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Posts Tagged ‘large print books’

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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Fighting the lurgy

Posted in A writer's life, Emerald Fire, Paranormal romance, Paranormal romance writing, plotting, Trying to focus, tagged , , , , on June 27, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Last Wednesday I went to a book launch. I posted about it. I started feeling a bit off, put on a mask and went home quick smart. It was a light cold and I thought I was over it until Friday or Saturday when I started coughing. Come Sunday night, I didn’t sleep, I coughed and coughed until I was a wreck and I felt so ill. I coughed until I vomited, not pleasant. I also experienced a dreaded pee your pants moments, over and over and I thought my life was over! No doctor’s appointments available until the next day and I couldn’t work. Tested at home and negative for Covid, then did a triple test for Covid, Flu AB and RSV. Still negative. Doctor tested me for whooping cough (even though I had a booster) and a pcr for covid. Negative. Apparently if you have had a booster for whooping cough you can get a mild version and you can spread it to other people. It’s a garden variety virus. I started to feel well enough to sleep. Waking up is not as much fun and I have no sense of smell. My cup of tea tastes like hot water. The Vicks vapour rub makes my eyes water but I can’t smell it. Vegimite tastes slightly salty. I hope it comes back soon. It might be the nasal spray I’m using. I might be the virus. Who knows!

I’m not 100 percent yet. But I can sit up and do stuff for a little while. I have been whiling away the time with a bit of writing, reading, and mostly watching The Golden Girls from season one. I was already watching Castle but that tends to be the evenings. We also finished watching Halo on Blu Ray which I really liked. Reading is still the same, but I am also reading a manuscript for the novel crit group.

Progress was great until I was struck down with the lurgy. Today I’m hoping it will be a good writing day. I am not sure how I’m going to finish this story. But I did create a very cool character that would make a good spin off story. He’s the White Wolf of Donegal!

So paranormal romance Destiny’s Blood is at 52,000 words. I hope to get to 60,000 by the end of the weekend. That will be hard as my son arrives from Singapore this afternoon and I enjoy spending time with him. Luckily he has to work though and so do I next week, with extra days, so I need to focus. I may only last an hour before I want to get horizontal.

The other project, Amber Rose, had a slight increment, to just over 22,000 words.

Both projects are pants projects so I have no idea what is going to happen. The characters just go in there and make shit up. Haha. It usually works out but somewhere I have think stuff up, maybe jot something down.

Let’s not talk about the WIPs…there is only so much one can do in a day.

I did get Emerald Fire into Hard back and Large Print Hard back and I’m expecting my print copy proofs next week. They go live on June 30. Go libraries. Go!

Also, a weird and wonderful thing happened. The copyright agency paid me money this week for my work being used. I have no idea what. I’ll go check.

Julian Assange is back in Australia. Who would have thunk it.

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