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Who am I?

Inspired as always by some great Aussie authors, I decided to reposition myself (oh, that sounds a bit uncomfortable!)

I love tags like Bronwyn Parry and Helene Young’s: “Gripping romantic suspense in Australia’s wild places” and Fleur McDonald and Fiona Palmer’s “Heart-warming sagas of love and life on the land”.

So I thought…how can I capture the essence of my women’s fiction novels.
I came up with these which I kinda like.

Come home to the country with Aussie author Jenn J McLeod
or
Jenn J McLeod: Women’s fiction set in small towns on the edge of Austalia’s big country.
or
any variation of the above!

Then of course there’s the author pic. I was going to try kissing a horse like Mandy Magro’s picture (if you haven’t seen it, you’ll find this new Penguin author on face book. It’s a fantastic photo) but the last time I got that close to a horse I nearly lost my nose – yes it was a little sunburned and probably resembled a tasty carrot!) So no horse for me.

Oh, the things I do to get out of writing LOL

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It never rains…

Then it pours! And no I’m not referring to the latest non-stop rain event. I’m talking about when everything happens at once: the exciting, mixing it up with the mundane, then throwing in a writing competition to manage.

Yep – one year ago (almost to the day) I took an unprecedented ‘strategic’ approach to this whole publishing caper, deciding I needed to give back to the member organisation that has been so good to me – Romance Writers of Australia. While not a ‘genuine’ romance writer (I’m afraid my women’s fiction stories about love, life an second chances don’t always have that essential happy ever after element required to be ‘real’ romance) RWA is a wonderful group of non-discriminatory, caring, sharing writers – both published and aspiring.)

So this year I put my hand up, volunteering to manage one of the many competitions the organisation runs to help and develop members. I figured it was good karma.

PHEW! What a job. Massive.

I’ve entered my share of competitions over the last couple of years, and I’ve always thought I understood how much work was involved for those behind the scenes, but you really can’t appreciate it until you’ve managed a competition that follows the RWA’s comprehensive processes that ensure transparency and accountability.

Oh the pressure!

But as I stare at the computer for hours trying to allocate scores of entries to judges (many of whom request certain genres with or without certain elements – yes, they are allowed, they are also volunteers) I say to myself…

This is all part of the plan. It’s karma – what you do to others will come back an bite you. What you do for others will bless you. I’m hoping for the blessing!