Category: A Novel Adventure

Posted on by — 44 Comments

Extra! Extra! Read all about it. The 2013 Australia Day Book Giveaway Blog Hop

 

CELEBRATE AUSTRALIA DAY THE CALINGARRY CROSSING WAY

The local Saddleton Harvest News extends a big Calingarry Crossing Australia Day welcome. Our little town is buzzing with business owners ready to celebrate. Bring the family. Bring the dog, the horse, the cow. Ladies, bring your husband (if you can tear him away from the cricket).

australiadaybloghop

 

It’s here! And the House for all Seasons town of Calingarry Crossing is ready to par-tay! Celebrations begin with a dawn flag raising event at Calingarry’s war memorial in the main street, followed by a program of fun for the whole family, with street closures in place from 7 am – 3 pm. The afternoon will see the return of Saddleton Rotary HFAS front cover workingClub’s traditional spit roast with beer games, music, and rides for the kids. You can even win this book – the story of four women forced to spend a season each in the century-old Dandelion House, back in the country town of their youth, where they discover a secret that binds them to the house and to each other forever.

 

Who else is doing the blog hop this weekend? See Book’d Out and Confessions from Romaholics.

Posted on by — 13 Comments

A Guessing Game, A Book To Win, A Blog To Hop

While many, many people have inspired me in some weird and wonderful ways over the years, there is a group of Australian authors who have definitely influenced my writing.

Call it cocky, quirky or crazy, I used to amuse my ‘unpublished’ self by writing an author into each novel, never imagining:

a) I would be published and

b) the author – with title – would escape an editors red pen.

Guess what? I AM published (soon) and the author’s name DID stay in the final version of House for all Seasons, out March 1. (Pre-order here).

But which author gets a mention?

HINT: It can’t be Lisa Heidke and Bronwyn Parry as I have already included them in novels yet to be published — like this.

From The Simmering Season (coming 2014)

Maggie refused to get up before she’d read at least three chapters of her latest Lisa Heidke novel. The author had a knack of portraying motherhood and the every day, showing real woman struggling to balance work, family and dreams, just like Maggie. Only in fiction there was a guarantee of happy ever after.

Bronwyn Parry features in one of my favourite (and earliest) works – which means it may never see the light of day!)

From MOSAIC…

Throwing open the flap on her knapsack, Gina took a quick inventory: denim shorts; a black, cheesecloth top; beach towel; the super, scrunch-it-up-all-you-like jacket she’d owned for years; her new digital camera and the latest Bronwyn Parry novel.

So… are you a smartie? Can you correctly guess which author made it into House For All Seasons?

Any one who leaves a correct guess on this post today (Thursday 24-01-13) will automatically get one extra entry in my Australia Day Blog Hop Book Giveaway -starting Friday 25 at 12 noon (AESD) – on this blog. So leave your guess now and pop back on the weekend, read the Australia Day Blog Hop post, and you can double your chance of winning.

If you want another hint, you will find the author’s name on this list (my ‘most read’ Goodreads data).

Posted on by — 8 Comments

Uh-oh! Ouch! Heeeeeelp!

IMG_0625Uh-oh! I have to admit to Googling extract vs excerpt today and still being no clearer. So, rightly or wrongly, I am making a decision and going with … excerpt – if the passage is to be read, and extract  – if the passage is to be written or included in another document.

There!
Decision made.
Well, that one at least.
I’m not so reckless with all my decisions, and certainly not when it comes to deciding, out of the 140,000 words that is House for all Seasons, which part I should extract for a reading excerpt (and I definitely don’t want to bore people to death with one that’s all wrong or too long).
So… Readers? Authors? I need your help.
Authors: What advice do you have?
Readers: Who have you seen do readings and how did they do it? Do you enjoy them?
Should authors do the reading themselves, or use someone else? How long should the reading be – time wise – and from which part of the novel?
  • The beginning?
  • Something to tease (leaving them wondering)?
  • Something thought-provoking?
  • Something that defines a character perhaps?
I suppose one might need a couple of different excerpts to cover different situations when, for example, the audience is mostly writers, or, as is the case for me come March, it is a group of seniors. (Seniors Week at Coffs Harbour library.)
Any thoughts or previous experiences appreciated.
By the way –

It seems not even Merriam Webster Online can decide which one I should be using.

1ex·tract

a: to draw forth (as by research) <extract data>

b: to pull or take out forcibly <extracted a wisdom tooth> Ouch!

c: to obtain by much effort from someone unwilling <extracted a confession>

2ex·cerpt

: a passage (as from a book or musical composition) selected, performed, or copied : also ‘extract’