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Posts Tagged ‘romance’

Hitting the road again

Posted in A writer's life, tagged , , , , , , on September 24, 2024| Leave a Comment »

I am off again tomorrow for a few weeks, mostly to Rarotonga. Do not feel bad for me. While there will be tropical distractions and family, I will try to write or at least read.

I didn’t post about Worldcon in Glasgow and I didn’t post about RWAus in Adelaide. Naughty me. Things are just well busy.

Destiny’s Blood is with the editor and sadly will not be ready in time for Fiction and Friction in Adelaide on 12 October. Not unless by some miracle. But it will be available later in October.

I have not been diligent with drafting Amber Rose. I have tinkered and I have thought about things. The downside to seat of the pants writing. I need to think about what comes next. Also, I think I burnt out trying to get Destiny’s Blood ready for the editor. I wish I thought up plot as fast as I do excuses. However, Amber Rose is extremely fun. I just love being with Jemima Hardcastle and Ambrose Fulton.

It is funny how people ask me sometimes, which book is your favourite. All of them are my favourite and for different reasons. The Silverlands (Argenterra, Oathbound and Ungiven Land) is about the world, the magic and the deep joy in there. These days it would be called Romantasy. Of course there’s Sophy and Oakheart. Such a great set of characters. I love the sisterhood of Aria and Sophy and also the pure steadiness and focus of Rae. The trilogy is about romance and magic and finding yourself. Everytime I pick it up, I get sucked into the story. It was my first fantasy novel, which I penned back in 2002 I think. It was hard because it is so difficult to do something different with fantasy and I was so happy to think up a world where everyone can use magic except my heroine and how frustrating that would be.

My online store is functioning so feel free to check it out. I haven’t got all my print books there but all the ebooks are.

I will miss Conflux in Canberra this year. I’m sad to miss it. I love conventions.

See you again soon.

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Touching Base

Posted in am wrinting, Creative passion, revision, tagged , , , , on August 21, 2024| Leave a Comment »

I’m dropping in to say I have a few posts coming up but I’m not quite ready to post yet. There was the world SF convention in Glasgow, with side tripping to the beautiful highlands, then a dash home so I could fly to the Romance Writers of Australia Conference in Adelaide on the weekend, then home again for a funeral of my awesome buddy Kaaren Sutcliffe on Monday.

I did two pitches, my first in over ten years. Lucked out on both.

I just wanted to say I’m here, I’m back, I’m busy. Robot Hearts has been proofread, but at the last minute I finally had a story that fit an idea so I wrote that yesterday and I’m just trying to see if I can get my editor to look at it, before I press print, upload etc. However, every thing is formatted and I’ve written the blurb. I need the paperback wrap but I need to finalise the pages first.

I’m chatting to the awesome Nicole tonight about her views on Destiny’s Blood and I guess the rest of the week will be spent on revisions.

I’ve been invited to the Celestial Ball event in Brisbane in June next year and I’m hoping to get the the RWA conference in Hobart in August and I’ve signed up for Worldcon in Seatle next year too. Mmmm the year is filling up.

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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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Emerald Fire is on Pre-order

Posted in new release, Steampunk, strong female lead, tagged , , , , , , , , , on February 10, 2019| Leave a Comment »

I mentioned last time that I had Emerald Fire up on pre-order. For those of you who have grabbed a copy of Ruby Heart, don’t miss out on the next book. If you like steampunk fantasy and cups of tea then this book is for you. Emerald Fire, a tad more manners, magic and mayhem!

I think Emerald Fire is better than Ruby Heart. I had so much fun with it. I’ve taken the characters and given them a big workout. I’m so excited to know what you think.

Frauke at Croco Designs did a great job on the cover as well. I am so pleased.

 

The series is Amazon only for the moment. I’ll let you know when it is with other retailers.

EmeraldFire-2

amazon

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Gearing up for the end of year

Posted in A writer's life, Australian author, Steampunk, tagged , , , , , , on October 15, 2018| Leave a Comment »

I know it’s only October but…

Things speed up this time of year.

I was going to China for two weeks at the beginning of November and then to Perth for the last week of November but that’s changed. My son has to go to the USA so we cancelled my China trip. I’m kind of sad about that because I miss my son and it’s hard knowing that the rhythm of his life is so different to mine. However, I am extremely lucky my two daughters live close by and all my grandchildren have been living close too.

Now that I will be around for most of November, I can do NaNoWriMo! Happy dance.

I have finished editing up Ruby Heart, which I got back from my agent. It didn’t sell obviously. But after cutting out some superfluous sex and violence, I think the fault is mostly mine and maybe some of it is the industry. I know so much more about the market when I wrote it and when it got taken up by the agent. It was sort of YA and then leaped into adult and back to YA. After the slashing it is now YA/cosy level I think. There’s still a bit of action and violence but nothing like before. Ruby Heart is a steampunk/paranormal romance, with gothic horror and cosy mystery tropes. It features Jemima Hardcastle who is way too clever for her own good.

I commissioned covers for Ruby Heart and the sequel Emerald Fire. As Emerald Fire is only half written, so guess what my NaNoWriMo project is. I have to believe I can get this done around my other commitments. I’ve done my tax return and that usually frees up my mind. And I will certainly do a cover reveal when I get the covers.

I also commissioned new covers for the Silverlands series and we will see how that goes. I’m going to rework the blurbs for that series too.

Anyway, I must return to the grindstone. I’m meant to be focussing on uni and the PhD today.

 

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The story of Opi Battles the Space Pirates

Posted in A writer's life, Indie Publishing, science fiction, Science Fiction Romance, self publishing, Space pirates, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on January 25, 2017| 3 Comments »

Some of you may recall my first long form publication was Rayessa and the Space Pirates, which was picked up by Harlequin’s Escape Publishing (digital imprint) in 2013. Rayessa had been languishing my hard drive for a number of years. It started as a short story, maybe way far back as 2002. I was writing the story for Elsewhere. At the time the first 7,500 were the longest short I’d written and it still wasn’t done. When the space pirates turned up, well I knew it wasn’t going to be a short story anymore. It ended up as a novella, then a slightly longer novella. It took it out and revised it a couple of times. I gave it to a couple of people to read with some positive feedback. I submitted it a couple of places. Once it was forwarded to the children’s editor at HarperCollins Australia. It was rejected but the rejection was along the lines of we already have stories along these lines and sorry to take  so long to get back to you. Then it sat in the hard drive a little longer. Then I went to my first RWA conference in the Gold Coast (2012) where Penguin launched their Destiny Imprint and Harlequin launched Escape. It was actually at the launch cocktail party of Destiny that I clued in that Rayessa was also a romance. Chinking champagne glasses with Nicole Murphy I said that I thought I had romance arc in some of my stories. She was like ‘Dah, why do you think I told you to come here?’ The clue people was the slideshow they had playing on the walls. Science fiction scenes at a romance conference.

So Rayessa was published. Then I wrote Rae and Essa’s Space Adventures, which should have been titled, Essa Takes on the Space Pirates or better still. Essa Rescues Mum from the Space Pirates etc. Now Escape decided they didn’t want any more spate pirate stories from me when they took Rae and Essa’s Space Adventures (and also revamped the Rayessa cover). Not with this family at least. So I changed the ending to Rae and Essa’s Space Adventures so there wasn’t too much hanging. But I always had in mind to write Opeia’s story. Opeia (Opi) is the mother of Rae and Essa, the head of AllEarth Corp.

Now pesky ideas will keep bothering you until your write them down. I thought I’d dealt with Opi by writing some notes about the story in my ‘Notebook of Really Cool Ideas’ that Gillian Polack gave me when I started the PhD. It is meant as a place to park ideas so I can come back to them when the Phd is done. Well obviously Opi had other ideas.

Opi meets NaNoWriMo and viola! she is out there on paper! I tried to be more emotionally contemplative in Opi Battles the Space Pirates. My wonderful beta reader (who is a fan of the first two books) gave me feedback. I had to rewrite the beginning and the ending after that. That plot twist that I had come up with but abandoned because I was trying to address my plot addiction by being a bit more touchy feely, well I had to put the plot bit in. It’s just that type of book.

It’s fluff, it’s funny (I think so) and it’s light and possibly uplifting. (Complete opposite to the Dragonwine series). Opi Battles the Space Pirates is also longer than the first two books, just under 60,000 words, it’s adult, but not sexy, more sweet in keeping with the other two books. It features an older protagonist (42) and a space battle goddamit!

Stay tuned. Cover art is in progress. Proofreading is in progress. I’m going to self-publish this one for fun.

Just to refresh your memory, here are the covers of the first two books, which I adore. Not sure the wonderful covers sell as many books as they should, but they are pretty and swish.

Link to the Escape website here. The books are at all major e-retailers. You can also buy these books in large print format/hardcover for libraries I think. I can’t afford to buy myself a  hard back version. There are some copies in libraries in Australia and the USA. Here.

However, I plan to have a print version of Opi Battles the Space Pirates. Just for fun, for a laugh and maybe as giveaways. So watch out.

Oh and the moral of the story? Don’t throw anything out. Learn from rejections. Don’t give up. Keep writing. Follow your heart…and whatever!

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Sweltering

Posted in A writer's life, phd, Uncategorized, weather, tagged , , , , , , on January 24, 2017| Leave a Comment »

It’s summer here in good ol’ Australia. In Canberra, like elsewhere in the country it’s hot. It’s bloody hot. Canberra is usually dry so the heat can be bearable.  However, when it gets humid it’s a right stinker. There are other places worse off so I won’t claim the most miserable place to be.

Yesterday I worked from home with the aircon on downstairs in my house. It was completely bearable. Every time I went upstairs it was like stepping into a furnace. My god it was hot up there.

Come bedtime I went up to the bedroom and turned on the aircon above the bed. The aircon above the bed was dead. I tried the fuse box, changing the batteries in the remote control, turning it off and on at the wall. It was dead. Matthew came home and he confirmed it was dead. We don’t use the aircon much, maybe once or twice a year. It worked last time I turned it on about a week or two ago.

Why I didn’t just go back down stairs I don’t know. I put our ceiling fan on but even on high, blowing a hurricane, it made no difference. I had ice water and naked skin. Still no joy there  in the sleep stakes.

Today, I’m headachey and queasy and not too happy about it either. I came into campus as the study centre has excellent aircon, but I’m not feeling up to scratch at all. I’m not sure why I’m here. Can I actually read and process academic journal articles, read French philosophy? Just the thought makes me want to puke.

It’s not all doom and gloom. I did finish Opi Battles the Space Pirates last week and laid it out for proofreading. It’s a bit of fluff. It’s fun and I hope funny. The world needs some comic relief just now.

Also, the last call for romance writers boosted the responses somewhat. I’m still looking for respondents for both surveys.

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The irony

Posted in phd, Romance reader survey PHD, Romance Writer Survey PHD, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on January 11, 2017| 3 Comments »

I’m back into PhD mode, currently working on the all important research proposal for my confirmation seminar. These confirmation seminars happen about a year in to the degree study and one can present (in theory) an indepth research proposal and get approval to do the PhD proper. It’s weird because you know I’m doing the PhD now, and I’ll be doing it after confirmation. It’s a formal part of the process to ensure I have something worthwhile to research now I have had a year looking into the research material. I get assessed and I get a drilling on my presentation and the topic. All good.

I’m at present beavering away at writing up the proposal and pulling together my literature review. It’s not quite structured properly yet but I’m getting there. I have really enjoyed the research part of this degree. Romance fiction, feminism, incomprehensible French philosophers are all so enthralling. I haven’t really been able to pull myself away from it to work on the creative work. But after the confirmation seminar in March, I will.

Part of my research, a very important part of my unique contribution, is the two surveys I am conducting at the moment (and when I do them this year, the selected in-depth interviews). I am surveying writers of popular romance fiction and readers of popular romance fiction. When I was putting the proposal forward for clearance the biggest concern from the bureaucracy here was how was I going to reach readers of romance fiction. These days that is easier than people think. I’ve read articles where the researcher couldn’t get sufficient readers to participate in their research. This was years ago before the big websites dedicated to romance, social media and even here the Australian Romance Readers Association (ARRA). I’ve had a really good response thanks to all those means, Smart Bitches Trashy Books, Dear Author, Twitter, Facebook, WordPress and ARRA (who have been awesome!). Authors have also been spreading the word to their readers. The response is so good that we could go for statistically significant for reader response so yes I’m still looking for readers of romance fiction. Please spread the word. Do the survey if you are a reader of romance!

The irony is that I’m sadly lacking in romance fiction authors responding to the survey, particularly in comparison to the reader response. I know there are thousands of romance authors out there. I am having trouble reaching them. Romance Writers of Australia has nearly a 1000 members, Romance Writers of America has over 10,000 members. You think it would be easy. But it’s not. I’m not a member of the Romance Writers of America for example and it’s not easy for me to wave the flag and say lookie here.

Not easy to reach popular romance authors, not easy to convince them to complete me lovely survey. Come on darlings, look over here. Look at my nice survey!

However, I’m not giving up. The survey continues.

See my previous post for details and links. HERE

me with glasses

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Calling romance writers and readers! Help!

Posted in phd, Romance reader survey PHD, Romance Writer Survey PHD, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on January 4, 2017| 4 Comments »

I am currently undertaking a PhD through the University of Canberra in popular romance fiction and as part of that study I have two surveys going.

I’ve got a great response rate so far but I need more. Yes MORE!!!!

If you are a READER of popular ROMANCE fiction can you help me out? The more readers who respond, the more valid the findings will be.

If you are a popular ROMANCE fiction AUTHOR your response to the survey will really help me out!

In both cases I’m after honest views.

Romance writers can be romance readers but I have questions on their romance reading  in the writer survey so you don’t need to do two surveys.

I think the survey can take up to 15-20 minutes to do.

It is mostly tick boxes but your free text comments are very valuable.

I am also going to select some people for a follow up interview only if the respondent is WILLING. There is space to indicate your willingness to be involved in this is the consent form. The consent form is the first part of the survey. I can only do follow up interviews a small number of people during 2017. NOTE; you can do your survey without leaving contact details if you wish. I won’t know who you are except for an IP address.

This survey is for my PhD, which is examining ROMANCE FICTION. Please help!

This is the link to Survey Monkey for Romance Writers

This is the link to Survey Monkey for Romance Readers.

Thanking you all in anticipation. Donna!

 

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