Category: Promote & Publish

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Smartie Pants!

I’m being a bit of a smartie pants probably, and the idea may not go to plan, but it’s my little way of honouring some (there are many more) of the writers I love and who continue to inspire me to follow my dream.

Take Lisa Heidke who taught me about ‘author’s voice’ (which I blogged about earlier). She’s now featured in my latest WIP – The Simmering Season…

The heat last night hadn’t made sleeping easy, but it was Sleep-in Sunday today and 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 is featured in one of my favourite and earliest works – MOSAIC…

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

And Helene Young is in House For All Seasons, currently floating around Penguin, Australia – not Helene…my ms! (Helene is a Hachette girl along with Bronywm Parry!)…

She’d packed plenty of books to read, choosing one – Helene Young’s Border Watch; a smattering of real life, a terrorist plot and ample fiction. Perfect escapism. She’d have it read in a couple of days. Then what?

Of course, should any of my books (above) make it to print one day, will such references survive, will I have to amend and refer to their 6th best seller, or will such references end up the victim of an editor’s red pen (for any number of reasons)?

I guess it will be a case of “it’s the thought that counts” 🙂 

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New Year, New Attitude

Okay, I admit to leaving last year behind with mixed feelings.

Personally, 2010 was a bloody awful year (family/health stress mostly). Professionally there were some seriously good highlights, but then a strange and terrifying nothingness, which unfortunately led this creative mind to making up crazy plots (usually with disappointing endings).

Enter the Queesland floods…. Nothing like a country being devastated by catastrophic weather events to give the whiney writer a reality check. (And if Anna Bligh didn’t show me how to remain positive and cope under pressure…well…I don’t know real pressure!)

So with my new I-have-so-much-to-be-grateful-for attitude, I am getting back into my happy grind of writing and blogging. I’m also donating to various flood appeals/initiatives (more on this and how you can win in a couple off days).

In the meantime I have sent off three entries into the RWA Little Gems Short Story contest. I made it into the anthology last year. Can I do it again?

Yes I can! (positive, positive, positive)

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The joy of blogging

Since the words ‘blog’ and ‘post’ and ‘comment’ came into my life, I have spent so much time doing all three that family have said: ‘why waste your time’; ‘who’s gunna read it?’; ‘you and your soapbox, Jenn!’. (LOL – yes, my family know me well!)

And as much as blogging has a ‘me’ factor to it, it’s a lot about learning, making connections and meeting new people.

I was doing what I do the other day – blogging, posting, commenting – not even realising there was a reward on offer. Today I found out I’d won something – something beautiful – simply by leaving a comment. Not only that, I now also know about an amazingly talented person who lives way out west “in the middle of somewhere” (yes she says that on her website – LOL)

The Gifted Gecko is a husband and wife team sharing a passion that results in the most incredible craft pieces. (I call them works of art.) So if you are looking for something unique, take a look at the website.

I can’t wait to receive my little scroll angels to add to the joy of Christmas.