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Posts Tagged ‘robots’

A bit late this week

Posted in Book cover, cover reveal, Crime shows, Paranormal romance writing, sf conventions, Viewing, World Science Fiction Conventions, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on June 16, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Usually I aim to write my blog posts on Thursdays. However, this week I got a migraine. Apart from holding it together for a visit by Patty Jansen, I spent the rest of the day in bed. Friday wasn’t much of a blast either.

What did I achieve? Text of the short story collection Robot Hearts was sent to the Ian McHugh for editing. Big tick. Lots of work install for me I am sure.

Associated with that process was registering the ISBNs and the CIP entry.

Destiny’s Blood is a 40,000 words but I haven’t added to it since Thursday due to the above short story collection and migraine.

Amber Rose is at 18,000 words and same as previous.

But there is always this afternoon, after the romance reader lunch.

Large Print version and hardback version of Emerald Fire has been achieved in the sense that I have finished the read through and made corrections, created the files, registered the ISBNs and requested the covers. A little bit finicky but all necessary. I also did the CiP entry for those too.

I also wrote a short post on my Dani Kristoff page. Here

This was to announce the cover of Destiny’s Blood.

Other monumental events. The Founders’ Legacy was critiqued in the CSFG crit group and Wednesday nigh.t Despite the blood stains from at times difficult feedback, I have some ideas to go forward and that’s the value of critiquing sessions, particularly when you know you have a difficult book and that it will create divergent opinions. However, as I have a full writing schedule revisions will be a while and I have to think things through. As I was being the one critted I had this month to do some reading for fun, so I have read a few things, currently The Time of the Cat by Tansy Rayner Roberts, who took out an amazing three Aurealis Awards last month. Lucky I had a copy because I supported the kick starter. It is a clever and amusing read and I’m still working on it. Listening to audio books, I’m still in Paladin books by T Kingfisher, just onto Paladin’s Faith. I might change up my listening after this but not sure what’s next. It depends on what I have already purchased.

Viewing wise, I stayed up late to finish Bridgeton Series 3. All hail Nicola Coughlan and her perfect breasts. I love her comeback when someone tried to body shame her. People like me with perfect breasts…I am now a member of the perfect breasts club. Thank you Nicola.

If you are into crime series, Brit Box has McDonald and Dobbs, which we have binged watched. Longer format kind of like Vera but not Vera obviously. Set in Bath, lovely, clever plots and very sympathetic characters. Thoroughly recommend. I’ve also been watch old Columbo episodes and they are fascinating.

Did I mention I was popping off to the World SF convention in Glasgow on 3 August?

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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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Sometimes you think you are unproductive and you’re not

Posted in A writer's life, am wrinting, Australian author, Book launch, Publication news, tagged , , , , , on March 14, 2021| Leave a Comment »

I keep thinking that I’ve been doing this PHD for years and I haven’t written anything creative in ages. That’s a big fat lie!

In the early years of my PhD I put out a lot of books. I also republished books that I had received the rights back from publishers. I call bull on my thinking there.

Then, you know this is a creative writing PhD that I’m doing and I have written a novel. Isn’t a novel a creative piece of work? Well, yes, I say, it is. It may not be published yet but that does not mean it doesn’t exist.

That doesn’t count, part of my brain says…but what about that short story you wrote last year and that was published in late December? Mmmm???

I wrote a short story! I was productive! Evidence.

Okay I’m not productive all the time….right…and maybe I have high expectations…maybe I look on jealously as friends launch books and post about word counts…

I am too hard on myself. I often thing my kids are harsh critics of me, but I think I err. I am my harshest critic!

I do have manuscripts that are sitting there waiting for the final run through…They stick like a knife between my shoulder blades, sending their angry, neglected thoughts into my skin. I will get to them.

Anyway….about that short story. Crash Baby appears in Unnatural Order, an anthology published by CSFG publishing and edited by Alis Franklin and Lyss Wickramasinghe. The premise of the anthology was to write in a non-human voice or from a non-human perspective. Crash Baby is written from the perspective of a maintenance robot. The story was inspired by my new baby granddaughter and the long hours where I helped care for her in her first year. I also have lots of robot story ideas….I feel a collection coming on one day.

A first for me is that I share the Table of Contents with my partner Matthew Farrer who wrote about monster love. Here is the blurb!

Is an unlikely friendship enough to save a human and a voidbeast?
Can a robot’s heart be broken?
What happens to the demons when all the humans are gone?
Can dishonest hearts find peace?

By all accounts a very good line up so go check it out.

Unnatural Order

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