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Archive for the ‘Australian author’ Category

Procrastawriting or taking care of business

Posted in A writer's life, Australian author, author appearances, Author signing event, Book cover, book signing, Conflux, Creative passion, fantasy, Geeking out, research, revision, Science fiction conventions, Steampunk, Victorian, tagged , , , , , , , , , on July 11, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Yesterday, I did zero work on my current WIP, The Prudential Light. I did not have the excuse of the previous couple of days of recovering from my shingles vaccination, which really did knock me about. I did procrastawriting.

I wrote and sent a newsletter, and prior to that I signed up to Benventi for preorders for Books and Beyond 28 September. That took time. Here is a link to that preorder form. This is evidence and also if you are in the Central Coast and want to check out the event, please do. I’d love to say hi. It’s a first time, small writer event, which I think is free for the public.

I’ll be at the Geekmarkets on the CSFG table in the morning of 19 July with some of my books on offer. Also, free and fun.

I’ve signed up to Gamacon 6 September and I will have another appearance in August to announce soon.

Early October, it’s Conflux in Canberra, where I’ll have a table too. Not sure if I’ll make it onto any panels yet. That’s 3-5 October over the long weekend. A great SF con and a real experience if you have never been. I am hoping to launch The Prudential Light there but if so I need to get cracking.

I have other events later in the year as well but that’s the next few.

I have ordered book covers for The Prudential Light and Edward Huntington Esquire: Gentleman Magician so keep your eye out for those. I’m super excited about those.

While I have mucked about for two days, I actually did do some work this morning on The Prudential Light. It requires some additional structure so I had to write some new bits and one section needs a bit of research. The word count is now 53,000 word and I am not sure if this will reach 70,000 by the time I’m done.

I am in the ‘this is a mess, everyone will hate it, I can’t make it good’ stage. Or trending that way. I am still having fun with Jemima and Aunt Prudence.

Now as you can see I am writing a blog post. Is this procrastawriting? Or a heavy dose of writerly admin? I find it a bit of a diversion and I like blogging. Often I think of things I want to blog about and then don’t get around to it and then forget.

Have I told you I have started a TikTok? I am very much a Noob and the platform has amazing potential but being time poor I don’t have time to explore it and I’m also distracted by all those TikToks. My lastest talk about how hard I find revision. I love drafting novels. The hard work is shaping them into something you can read. Hence, my angst over is it good enough, can I make it better and so on.

I also owe the blog some posts from China, which I will get to.

Now it is time to get another cuppa.

PS my daughter just made me tea, put the heater on, brought me slippers, my hoodie and a cookie. I’m so spoilt.

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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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Ages of Pages

Posted in A writer's life, Australian author, author appearances, Author signing event, Keri Arthur, New Zealand, Travel, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 10, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Hamilton is a lovely city. Keri and I stayed close to the venue and did a big long walk to Hamilton Gardens. It was $20 to see the themed gardens and expect to see photos from these pop up here and later. I reckon I could get a mystical door way theme going.

The event was quite big. A lot of authors and cool vendors and well organised. It was well organised. Some authors did fabulously well. Keri Arthur for one. Laura Hunter said she did great. Me, not too great but not bad either considering I am still building a following and I haven’t ever appeared at a NZ event before.

It was lovely to meet readers and also connect with authors who I knew but haven’t seen in a while. Waves to Lee Murray. Or authors I know online such as Mary Brock Jones. We were table buddies being placed next to each other. I met a librarian and also a rep from the NZ Society of Authors. The beauty of this book event is that it is free to readers. Yes, there are VIP tickets I think and raffles but basically it is free. I recall they do an anthology for charity too.

While I wasn’t busy at the table I scoped out a series. I did a lot of writing down of world building, story arc, characters and plot. It’s very weird but I was inspired by Nalini Singh when on panels at the ARRA event. She talked about her 12 book Psy-Changeling series and how she wrote the first book and a scene for the final book at the same time. I haven’t ever tried planning so hugely. Actually I lie, when I first wrote a book, an SF romance with feminist overtones, Relic, I mapped out a six book series, a cross galactic, alien and sex and gods and planet settling thing. However, I never published that book. It was in 2000 and SF romance wasn’t a big thing, I was a new writer, there was no self publishing then and while I had two different agents around that time, it never went anywhere and I wrote other things. I did get feedback from author friend that I should write it later on when I was more experienced. Maybe I will, who knows.

Anyway, I wrote the first scene in that scoped series the other day. However, I have lots of things going on writing wise and need to apply my ADHD post menopause brain to achieve more and faster.

Anyway, take aways from NZ and Ages of Pages. NZ is always worth a visit. Ages of Pages is a great event. Not sure I’ll go again but you never know as I always have a reason to visit NZ so makes sense.

Here is the photo bomb!

Chinese section of Hamilton Gardens

Photo by Keri Arthur. Me in the pagoda thing Hamilton Gardens

Japanese section of Hamilton Gardens. Lovely lamp.

Italian section of the Hamilton Gardens. Romulus and Remus being fed by the wolf.

Egyptian Wall Hamilton Gardens

Small statue in the picturesque section? Not sure. Hamilton Gardens.

Unicorn from Tudor garden section Hamilton Gardens

Egyptian pool, Hamilton Gardens.

Keri taking a photo of me, Chinese section Hamilton Gardens. Some great reflection going on there.

The photo Keri took of me in the Chinese gardens.

This is a shot from leaving the themed gardens. Hamilton Gardens.

This gum was in the Hamilton Gardens, general area. It’s very impressive.

Also, we walked around the street and found some amazing trees. I asked Keri to pose with this huge Plane tree so you can see how thick the trunk was.

We did about 18,000 steps that day.

At Ages of Pages

Me and Laura Hunter at Ages of Pages

Keri at her table before she sold out of some of her books.

My table at Ages of Pages

At dinner on the eve of Ages of Pages at The Cook pup. Keri, JO Mantel, assistant to Laura, Laura and me grinning like a ghoul.

Anyhow, I am back home and I’ve done some stuff and will be blogging all that over the next few days.

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A preview of my end of year round up

Posted in am wrinting, Australian author, author appearances, Culling craft, revision, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on December 2, 2024| Leave a Comment »

This post is based on an email I sent to the CSFG group. It has been amended.

We came back from the UK end of February 2024 and I hit the ground running. In March I attended two signing events one in Sydney and one in Melbourne, organised by the Australian Romance Readers. I’ll be appearing again in 2025 in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne next year.

I joined the CSFG novel crit group and got to work on revising The Founders’ Legacy for submission. The crit group requires members to read a novel a month for critique so it was a pretty hectic year on the reading front. The only time I read just for pleasure was when my book was up for crit.

Sihem (Now a The Founders’ Legacy) was my phd novel. I kept thinking that was going to take months to revise, but I knew it was a couple of weeks focussed work and I was right. As I had put this novel on submission I haven’t revised it yet. Not only do I have the crit to apply as I choose, I have some thoughts in my head.

I also revised Grandma Needs: Through the Pantry Door, my children’s fantasy. I drafted this last year. I have continued to put this out on submission. However, it’s a competitive market out there so we will have to see.

I submitted two short stories during the year and they were rejected too. However, I got the idea to do a collection of Robot stories, which led to Robot Hearts, science fiction collection. This included six previously unpublished stories. A few were older, and I wrote three new ones from scratch. That collection was published in September. I had a lot of fun with this.

I also wrote Destiny’s Blood, Book Three in the Cursed Ones series under my Dani Kristoff name. That was published earlier this month.

I’m about 37,000 words in book three of the Cry Havoc series, my steampunk series, featuring Manners, magic and mayhem. I had hoped to have had that published this year but it looks like next year. However, I am still drafting this so who knows, I may get the first draft done by the end of the year who knows?


I also started another book /novella called Louisa’s Choice, but that’s about 10,000 words in and has been for a while. It is kinda a reverse harem/why choose book possibly series.

I still have a revision on a Regency romance to do as I have two lots of beta reader feedback and a number of other things on the go, like a YA/Cross over fantasy that is drafted but needs restructuring and the next book written.

I don’t think I’m anywhere near as productive as I wished to be, but I’ve made a start. There are days when I can’t even sit at my desk. No idea why. I reduced my day job to two days and still I am not as productive and as enthusiastic as I want to be.

I also did a few events. Gamacon in Canberra and Fiction and Friction in Adelaide. I’m set for a few more in 2025. I’ve also attended a few writing related things like romance reader lunches, romance writer get togethers and an occasional CSFG thing. I went to Romance Writers of Australia conference in Adelaide and the World SF convention in Glasgow.

I spent of time on the back office stuff too, website/blog etc. I set up a pay hip store for my books. Many thanks to Keri Arthur for help there.

I read through Ruby Heart and Emerald Fire to correct typos and created hard backs and large print hard backs. I also published a hardback version of Vorn and the First Comers, which is a prequel novella to another series. I have more to do on this front. I also bought a microphone and have been practising reading for audio book purposes. I’m not entirely there yet. Although I didn’t meet my own expectations, I think I can safely say I’ve had a writerly year. I watch way too much streamed shows and don’t read enough either.
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Life is hotting up for the end of year. I am expecting family to visit from Singapore. My two eldest granddaughters are turning 18 in January and both graduated from high school this year. My eldest daughter is moving to Sydney with my youngest granddaughter. My other daughter announced she eloped in August. My grandson is back from overseas and doing well.

Life is constantly changing around us.

On a more personal front I have had a bit of a crisis. I have a craft room and I haven’t been in the craft room for a long time. It’s chaos in there and I’m at the stage where I feel the need to cull, that maybe I have to get rid of some things so I can focus on a few things. I have legacy silk flower makings, millinery projects and supplies, a floor loom, dressmaking stuff, yarn, quilting supplies, embroidery kits and the rest. I’m a regular craft junkie. I feel that way about the house too, but mostly the garage and all the crap that is in there. I’ve been warning Matthew that he might have to supervise as I will throw his stuff out. Rolls eyes. Maybe this is a good thing and not a sign of some impending life crisis. I’ve put on weight. My eldest said I have ballooned. It’s a battle to keep fit, exercise, do all the craft, writing and stuff and work. I feel that I’m going to go mental just trying to do everything. So maybe 2025 is about new beginnings, giving myself a break and throwing crap out. I want order, not chaos. However, order requires consistency and work and that’s the hard part.

Speaking of hobbies. Yesterday I did a cooking course. We made ricotta gnocchi and biscotti. I made cranberry and almond biscotti. I really can’t help myself can I?

And if you want to join my newsletter, where I share promotions and giveaways. Try here.

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Achieving Goals

Posted in A writer's life, am wrinting, Argenterra, Australian author, author appearances, epic fantasy, fantasy, General excitment, magic, tagged , , , , , , , , , on July 24, 2024| Leave a Comment »

This week I think I’m going to achieve a goal and if I’m lucky two of them.

In the day job, I have scaled down to two days a week, starting this week. This is my first Wednesday free. You can’t believe how happy I was last night knowing there was no work tomorrow and two days isn’t enough time to get stressed. Next workday is Monday. This is kind of a goal I suppose.

Last night, we went to see Fly Me to the Moon, which was so much fun. I wasn’t feeling it from the trailer but it was way better than I expected and I got all kinds of retro rocket feels from watching launches and seeing rockets! Well worth the watch. The moon launch was 55 years ago.

The dragging symptoms of RSV are still with me. The cough is gone finally but I still have annoying and persistent nasal congestion. This is five weeks! Over it.

This morning I went for a walk in the fog a bit later than I went yesterday when it was one degree C! I am trying to regain my fitness after not exercising for five weeks. I’m going okay with that. I had an ulterior motive too. I needed to think up something cool to end Destiny’s Blood. I only have to write the resolution so maybe 5000 words, maybe a bit more. Luckily the ideas came thick and fast on my walk and I dictated those ideas in my phone. My goal is to get this to my wonderful beta reader Nicole by Sunday as she has some leave and can read it. Doing a happy dance here. After addressing beta reader comments, it goes to the editor.

Goal number two is a bit trickier. I received the edits for Robot Hearts, my short story collection and there’s a bit of work to do there. I figure I should just run at Destiny’s Blood, then switch to the short stories. Then I can pick up Amber Rose again. There is only so much brain.

In between I need to do my tax return and BAS before heading off to Scotland on the 3rd. I’m off to Worldcon (world SF convention) in Glasgow and I get to meet up with my buddy, Glenda Larke and her family.

Here come my complicating factors or wonderful interruptions. My son is here from Singapore. He leaves very early Friday. My Sister in law and Brother in law are visiting this week. I love hanging with them so a bit of a juggle. Tomorrow we are out but today I’ll stay in and write. Tonight, we have a family thing watching my granddaughter in a production. Saturday I am an Gammacon sharing a booth with Chris Andrews. Gammacon website here. So exciting but not conducive to writing. Come along and say hi and buy some books!

This means most of my preparation for Saturday will be on Friday and thus making Sunday harder to meet. I should stop writing this blog post hey.

I am really pleased to see some sales of The Silverland Series either the box set on KOBO and currently discounted (they only place it’s listed I think) and individual books on Amazon and elsewhere. I know romantasy is a new buzzword but The Silverlands is a romantasy or romantic fantasy or fantasy romance has been around for a while. It’s a world slip, featuring two girls from our world who find themselves in another world. A world where everyone can do magic, except Sophy. The story follows three young women and their romantic tales and the hidden dark threats to them. I am supposed to be checking this book for typos but I just fall in love with the world and the characters, particularly Sophy and Oakheart, and get lost and start reading instead of checking for typos. Not sure if I’ll make this a hard cover but you never know. Vorn and the First Comers is a prequel novella that’s for free in most vendors. One of the features of The Silverlands is the tales people tell from the early days and Vorn and the First Comers is one of these. I think it enriches the world building. It was my first fantasy series and I worked hard to make it original.

Until next time.

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The dreaded lurgy aftermath

Posted in A writer's life, am wrinting, Australian author, author appearances, tagged , , , , , , , , on July 13, 2024| Leave a Comment »

It’s been over three weeks since I got RSV. I’m still coughing a bit and have nasal congestion. One of my ears is not too happy either. It doesn’t pay to be older and susceptible. This is my fourth such illness in less than a year. Although I infected my partner and son, they have recovered. It’s my curse.

I’ve been working extra days and higher duties on the day job. I thought they’d get in the way of drafting and my son is visiting too. However, that’s probably not the reason my word count isn’t as high as it should be. I’ve been a bit slack too. I don’t usually write on the days I do my day job, unless the story is burning its way out of my brain. RSI means I try to keep my at computer time limited.

This week I had novel crit group with the CSFG. This means I need to read a novel a month and provide a critique. I did that! Yay. Now there’s a new novel to read. I’ve also been reading The Time of the Cat by Tansy Rayner Roberts. Nearly finished. It’s entertaining. It’s a bed time read so how much I read is based on how fast I get tired. I listened to Harlen Coben’s Tell No One, which is a stand alone novel of his. Told in the first person, it starts out lyrical and also rivetting. It had a really good twist and then the last twist I didn’t like at all. Anyway, lets not give it away or dwell. I also listened to the second Strike novel The Silkworm. I will read more. I find them a bit addictive so not conducive to writing..

Anyway, I think you can see where and how I’ve been slacking off. I’ve also got a few more episodes of Castle under my belt along with a delve into the Grace series. Castle is mostly cosy mystery but Season 3 and 4 sometimes went into thriller and harder crime areas. Matthew thinks I have a thing for Nathan Fillion so he bought me the first season of The Rookie yesterday. Grace is a tad more edgy than I like, but its good and I’ll get back to it. Grace is filmed in Brighton. I’ve spent some good times there.

Accountabilty post

Destiny’s Blood is at 70,000 words. I meant to get there last weekend but didn’t. I would like to get to 75,000 this weekend, but I have stuff on so I’m not sure. Oh dear I’m a committment phobe!

Amber Rose is at 22,000 words and I haven’t touched it since my last post. Mostly because I’m getting to the crunch time with Destiny’s blood so all my focus is there.

The really, really big distraction is that I bought a microphone and downloaded Audacity yesterday. I wanted to see if I could narrate one of my books. I’ve been using voice memo on the phone and sounded crap but you know the software and the new micropone sound pretty good. It’s pink! Lot’s of practice as it’s technical. Also, you know hating the sound of your voice thing.

Achievements

Emerald Fire in large print and hardback arrived. I have yet to decide if I’ll do more of my books that way. It’s a bit of work and I have to pay for the covers to be redone. Here is a picture of my hardbacks. I’m very proud of them. Weird. I thought Australian libraries would buy them but mostly it’s Europe and UK who have ordered these.

Appearances

I’ll be a Fiction and Friction in Adelaide in October. Link here

I have a preorder form for this event here.

I’m also with Chris Andrews at Gamacon on 27 July, 2024 at the Canberra raceway. Link here.

Talk soon!

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Pointy end of the stick

Posted in A writer's life, am wrinting, Australian author, Creative passion, Emerald Fire, tagged , , , , , , , , , on June 6, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Writing is so glamous! Not!

It’s a lot of hard work generally. I have to admit it has been a bit of a tough week. I worked three days in the day job and did no other writing. I was tired, yes, and a bit burned out I have to admit. Also, doing things after work. Tuesday we went to see Furiosa, which I thought was a masterpiece. Long, but beautifully rendered, with time taken to appreciate a scene, an emotional nuance. Last night we went to The Craft of Crime at the National Library of Australia, where I am now supposedly writing. The Craft of Crime was enjoyable an interview with Sulari Gentill (I’m already a fan) and Chris Hammer, author of Scrublands, who I haven’t read. For me as a writer their session was an inspiration.I bought books, got them signed and hung with mates for dinner. Thank you Matthew, Lily and Georgina. We talked of writing and writing retreats.

This morning I went to aqua aerobics, had lunch and came here to the library. All good. Except one of the manuscripts I wanted to work on won’t load. So something must have gone wrong when I shut it down on my desktop. Never mind, I have another project right here. The words are coming, but slowly today. The weather is unseasonably warm and also wet. I don’t mean it’s hot, it’s just not butt freezing cold like it should be.

However, I don’t have to mope! Monday is a public holiday so I have five days to write and do other things too.

On the positive side, I have been reading through Emerald Fire to reengage with the characters and correct typos. Not quite finished yet as I read it aloud. I have two hard backs of Ruby Heart on their way if the delivery notification is to be believed. These are achievements!

I’ve also been reading for fun. The Mystery Writer by Sulari Gentill and Spirit Hunters book four by Ellen Oh (kids book for research) and also listening to Paladin’s Strength by T Kingfisher, nearly done and I’ve bought Paladin’s Hope and I see there’s another called Paladin’s Faith. I really enjoy the pace of these, quite slow in places but nuanced and funny at times as she tells the story from both their point of views so you see the lustful thinking, the imagining and their self talk, often at odds with the other. Also, Kingfisher does put a lot of things between them such as headless corpses, heads, magic, demons, other people who wish them ill. I think it’s a great combo of fantasy, horror and romance. Also, the narrator is great too.

Actually, I had a bit of a ‘ah ha’ moment in reading Emerald Fire, that what was is fun about the Cry Havoc series, is Jemima, her relationships and her weird quips and dry musings. Doing the read through of Emerald Fire I found myself laughing at her antics and that’s a great observation, considering I’m writing Amber Rose. Lucky I had just introduce some chaos for Jemima to navigate so she can have some fun dealing with absurd people who say ridiculous things. I’m also having thoughts about the next book which I’m going to call, A Prudential Light, featuring none other than Aunt Prudence. This time it will be a mix of her life when she was younger and the present…apparently she did some really interesting things in her young womanhood.

As mentioned previously I have two books on submission to traditional publishers. And maybe that’s what is getting me down. It’s such a lottery. You can do your best and still nothing might happen. Not a good time, right book, wrong time…who knows.

But I will keep on keeping on!

Also, I’ll be a Geek Markets in Canberra on Saturday 8th June. I’ll be helping out on the CSFG table so if you are in the neighborhood say hi. Entry to the markets is free.

Also, new book cover preview next post.

And my latest binge watch is McDonald and Dobbs, murder mystery set in Bath. I just love Bath and it’s great eye candy. Plots are good, sneaky and well written. Dobbs is a sympathetic characters. Shows are longish like Vera, first season only two episodes. I’m half way through season three so not long before I finish. I have this on Brit Box but apparently it’s available on Freeview Australia, which I have not heard of before.

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Back after my dash across the pond

Posted in A writer's life, am wrinting, Australian author, Creative passion, revision, Science fiction conventions, Scotland, World Science Fiction Conventions, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 23, 2024| Leave a Comment »

I arrived back from New Zealand on Tuesday evening. Unfortunately, I developed a migraine while I was waiting for my bag to come off the carousel. Annoying because I could hardly see and I was on a tight timeframe to make my flight to Canberra. Anyway, it was straight to bed for me. Luckily I was able to take some panodol when the aura started.

Yesterday was the day job and I was going to write after but took it easy instead.

Today is writing day. First up a bit of admin. I had to upload the updated version of Vorn and the First Comers, which now includes a map and the first chapter of Argenterra. I may as well make the book magnet, a book magnet. I also published for the first time a hardback book. I made this one of Vorn and the First Comers. It looks really flash. It is the first time it is on paper as it has only ever been an ebook.

I have also made two hardcopy versions of Ruby Heart, after my read through and fixing typos. There will be a normal hardcover version and a large print version with special font for Dyslexic readers. The large print is really for libraries as they are expensive to produce and I don’t think people buy them. But I could be wrong. The next one off the rank is Emerald Fire. I’m reading it through for typos and for plot and character because I have started writing Amber Rose, book 3 in the Cry Havoc series. Over 5000 words so far and it’s cracking along. I am not sure why it’s cracking on but it seems to be. I’m over 20,000 words into Lightning Strike as well. I only started writing Amber Rose because I’d left Lightning Strike open on my desktop and had to wait for Matthew to close up for me. That took a couple of days.

However, I can honestly say Keri Arthur’s recommended 1000 words a day will get you a book in three months is pretty solid advice. I wrote 1000 words a day while in NZ. I just haven’t quite managed it since I’ve been back. When I get back from aqua aerobics I will get cracking, perhaps on both of them. I do have another project but I’m happy to keep that on the back burner while I deal with these two.

I have the Regency Romance to revise and a few other WIPs but no rush as they say! Hahaha.

Finally, Awakening has a rating on Amazon. Five star. Thank you to whoever put that there.

I almost forgot. Hot off the press, I’ll be in Glasgow for the World Science Fiction Convention in early August! And I am also going to be an attending author at the Fiction and Friction Signing in October in Adelaide.

I have two books on submission:

Grandma Neebs: Through the Pantry Door, middle grade fantasy

The Founders’ Legacy: Sihem, science fiction, feminist science fiction, SF romance and could be read as a queer YA

It’s highly competitive and tough to get into traditional publishing. Nevertherless, I’m giving it another go.

Wish me luck!

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Progress report

Posted in A writer's life, Australian author, Book cover, cover reveal, Creative passion, Querying agents, tagged , , , , , , , on May 10, 2024| Leave a Comment »

A few things on the boil.

Here is the cover for the robot-themed short story collection that I’ll put out this year. I was going to call it by a different name but that old name did not suit the cover. Matthew suggested Robot Hearts. Last week I drafted two of the stories and the rest I have are already written. What do you think? I’m in a quandary about an editor.

I’ve been reading through Ruby Heart, mostly to refresh my mind about the characters and story so I can write the next book. However, I’m repairing typos as well. Reading slowly out loud takes time, but it’s good at detecting missing words etc. Pity it was proofread too. I’m almost done. Then I need to read Emerald Fire so I can start on Amber Rose. I dug out the cover for inspiration.

I’m very excited to be working on this. I did start a while ago but life just went off in a big kaboom.

Yesterday was meant to be a full on writing day. However, after aqua aerobics I was wasted and starving. So we had lunch at the club as planned. Too many good options to choose from in the pensioner lunch category. And then I flaked. I felt dizzy and sleepy. We put it down to the medication I’m on. No trip to the National Library for me.

In bed, after a nap, I managed about 1000 words on The Lightning Strike on my lap top and had a cool idea where to from there. Yes, I’m seat of the pantsing this one. Eventually I’ll have to plan it, but I like to see where the story, characters and mystery goes. I’m really liking Gene and Lily but have decided to bring in Wolf and Abbie to create some huge sparks.

Today I stumbled across a review on Kobo for Oathbound, the middle book of the Silverlands series. It completely blew me away. It was nice, of course, so nice blown away and not jaw dropping to the ground appalling blown away. Link here.

Amazon put the price of Vorn and the First Comers to free and then changed it back up again. This means that this weekend I will try to get my book store live so anyone can get it free. I’ve also decided to do a hardcover of Vorn and the First Comers, which will be its first time in print.

I’ve two books on submission. And you know it is very disheartening when you know some award winning writers can’t place their books with publishers and or agents. I will try to brazen in out until I give up hope.

That’s it from me until next time.

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Trying to balance all the things

Posted in A writer's life, All the things, am wrinting, Australian author, Being organised, Creative passion, Trying to focus, tagged , , , , on May 9, 2024| Leave a Comment »

I’m sure everyone has issues trying to do all the things.

I was saying to Matthew how hard I was finding working, writing and exercising and balancing between them. That doesn’t include all the other things such as social activities, reading, housekeeping and well thinking. Matthew said he was finding it hard as well.

I currently work three days a week. Lately, I’ve been a bit tired after work. I think it’s the cold. I am doing writing related stuff but not drafting so much. That I do on Thursdays and Fridays and on the weekend when I get some time.

I should say our house currently resembles a tip. We have been focussing on writing etc. I think we need to correct this on the weekend as I find chaos stressful.

I have to say while I am still feeling very energetic and enthusiastic I am struggling with balance. This week has been a bit unusual though. The kitten bit my foot and because I have metal in my knees I have to be careful of infection. And as I’m allergic to penicillin-based antibiotics and there wasn’t much to choose from I had to take sulphur-based ones that make me feel ill. Headache, nausea and tiredness mostly. I’m still on Flagyl. Grrr to the kitten. Both cats are now banned from the bedroom.

A typical Thursday for us is I get up and do some writing (I get up way earlier than Matthew) and then we go to the pool. I do aqua aerobics, Matthew does laps. Then we do the pensioner lunch thing at our local club before we head to the National Library to write. On Thursdays the reading room stays open until 8. We usually leave around 5 or 6 but that’s it. Light dinner afterwards. Friday I write and maybe socialise.

I’m also in a novel crit group, so I’m reading a draft novel a month. I get this month off as my novel is being critted in June. I listen to books, currently The Underhistory by the amazing Kaaron Warren. I’m reading through Ruby Heart to pick up typos and refresh myself on the characters etc. I’ve started a file for Amber Rose, the third book in the series, in Scriviner. I’m reading it aloud so that takes time. I’m nearly done and then I’ll start on Emerald Fire. I drafted two short stories in the last week for my Robot Heart collection. They need more work. I’ll need to pull all the stories together and get moving. I think I’ll relegate short stories to the weekend.

Today, I’m going to write fresh words on a couple of WIPs, Lightning Strike, the next magical/werewolf story following from The Changeling’s Curse and another project I’m not too sure about which I’m 10,000 words in.

Theoretically I know there’s this concept called pacing but I never understood it.

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