Up, up, and away!

Blimey the year is passing so quickly!

In two weeks I am back at work after being on maternity leave for six months. Can’t quite believe it myself.

When I first went on maternity leave I had all of these goals and plans that I would work towards achieving while Abby was still young and sleeping lots. Lets just say that didn’t quite work out!

I knew that it was going to be tough going having a wee baby – but I didn’t expect her to only sleep in 45 minute stretches during the day. Hence why I haven’t achieved many of my writing goals this year. However, having Abby around has been totally awesome, and I wouldn’t trade that for anything. Now she is starting to sleep for a couple of hours in the morning, so I’m getting much more done around the place!

Going back to work will be a shock to the system though! But it’s going to be great to see all the awesome people I work with again. My husband is now working in the area where we live, so that means that I’m going to be travelling in and out of town on the train, which I am really looking forward to. I used to travel on the train a few years ago, and the amount of writing and ideas that I generated was amazing. So I’m hoping to get back into that groove again. Fingers crossed.

So…. Abby is going into care when I go back to work, and this means that she’s in training at the moment. Going to sleep without a feed, and also taking a feed from the bottle. This has been a huge struggle so far, but we seem to be having little successes every now and then – so we’ll just keep on at it. That daughter of mine loves her cuddles and feeds with me… so I’m not surprised she’s being defiant about it!

I have been reading a crapload of books lately too. I think this will also slow down when I get back to work, but it’s been great. Since my writing outputs have been slow, it’s really given me some awesome ideas to work and play with for future books of mine. I’m looking forward to getting them out there!

And on that note… I should probably be off. Abby will wake again shortly, and I will once again be entertaining her. Having a daughter is a pleasure. Being a writer is awesome. I only wish that I could do both full time. Going back to work pays the mortgage. Here’s hoping I win Lotto on saturday!

What’s everyone else been up to lately?

 

Location, Location, Location!

Today I have the pleasure of having Brenda Howson and Melissa Pearl blog touring at Parchment Place! These two amazing women have co-authored a new adventuresome YA book set in the stunning and idyllic south of New Zealand.  

This is a big welcome to both Melissa and Brenda. If you would like to follow the tour – please visit here.

As we all know how important locations are in the setting the scenes in books – here is what Brenda and Melissa have to say about it:

Why did we choose Te Anau as the setting for our book?

Wow, that’s stretching the brain cells. Before kids, Melissa and I (plus our hubbies) went on a series of trips in campervans (SOOOO MUCH FUN!!) We travelled almost the entire South Island of New Zealand over three different trips.

Anyway it was on one of these trips that the Mica and Lexy series was born. We needed to pick a town that was small, surrounded in bush and interesting. We stayed in Te Anau on our first trip and fell in love with it. The town is cute and right on the edge of the lake. It’s only a stone’s throw away from several hiking tracks and most importantly the densest forest and bush in New Zealand. Somewhere that Mica and Lexy were bound to get in trouble.

Originally we wrote the books for fun. I’m not sure we intended on publishing them (do you remember Melissa?) but they just kept evolving and developing into something really great, which made us rethink.

In 2005, after we had finished book 1 and 2, Melissa and I decided we’d better take a trip back to Te Anau to make sure we had got all our facts right. We flew and drove down (7-8 hours driving from Christchurch) and stayed in a cute little Holiday Park right in the centre of town and explored everywhere.

The road we had imagined the girls lived on was so similar to our imagination it was spooky. We wandered around the school, around the lakefront and spent some time walking on some of the forest tracks to get a feel for the bush and the terrain. We even took a GPS and did some geo-caches!

The trip was awesome fun and we’ve even started talking about going again (shussssh don’t tell our husbands). Here are a few pics from our adventures. We were feeling a bit silly and girly, hence the funny faces!

You can purchase this awesome book from Smashwords and Amazon. 

Here is a little more information about Melissa and Brenda. Follow them, Tweet them, and visit their blogs. I’m sure they will welcome you all with open arms! 

Melissa Pearl and Brenda Howson have been best friends for about 12 years. Both mothers of two young children, both married to school teachers and both lovers of writing, they have a lot in common. Having spent many vacations away together, they have become as close to sisters as two girls can get. It was on one of these holidays away that the Mica and Lexy Series was born.

Melissa is the author of the Time Spirit Trilogy, which was published at the end of 2011. She is a fully trained elementary teacher, but is lucky enough to stay home and watch her kids grow. She is also spending every spare moment trying to turn writng into a full time career – and loving the process.

Brenda was the one who encouraged Melissa to start writing in the first place. Once Melissa got started, Brenda caught the bug and she has been writing for ten years, in between motherhood and working at a local high school in the computer department. She has won two short story competitions and been runner up in another. Forbidden Territory will be her first published novel.

Twitter – Melissa

Twitter – Brenda

Facebook Fan Page – Melissa

Melissa Pearl Blog

Melissa & Brenda Blog – YAlicious

Goodreads – Melissa