and I have a restructure in mind. I tinker but haven’t got far. There is always a new project calling me away.

My Phd novel is currently been shopped around. I finished a revision of that in January.

I have a middle grade fantasy, Grandma Neebs: Through the Pantry Door, which I’ve shopped to Australian publishers and got nowhere. I really like this one because at its core its about family and love. Apparently there is a glut of middle grade fantasy at the moment but this has some horror elements. This will need an illustrator so that will depend on $ if I am to self publish it. Decision postponed.

Also in my hard drive is a feminist SF novella, which I want to revisit and maybe publish. And I have some Blood Crowd short stories that could be a collection if I wrote one or two more stories for it. Picture Vampires in Chicago with werewolves and gangsters. If there is more then I have forgotten.

I don’t write to trends or to the market. Some people do and it works for them. I don’t make a lot of money and recently even reviews are hard to come by. I’m writing what I love and I hope that readers like what I do. That’s what feeds my soul.

Sometimes what gets published has been years in the making. I hope to improve my productivity because I have more stories to write.

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Happy New Year!

Posted in A writer's life, am wrinting, Australian author, Trying to focus, tagged , , , , , , , , , on January 1, 2026| Leave a Comment »

I’m up reasonably early on the 1st of January. I managed to sleep later than normal. Yay!

Happy New Year! May 2026 fulfill your hopes and dreams.

I hope for peace and good sense to prevail the world over. I want to be optimistic for the future of the world. Being a science fiction (and fantasy) aficcionado and Star Trek fan, I have had faith in Humankind and that we will move beyond wars and famine and that we will survive into the future. However, I admit that that faith has been shaken of late.

I hope for me that I can find that optimism again. That my faith in us will be restored.

Now for more mundane things.

I have to admit I piked on staying up until 12 and left the party around 10pm. We had a family get together.

Now I just don’t want to eat more food! Everything was delicious but now I have to think about the waistline. I wish it was called the wasteline and I could watch myself waistline waste away but alas…

This morning, I took my blood pressure reading before the meds kicked in and well that’s not good is it? I thought cutting back salt was going to help there but health wise I’ve been a bit over the place. Next in the queue is a blood test scheduled for next week. I’ve been having sleep disturbances between 1-3 am most nights lately, which is very annoying. Nothing too serious except I feel like my head is in a paper bag most of the day. Aching and tingling in the fingers and toes, so much so that I have to get up and take painkillers at night, tired, fatigued, etc. I have sub-clinical Hashimotos and I have these flare ups where I gain weight, go through the fatigue, sluggishness etc and then when I’m tested they say my thyroid is reading normal. This has been going on for 10 years, since I was first diagnosed (confirmed through blood test and identification of antibodies). The other not so interesting thing is the inflammation where my partial knee replacements are. At first I thought they were loosening and the specialist thought not. However, he is monitoring six monthly, unless I have extreme pain. Each day I’m noticing it is harder to move around and my knees are stiff and sore. So after this post is done I’m going for a walk. Best thing to get the joints warm.

The new spectacles after surgery were a bit hard to deal with at first. Multifocals and two very divergent eyes now. Left eye is still seeing blurry but better than when I first developed a full thickness macular hole in August. I can report that my eyes and brain are getting used to the new glasses but when I take them off my eyes/brain go what the hell!

I have received print versions of The Prudential Light. My daughter-in-law picked up an issue with one of the Chinese characters in the book. Two missing strokes that were wiped when I did ‘remove background’. I have replaced that image with a new one and uploaded new versions everywhere. I had to redo the hardback versions because I had matt finish on the cover instead of gloss and I had gloss finish on the other hardback versions. Paperback is matt finish. That was completed this morning.

There are four different sets of Chinese characters in the book, drawn by a friend, who is a scholar of Chinese art. Modern Chinese characters have been simplified and the ones in The Prudential Light are meant to be traditional and hopefully ones in use in 1840s. As for the pinyin version, I cannot tell you if I have stuck to the Cantonese pinyin or strayed to the Mandarin. Brain is not functional. Pinyin is the romanised version of the word to help with pronunciation. Cantonese and Mandarin are two different languages but use the same characters.

Yesterday I posted my writing to do list. I also reorganised my working space. (I’m laughing because I’m on my couch with the lap top on my lap). I bought and assembled a hutch. I wish I’d taken before and aftershots. I’m camped out in my bedroom for another nine months I guess while my grandkids are living here. While I had a desk, I had a great big mess there. Along with my day job work space and my imac working space, there was just a junk yard of crap, scribbled on manuscript pages, pens (which I could never find, other desk junk. With a hutch I can lift things up, put them where I can find them. I’m so pleased with it now. I have so many pens and I threw away the ones that don’t work. So diligent of me.

I’ve also put up my planner on the wall. Time to commit to writing on the planner and getting some work done on the books I want to write. While I have a kind of full and hectic schedule for writing new books, I have some that are already written and I have to find time to tweak/revise them and send them out for submission. If I have no luck getting an agent, I guess they will be self published too by the end of the year. I was also wishing I could fit a nice epic fantasy series in my schedule too. I also mulled the idea of retiring Dani Kristoff–where I write paranormal romance with sorcerer’s and werewolves and witches under that name. It might be my lack of promotion but they are not as popular as the Dragon Wine series and Cry Havoc. Another novel I want to write is a sci fi romance that has been in my brain since the early days. So that might fill the Dani Kristoff slot in my schedule.

Who knows…the future is yet to be written.

Best wishes to all.

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Singapore Sojourn Part 5

Posted in A writer's life, am wrinting, China, Creative passion, Cry Havoc series, research, Singapore, Steampunk, Travel, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 19, 2025| Leave a Comment »

I have been here three weeks and one day. Wow, time has flown. And on Saturday we fly out to Beijing for 12 days in China. What I thought might be a short side trip has become the big China trip and I feel the excitement building.

I made a few goals for my time in Singapore. Pool walking every morning. I have done this, sometimes with more enthusiasm and a few days with less. I am sleeping a bit longer than those initial days where I woke up at 5am. However, I can’t seem to sleep in past 7.30am. But I am reaching sleep goals according to my Apple watch. I’ve also road tested these two last days taking my Apple watch into the pool. It is a much better way of keeping track than lap counting. When I count laps I lose count because I starting thinking about Aunt Prudence.

My other goal was writing 30,000 words of the novella The Prudential Light, which is Aunt Prudence’s memoir in the Cry Havoc series. Well I am at 44,000 words so I should at least make 45,000 words today but you know there’s a lot going on in this story and it may be a novel after all. I blame the condo’s swimming pool for that because many of my ideas came to me while pool walking and losing track of how many laps I did. The reason I think this is that I have written so many scenes and I think the plot might come together at 50,000 words but all the restructuring, back filling skipped scenes etc is going to bring it up in word count. Anyway, I’m very happy about that.

Next steps is to commission a cover and also a cover for the next installment, Edward Huntington Esquire, Gentleman Magician. This will cover the period of Edward finding out he was a magician and his meeting with Dr Heaton and Fulton. I probably have another story in the series, which would be a novella (god I hope so!) about Wilbur Hardcastle and Jemima’s mother. It will be a love story but not a romance because we all know that Jemima’s mother died young.

Then I might start on my spin off series.

Meanwhile in Singapore I have caught up with my mate Dev and we have hung out. Yesterday, we had a marathon Orchard Road experience yesterday from 12pm to about 7pm, including most importantly a trip to Kinokuniya. We started at Pizza Express which is fine dining in Singapore. Then we had tea and something naughty in Paul’s, which is outside Kinokuniya and then later I had a kind of Hawker Centre experience in the Food Republic, which is sort of the same thing except in a mall and airconditioned. I had some fried prawn noodles and oyster omelette. I’m not keen on oysters, I can eat them, but I really liked the egg part, which was crispy and tasty. Dev tells me it is eggs with water and tapioca starch.

Me and Dev and Kinokuniya

Lychee Fanta and Cream Soda flavoured Fanta. They were a $1 each and interesting.

To get back on the research track on Monday we went to the National Museum of Singapore to see their Once Upon a Tide special exhibition, about the history of Singapore. Well worth the visit. We also did a quick walk through of the permanent exhibition on level one. Lucky I did because I found out Rickshaws were invented in Japan later than I thought and where popular from 1880s until 1930s.

Below is an early map of Singapore in the period that I’m interested in.

I also got some good photos of things that will help in my story of Aunt Prudence and that’s the main focus of my visit to the museum.

I have really enjoyed hanging out with my son and daughter-in-law. On Tuesday we went to the island of Sentosa to check it out. We mostly did things like the free shuttle bus to check out the beaches and we did a skylift up and back to look around and at at the Shake Shack. We don’t have Shake Shack in Australia. The chips are good but this time they weren’t as hot as they should have been. The Shake Shack in Gardens By the Bay were so good! The cheese burger I had was real and yummy.

On the skyride

Today is going to be an at home day. I need to do some writer admin, hang out my washing so I can pack for the trip and write. I really need to do something with my hair but that remains to be seen if I have the energy. I thought a pink rinse would go down well in China, except I didn’t bring any with me so my hair is very blonde and curly. However, apparently Beijing will be hot but not as humid so my hair could remain straight.

My Kinokuniya purchases. Thea Guanzon is from the Philippines and Sue Lynn Tan is Chinese from Hong Kong.

Above is the emotionally needy Siumoguai who had snuck into my room and perched next to my swimmers.

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Singapore Sojourn Part 4

Posted in A writer's life, am wrinting, Creative passion, research, Steampunk, Travel, Trying to focus, tagged , , , , , , , , , on June 14, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Time flies when you are having fun. Cliche I know. Today is June 13. Black Friday.

I’m about to head out to find a post office with my daughter-in -law. We have been out a little bit. We were going to go to the botanical gardens but it was too hot for me so we ate a late lunch in a cafe after a head/hair spa, which was simply amazing.

Me after the head/hair spa.

The day before we walked around the Gardens By the Bay and the highlight was Shake Shack where we had some lemonade with chips and cheese. So naughty and so yummy.

We met up with my son at Marina Sands mall where we checked out the Apple store and had dumplings. I am still keeping up with the pool walking in the morning. Be it rain or shine or cloudy. I wait for storms to stop though. The other day I saw this tiny yellow bird eating nectar from the flowers. When I looked it up I discovered it was a sunbird. Imagine nature thriving in amongst all these tall buildings.

Marina Bay Sands, a city scape and the round building is the top floor of the Apple Store.

Writing wise, I have had to revise my word count goal. I thought 30,000 words was reasonable for my time here and I was writing a novella. Well it is now 40,000 words and I’m currently at 36,000 words and I still have a week before we leave for China.

The story is still coming on strong, with new scenes popping in all the time. Yesterday I spent way longer in the pool than intended as I use my lap count to gauge my time. However, I lose count all the time because I start thinking about the story and characters start talking to me and then I come to and forget how many. Was that lap five or six? Over an hour later I’m upstairs realising I did about 20 minutes more than I wanted to.

The story is coming in different time periods so I know there will be a lot of restructuring and tying things together. I usually write in a linear fashion but this memoir is different and how things are popping up in my imagination are too. Weird but fun. Writing in Singapore is great. I found this great book and it has been really useful. There’s more research to do as well. National Library and the National Museum but I’m getting a picture of the layout. I also have to research a bit about 1840s Calcutta as some of the story takes place there.

I’m also learning a lot about Aunt Prudence as well. She is way more interesting than I thought she’d be, with some hidden talents.

Guess what! I think I may have a new character and spin off series in the offing but no spoilers.

On today’s agenda I think we are making homemade dumplings for dinner after we to to the post office. We have a bbq planned on Sunday, which will be nice.

I’m off to China for 12 days next Friday.

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Singapore Sojourn Part 3

Posted in A writer's life, am wrinting, asian-centric fantasy, Australian author, Creative passion, Cry Havoc series, fantasy, Feminism, General excitment, magic, research, revision, Victorian, victorian paranormal, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 6, 2025| Leave a Comment »

I am a week and a bit in.

I have managed to use the pool every morning. Although this morning it was raining and storming. After dallying on my phone for a bit, there was no thunder and less rain so I did my pool work. Maybe a bit shorter than normal.

In other news, my four weeks in Singapore is going to be less than I thought because we are heading to China for 12 days not 8 so I need to connect with people faster than I had originally thought.

I met up with Dev. No photo sorry but we plan to meet up again and do a writing date. I need to get to the library and art gallery and museum again to research. Although I have found some references on line.

We met with Joyce Chng the other day. She gave me some books of hers that I have started reading about female sword makers. You had me at female and swords! Fireheart is YA fantasy. Here is a local link.

Today though it’s Friday and my daughter-in-law and I are going to have a massage.

On the writing front I have been writing for a week, pretty consistently. There was one day I only tinkered with some words as we went out to meet Joyce. Today though I forced myself to write more than normal. My hands ache a little. The Prudential Light is at 20,000 words. It’s going to need revising because it’s coming out quickly and I’ll need to add bits in as I research them and also craft the story more. Sometimes I just throw down the story, plot, characters etc to see if there is a story with a beginning, middle and end. Then during my revisions, I add things like descriptions, emotions and thoughts. I can usually do something in three run throughs but some take many drafts.

Aunt Prudence is in my ear, telling more and more of her story and the characters are adding bits that my phone notes are filling up. I think I have a nice story arc going. If I can finish this first draft while I’m here then I’ve got something to go on with.

The China trip is going to blow my mind, I know it.

I’m going to miss my writing buddies. Meet Siri.

This cat’s name is hard for me to pin down.

I hear different words, I think it’s Moguai but it’s Siumoguai so I was close and I’m not totally deaf!

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