Over here on the Australian Romance Readers Blog a teaser for the January releases, including Rayessa!
Woot!
Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Reblogging this
Posted in Uncategorized on December 27, 2012| Leave a Comment »
Update on the Next Big Thing
Posted in Uncategorized on December 26, 2012| Leave a Comment »
Just a quick note to let you know that Maxine McArthur has a new blog at https://maxinemcarthur.wordpress.com/
Her next big thing post will go up soon.
Happy reading.
Donna
Dictation Software Breakthrough
Posted in Dictation software, Uncategorized on December 4, 2012| 2 Comments »
I’ve been meaning to post this for some time, but events got in the way.
I’ve done a couple of posts about dictation software and how I used it to save my arms, by dictating emails and blogs. I felt it wasn’t that easy to write fiction but okay for work stuff, particularly audit reports.
Well I was working on my novel a couple of months back and my hands hurt but I really wanted to keep writing. So in desperation I put on my headset and started dictating a scene and it worked and I did it. Just like that. I made the cognitive leap. I’m not saying I prefer it over using my hands to type, but that I could dictate a scene.
The way it works for me best is to stop after a couple of paragraphs and make corrections. My version of the software reads back what I said and that helps a lot. It will also read what I’ve written, which also helps with picking up small errors. If I go too far (and I did) the play back function gets dodgy if you have edited the text. That is, it won’t play back and you have to work out what you were trying to say.
Basically, I dictated the last quarter of the novel and it was quick too. I could do 6000 in a day with no aching hands. I use my hands to edit, but that was okay.
Later, I found out that my aching hands wasn’t a resurgence of the RSI but low Vitamin D. It causes inflammatory type reactions in things like your hands and feet. Now I’ve been gulping down a double dose of Vitamin D, the aches are gone. (It had dropped to 39).
Dictating fiction is possible. I found dialogue the easiest and the program didn’t mind me talking like my characters. I don’t like anyone being around while I write. I’m a bit self conscious about it. I’m the same with practicing presentations and readings.
However, to make it work, I have a souped up laptop with 8 Gb of RAM, a $300 headset (wireless) and the premium version of Dragon Naturally Speaking. All this combined helps make the program work better and reduce errors. I still have errors but not the same level of frustration I’d have if I wasn’t packing mean machinery. I also had lessons and trained the software.
Still here
Posted in Uncategorized on November 12, 2012| Leave a Comment »
I’m sorry my absence from the blog has been pronounced. I had my Conflux 8 post drafted but had to dash off to New Zealand for 9 days. I’ve been back for a bit but have been hard at it, writing, revising and stuff. I also popped up to Sydney for Genrecon, which was awesome. I’ll have a post and a few photos from that too. As I’ve been away for 3 weekends in a row I had a stay at home kind of weekend. I even planted some tomatoes. Even though I did not achieve the awesome house cleanliness goal I was aiming for, I am well satisfied with my domesticity this weekend.
Uni finishes this week. All I have left to do is listen to a lecture and submit my portfolio and then I’m done with Writing for Young People, which I really enjoyed.
I’m starting a new project at work, always fun. I hope to catch up with my blogs shortly.
Gamesday Aus 2012
Posted in Games Day, Uncategorized, Warhammer on October 15, 2012| Leave a Comment »
This blog post is well overdue. My only excuse is that I have been finishing off a novel and that tends to be a very intense closed- in that type of activity, which precludes writing blog posts. Work, family and university studies probably also take away my blogging time. Okay, I can add up that’s more than one and only excuse, but that’s enough excuses from me.
I’m writing this blog now because the Internet is been down in the vague hope that it will come up again, and I can lodge this blog post. Obviously, my optimism was worth it as you are now reading this online.
We went off to Gamesday again this year (September 9) . It went off smashingly well. The night before social gathering didn’t take place with the broader group, who had come out from the UK. Instead, Matthew and I managed to grab dinner at the pub with Anthony Reynolds and friend. We’d turned up to the Sydney city store to catch up with people and meet Gav Thorpe. It was pretty busy with his presentations and signings, so I caught up with Mal Greene instead. Mal and I were table buddies last year. (This year no table for me so I got to check out the place).
Hanging in the store, we managed to check out the new releases. Dark Revenge and it’s a new starter pack for those wishing to start playing. It has very cool chaos army figures. They looked pretty cool to my untrained eye. 
I’m not sure what Matt is holding.
We retired to a hotel after arranging to meet with the gang to catch the train over to Redfern to the Technology Park (Locomotive workshop). I’ll save you the pictures I took last year of the contraption I nominated as the Dweeb-catching machine.
However, I took some shots from inside, Victorian machinery/steampunk. very inspiring.
Lathe,which was used to sharpen wheels on trains?
A machine used for maintaining trains or extracting brains.
We got there before and Gamesday opened, walking past the queue. There is something very cool about getting in the before all the people do. After grabbing coffee and stuff for breakfast, as the cafe we intended to have breakfast at had been shut, I took a little tour of the play tables, with very impressive dioramas and amazing constructions. Here I will put up some photos. During Gamesday due to the crowds and people playing games, it is really difficult to get a good view. In Birmingham Gamesday a few years back, I had no idea what was on the tables as people were crowded around sometimes several people thick.
A close up of the detail of those statues. Awesome stuff.
Close up of statue on previous construct.
That last contraption is a Stompa!
The writers and designers who were signing were all lined up in a pretty obvious spot as opposed to hidden away. Next to that staff were advertising the panel sessions. Apparently, that worked really well as these panel sessions were pretty full.
Here is a shot of James pretending to be Matthew at the signing table.
James pretending to be Matt at the signing table.
Of course is that the obligatory shot of us with the Space Marine. Apologies but I just had to put them up.
James posing with the Space Marine guy
Matt and the Space Marine Guy
Me and the marine
The most exciting moment is when the door is about to open and there is a countdown ten, nine, eight….one. People spill inside, rushing forward. My photos of people coming in the door aren’t very impressive, so I took a shot of Matthew taking photos of people surging in.
Matt taking shots of the people charging through the doors. Excitement!
During the day it the boys were pretty busy signing books. I find Matthew is very dedicated. He doesn’t really stop for lunch and gets annoyed if I try and make him. So I just collected his lunch and slid it onto the table next to him. James and I managed a few forays to the tables during the day, just checking stuff out.
Here is a shot I took of the boys signing books.
Matt, Gav, Anthony in shot
I didn’t take a shot of my book haul, because Matthew raided it straight away. He stole my copy of Pariah ( a red hardback) by Dan Abnett. We did, however, get two copies of the Gamesday chapbook, which had a story from Matthew and Anthony. The two stories were linked. It was just very cool.
I think I went back to the black library stall number of times. I bought something from Gav, a bought a print, I bought the best of Hammer and Bolter among other things. James had come along to this Gamesday. He’s resisted geekification for a while now. However, as he was a little bit at a loose end so we joined the painting table. Both of us sat down and we painted Space Marines.
Here is a picture of our efforts.
Mine is blue and James’ is red and blue
Anyway, what happened was that we both got very enthusiastic about painting Warhammer 40 K miniatures. So after a bit of parleying with James and Matthew, we visited the tables once again. We came away with a painting kit, a miniature for me as we had determined that Matthew had stacks of unpainted Space Marines going back some 10 or so years at home. However, I did drop a bit of cash. As we were sitting at the table painting the Space Marines, James looked over to me and said “You’ve turned me into a geek.” He said this with a rather long-suffering and defeated expression on his face. It was just inevitable James. You are surrounded by geekery and it was bound to crawl between your skin cells and infiltrate your brain eventually.
The boys (authors is the correct term) also did a panel session in which some very interesting questions were asked. Like how do you imagine being an alien? Matthew says he gets so alien at times in his fiction, people don’t get the story. He was thinking of his story ‘Faces’.
Henry, Gav, Anthony and Matthew
So after a fairly long day, Matthew and James and I headed to the pub to chill with the gang. Then we began the long trip back to Canberra. I believe that plans are underway for next year’s Gamesday as this one was a big success.
Here is one last shot with Matthew and an Inquisitor.
Matt and the Inquisitor
I’m overdue for a blog post
Posted in Uncategorized on September 28, 2012| Leave a Comment »
Things have been busy, with university, with work, with family and with convention planning. Then there’s the cake decorating (new obsession) and writing too.
It is time for a catch up, but first this weekend I’ll be a Conflux 8, actively promoting Conflux 9.
I made a steampunk-themed cake here.
So while it is raining, I’ll be geeking inside the convention space at Novotel Canberra.
Guest blog up at The Great Raven
Posted in Uncategorized on March 13, 2012| Leave a Comment »
Sue Bursztynski has featured a guest blog post by me on her review site The Great Raven. This is in celebration of the release of the anthology Mystic Resonance published by Specusphere.
It is really nice of Sue to host posts from all the contributors so keep an eye out for a series of posts.It is interesting hearing how ideas became stories and then became published.
Enjoy
Here it is
You can purchase the anthology here. at the specusphere.com site.
Finished the read through
Posted in Uncategorized on February 12, 2012| Leave a Comment »
This morning I got up a little bit earlier and completed my readthrough of Dragon Wine. Now I’m going to experiment with Dragon naturally speaking to see whether I can implement the tweaks that I highlighted in my readthrough.
I was quite surprised that they were not as many typos is as I expected. However, there were a few interesting ones. For example, ‘giggling’ curls instead of ‘jigging ‘curls. That one was interesting and it would not have been picked up through spellcheck. Only the readthrough would have had the potential to pick it up. So I’ll leave you now with this very small update while I attempt dictate my way through my very long manuscript.
I expect another blog post later either crowing in triumph or seriously venting.
I forgot to add.
Posted in Uncategorized on February 8, 2012| Leave a Comment »
Here is the page for Damnation and Dames, with very sexy cover art over at the publisher’s website.
You’ll notice they have opened submissions for Bloodstones. I have to put on my thinking cap for that one.
Then I should say that I added, my son, Taamati Te Rata, who is a 3D artist, who worked on games such as Medieval Total War to my links. Check out his site.
When I get a novel published, I have made him swear a blood oath to do a book trailer for me.
Back in the saddle
Posted in Uncategorized on February 8, 2012| Leave a Comment »
It’s been a long time since I blogged so I thought I’d give you a bit of an update. Firstly we got back from New Zealand and the writers’ retreat on 21 January and very quickly were back into the home and work thing. Because I had RSI, I couldn’t apply myself as seriously and as diligently as I normally would have at a writers’ retreat. However, I did get some serious thinking done on Emerald Fire, which will lay a very good foundation for writing the conclusion to the Jemima Hardcastle novel I commenced last year, Ruby Heart. (It’s a duology for the current story line). I did do a bit of drafting, but I couldn’t seriously say it was a decent first draft, except say the first two chapters. I do feel more comfortable though that I know how to deal with the baddie and how it all comes out in the end.
Since I been home I’ve been working on a hardcopy version of Dragon Wine, doing a very thorough read through and some fine-tuning edits. Given the amount of cutback and changes I have made I just wanted to give it one more go over before I sent it off. This process is taking me a little bit longer than I thought it would, because I still have a lot of fatigue and I fall asleep a lot.
In publishing news my story “Through these eyes I see” will be out soon in the Mystic Resonance by Specusphere. Below is a link to a very cool book trailer. It is a bit scary, but my name is on the front cover. I have not headlined before.
As I have RSI, I have not been on the computer very much at all. So today I did a little bit of catching up on e-mails. I have invested in dictation software, Dragon, NaturallySpeaking, which is working out quite well. It will take a little bit of work for me to learn to dictate (write as I think) for novel writing and short story writing. However I’m pretty determined because the RSI thing is going to be with me forever and I have to manage it. I really want it to work.
I also found out that I have another story coming out later this year in Damnation and Dames from Ticonderoga Publications. I’m very excited about this one because I love the setting and the characters. It is a 1920s noir story set in Chicago, called ‘Sangue De Notte’. It is a sister story to ‘Turning the Blood’, in Winds of Change by CSFG Publications. ‘Turning the Blood’ deals with Alf’s transformation. ‘Sangue De Notte’ happens a bit later in Alf’s life, where he meets the daring young Dela Luxman .
As for other submissions I’ve had no news as yet and I need to keep submitting stories if I’m going to get them published. Today I heard that an article I did on ‘Navigating the Slushpile’ was published by W. Q Magazine, which is put out by the Queensland Writers Centre.
I’ve dived into the slush pile again . A different manuscript in a different slush pile, but will have to wait and see . I haven’t heard anything yet .
Donna Maree Hanson, Author, Phd in Creative Writing 