Category: Promote & Publish

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Research! – Tough challenge but…

What is it about writers? We all seem to love a challenge.

I’ve just joined a group of fellow authors in the RWA 50ks in 30 days write-fest. The idea is to glue your bum to the seat and pound out as many words as possible. (50,000 ideally!)

It can totally work for some people. Both my small towns, big hearts novels (House For All Seasons and The Simmering Season) started out in similar challenges.

Okay – yes it’s June so…yes, technically I should be working on those 50 thousand words for my next novel, but I do tend to procrastinate a bit at the start. (Another trait we writers seem to share.)

Since I’m writing about challenges, I thought I’d share a recent writing challenge of another kind.

Looking for inspiration for my novel (in which the town of Calingarry Crossing holds a fair day) I went to my local country show and challenged myself to eat everything I could find on a stick!

Things have changed since I did the whole Easter Show thing as a kid and…well…luckily for me the junk food on a stick options were limited. Sadly, not even fairy floss comes on a stick anymore. Am I that old?

Okay…with my fair day research consumed…ahh…I mean done, it’s back to those 50 thousand words I’m supposed to have done by end June. (After I make myself something to eat. I just made myself drool LOL – yum!)

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Success tastes like pomegranate!

Pomegranates taste sweet and so does success.

After…well…I don’t know how many competitions I finally placed in the TOP 3 (okay…so I equalled 3rd place, sharing the honour with fellow RWA writer Lilian Begelhole).

We are two of sixteen short stories chosen for publication as part of the Romance Writers of Australia’s annual short story contest – Little Gems, in which you must produce a story (less than 3,000 words) that includes the gem of the year. The gem for 2011 was GARNET.

First and second place was taken out by Lynne Kokshoorn and Cara Gabriel (respectively) and our stories (along with 12 more) will be printed between the most striking cover. There will be 16 stories.

This will be my second consecutive year in Little Gems.  My other two entries this year both tipped the 90% mark in the rankings, and with a massive 82 entires this year I couldnt be happier. I’ve never received full marks before. I got two full marks (two different stories) and some wonderful comments. I hope you don’t mind if I share a few now…

SWEPT AWAY (dedicated to flood victims everywhere)

I loved this story J The characters were fascinating and I loved the unique way the garnet was incorporated in the story.

 

This story is sweet and suspenseful and utterly charming.

SEW SPECIAL

This entry covers the full gambit of emotions – it is romantic, funny and sad. The format of the story adds interest in the way that the sequence of the 40 years is covered and the reader gleans a whole lot of history of the heroine and her life over her 80 years.

LOST IN LINGERIE

This story is fantastic! I love it.

The characters, story, pace are all beautifully rounded, making this a complete, excellent story.

I’m getting to love my shorts!  Excerpts can be found here on my blog.

Phew! Now I need to break into the ‘big gems’ in the publishing industry with my aussie women’s fiction.

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Bye, bye baby…baby goodbye…

Okay…so I’m NOT a mother (unless you count my two fur-kids) so how can I possibly understand what it’s like to say goodbye to your baby when you hand your baby over to the local school/pre-school/day care/whatever. How do you stop thinking about them every second of the day, yet continue to function despite having the one thing that has been with you…not just with you but a huge part of you for months…years?

Can I imagine the emotional trauma of handing over control of the precious baby you’ve nurtured for years to a stranger?
Will these strangers care for your baby like you do?
Will they love your baby like you do?
Can they ever know or understand your baby like you do–all the cute, funny, clever, adorable bits that make your baby so special, so different, so…sellable!

That’s right…sellable.

I’m talking about your book, your manuscript, the precious baby you’ve laboured over for…forget nine months…I’m talking years!

Since handing my baby over to my agent and publishers I’ve suffered terrible separation anxiety and learned something (no…not really learned…I actually already knew it). I’m a control freak!

Yep, a control freak–seriously!  I have to know where my baby is every second of every day and it’s killing me. I desperately want to know where my baby is, who’s looking at my baby, who thinks my baby is wonderful, funny, clever, etc.

Instead I have to keep reminding myself that the people I have handed my baby over to, the people who now have control over every aspect of my baby, can’t possibly ring or email every hour of every day and tell me what my baby is doing at that very moment. I have to keep telling myself my baby is in the very best hands.

Now I must go back to writing 100 times: I must stop being a control freak.