New Light Casting Shadows

There has been a lot going on in my world lately – mainly surrounding my books.

I, strangely enough, am sticking to my plan. I set out to read my Urban Fantasy drafts this year, and I’m doing it. And there is a boatload to adjust and amend. But there is some good guts there, with some real gems woven within them. Good characters, evil characters, and so-so characters.

Both books definitely need work, but so far – I’m actually quite happy with it. Bear in mind that this is the first time I’ve actually reads them since I wrote them years ago, lol. They have never been edited or even revised. Raw drafts.

So my plan is after I finish reading the second book of this Trilogy, I’m going to look at my original plans for the third book and have some major adjustments inserted. And then I’m going to start my edits on Books I and II.

You see… there is so much happening in this world that I have created. And there is still a heap of things that my characters need to get through before the trilogy can end.

And then there is my friend, and she has suggested that perhaps I might like to keep writing stories set in this world – and you know what? She’s right. I would like to do that. It’s a world that I have built from the ground up. It’s a world that I love. But how many stories can really stem from just one world?

Then I look at all my other books that are all thrillers based in the real world, and I wonder why I couldn’t do this with my Urban Fantasy stuff. After all – it’s real world based.

Over the past couple of days I have been basically bed ridden with a super nasty head cold, but it has also given me a load of time to think about this world. And I have officially changed the title of the series from The Talent Trilogy to The Divitis Trilogy. (Divitis means Talented in Latin – don’t you think everything sounds so much better in Latin that English?) And I have also changed the Book titles.

So. It’s going to take a lot of work to bring these books up to reading scratch, but I think I can do it. No… I know I can. Wish me luck!

Here is a little taste of what could possibly come – sometime in the future…. Maybe.

 

 

 

 

Autumnal Light

It seems to be during the autumn every year that I seriously kickstart back into gear. I don’t know what it is, or why this happens. But I guess that in my view, autumn marks the period of time that I settle down into hibernation mode and knuckle down for the long winter.

Our summer has been a long one, and we have only just come out of a drought. It’s been tough going on the land, and for the farmers, but it has also meant that we have enjoyed some pretty spectacular weather. Today is a perfect Autumnal day… With hazy light, it’s refreshingly cool when the sun is behind the clouds, and yet when the sun shows its face, it’s rather hot and humid. Unusual variations for our autumn. This has also meant that in terms of writing work, I have been rather slack. I’m currently waiting for my Cherry Blossom to turn from its brilliant green to its beautifully rich crimson, which usually really marks the starting period of productivity and writing that I usually launch into over the colder months.

This past week has been seriously testing my ability to multitask and focus. My grandmother ended up in hospital with respiratory and heart problems. My daughter (who took her very first step today) ended up having a serious throat infection, a middle ear infection, painful teething, and to top it all off – chicken pox. I was in the middle of trying to critique a manuscript, work, as well as all the other every other normal life tasks. Needless to say, everything was put on hold, and I endured sleepless nights, long hours of driving to and from hospital, and dealing with a sick, feverish, clingy baby. Sometimes life is very testing.

Things are getting better though. Abby only really has her chicken pox to get through now. She even took her first steps today by herself, thus marking her big Toddler Milestone. Gran is out of hospital… although she still needs a bit of love and care. Hopefully things will improve… and I’m back trying to critique a manuscript for a friend (although now I’m behind my deadline), and get through my own work.

Changing of the seasons means productivity for me. Here’s hoping I can stay on track and meet my own goals I have set for the year. I’ve got a load to try and get through this year.

One place that I always love to work and write is on the train – so I’ll leave you with two photos of the view from my gorgeous mobile office on the way home tonight – sorry it’s a bit blurry!

 

Where in the world do you want to be?

I know that I haven’t blogged in ages here at Parchment Place – but believe me – it hasn’t been without lack of trying. There have been numerous posts that were drafted and never finalised sitting on my laptop. One day I will go through them and set them up to post…

However, that all aside – I thought that I would give you all a little update on me. Life has been busy. Really busy. This year I set 13 goals to get through, and so far, I have managed to get through a few of them. This is how I’m going with my goals so far:

1. Write Venetian Nights. Currently 5k into it, and I can’t wait to get this highly charged thriller out to readers. (Still 5k into it! Argh!)
2. Renew my commitment to Parchment Place. Everything lapsed in 2012 due to the arrival of Abigail, but 2013 is the year to re-establish my blogging drive. (As you can tell, I haven’t been too diligent about this!)
3. Read a minimum of 50 25 books (Adjusted this figure down considering how busy I have been lately! So far I have read about 10 books this year, plus a couple of critiques for friends)
4. Buy a new car
   (Complete! Got a new car in Jan)
   
5. Read, review, and make a few decisions about the Talent Trilogy, and decide what work takes priority.
6. Pull together my graphic design portfolio, and do the odd piece of work for people in that field. (Work on this has begun! The portfolio has been partially pulled together, my Interior Design Portfolio is being worked on, and work has been done for some people.)
7. Publish, or secure a contract to publish a piece of my longer work.
8. Clean up my email accounts, and unsubscribe me from stuff I never read. All it does is clog up my virtual world. (Work on this has started too – however – it’s going to be a long road ahead to try and sort it all out!)
9. Take Abby overseas – preferably to Bali, but anywhere will do. (Not on the books yet – although we do talk about it a lot)
10. Make it through my best friend’s wedding in Jan with Abby in tow, and me as the best man. And also make it through my Mum’s wedding in March.
    (Done and dusted!)
11. Teach Abby all that I can possibly teach her, and have fun doing it. (This is awesome. I never knew being a mother could be so much fun! She changes and grows every day – and watching that makes me happy)
12. Let go of Mediterranean Dreams. Seriously. (Have sent this book to a friend to proof – partially let go!)
13. And lucky number 13 – Win the lottery. (You always have to chase after something a little unrealistic, but something that could potentially be real… right?)

So far, I think I’m going okay. But everything has been rather full on, not to mention working full time as well – which is going well, by the way. Naturally I would much rather retire on all my well-deserved lotto winnings, lol.

While I dream of disappearing to other places around the world all the time, at the moment I am so busy trying to do all these other things that I would much rather just focus on them and get through the goals I have set for this year than flit around the world. I have always written books to enable me to mentally escape.

There are many many books that I still want to write as well. Those of you who have read my work know that I based my books in areas that are either known to people as a luxury location, or they are based in a little known are… So here is a little poll for you all, dear readers… if you were to read a book – based on the below photos – where would you want to escape to?

 

2013 Progress

For a long time I have felt that there hasn’t been much active progress happening in my life, even though there is.

I have to remind myself that I am a new-ish mother, who works full time, tries to write, raise our daughter, and also be a wife who has a household to run. There are certain things though that need to give a little when I’m active or focused on something in particular. This is a juggling game that I seem to get quite good at sometimes, and not so much at others.

At the moment, I’m pretty focused on my best friend’s wedding, and getting organised for that at the end of this month. It’s a damn scary thought imagining him getting married, but in the same breath, I’m just so damn pleased for him – and the fact that the woman he loves is ready for her ‘happily ever after’ with him. I can’t wait to get down to Queenstown, near where the wedding is, with my little family, and have a few days down near where I grew up. Some places are just better to be absorbed within. There is no point talking about the fresh mountain ranges, the glistening rivers, the miles of grassy-rocky valleys, or the glaciers. There is also no point in talking about the enormous lake that has been described as a giant sleeping in the Southern land. This being the same lake that reflects the landscape and therefore utterly immersing you within it. No…. That is a magical place that one must visit themselves and revere within its beauty. A surreal place that I’m looking forward to introducing our daughter to.

Work has started again on Venetian Nights. At the moment I am reading through everything I have written so far, and adjusting parts of the storyline and my planning. I’m pleased with the progress to date – and feeling more and more excitement to get this project back on track. One day I would love to go and experience Venice in all it’s glory. In the meantime, I just have to use my imagination of what it’s like in reality, and hope that I’m on the mark. I do know some wonderful people who have spent time there though, and they will definitely let me know if I’m going off-track or not.

Car hunting continues! Perhaps we will have a new one this coming week – but perhaps not. It’s a complete pain in the ass, but a necessary evil. My mother in law has been a wonderful help by loaning us one of her cars to tide us over, but the time has come where we need to be settled with our own things again, and time for her to have her car back. But I will be forever grateful for all her help! We couldn’t have done it without her.

And now, I must fly again. Its Sunday night here, and I have to prepare for the Monday-it is onslaught tomorrow. Our office is in upheaval at the moment, so things should be a bit of entertainment.

Au revoir, and goodnight.

 

 

Once upon a time…

Once upon a time, a long time ago I had a dream – a desire – an inspiration to write a book about family bonds, adventure, friendship, a luxury yacht, and an evil doer. It didn’t take me long to write the book, but it has take taken me a long time to drag this book back into the light.

I know I haven’t been blogging recently – so consider this an update.

Mediterranean Dreams is just about complete. I have finished my final edit, and I’m currently doing my final read through. There are a few things I’m picking up on, and fixing in the process, but it’s just about there. Soon I will have to write the synopsis and cover letter, and let this manuscript go.

Is it scary? Definitely. I have only ever submitted short fiction before – never anything this ‘big’. Really the process shouldn’t be any different… but for some reason size matters to me this time round. I have a great team of people around me who are supporting me get through this – and I know that without them I probably would have taken forever to get this show on the road.

It’s funny, because I have read hundreds of blogs by different authors who all talk about their journey of the trials and tribulations of their road to publication, and I always thought that I wouldn’t blog about mine. But it’s taken so long to get where I am today due to other life commitments, and really – it’s this really huge thing that looms before me as a writer – just as it was a big thing for all those other authors before me.

I look at the past year, and wonder where it’s gone. I look at the past five years and wonder what on earth I was doing. But I know that I was writing and pumping out books. I just never prepped any of them like I have this one – for publishing.

This year I honestly thought that I would be able to get some serious writing work done while I was at home with Abby as a full time Mum for six months. Never did I expect her to not want to sleep for hours on end during the day. She is an active and engaging child, even when she was a newborn. Therefore I put all my 2012 writing aspirations on hold, without a moment of regret.

Now that I am back at work full time, life has become a journey into time management and coordination. I’m up at five am, Abby is up at six, I’m then on the train for an hour into the city, and writing my little heart out all the way. Then I walk a couple of kilometers to work, and start my day in the office. After work, I walk my way back to the train station, and head home – writing my way there, and once I finally get home at 6.15pm – I’m in the throws of sorting out dinner for us all, bathing, and bedtime. It’s insane. And then the very next day I get up and do it all over again. But I am getting results in terms of my writing. Some how, I can tune myself in and get work done while I’m on my way to and from work. At least it’s progress – even if it has been a bit slower than normal. It’s getting done.

I have also started writing something new. At the moment, I’m keeping it under my hat, but it is one of the ‘Night Series’ books. I can’t wait to get Mediterranean Dreams off my plate so I can turn my full focus to that project. I’m already four thousand words in – and I can’t wait to get to eighty thousand. At the moment it ‘feels’ good – probably because it’s all new and shiny. Good fun!

I’m going to get back into the blogging world just as soon as I can. I know that I have been slack on the blogging front – but I just don’t seem to have enough hours during the day to turn my attention and focus to it. Now that I have finished the major edit etc, I may be able to sort out my blog with a bit more coordination. In the mean time – you will all just have to bear with me.

This year is the first year in many that I am not participating in NaNoWriMo – but I will be cheering people on from the sidelines. Between working full time, Abby, my wifely duties, submitting Mediterranean Dreams, and writing my new book – I just don’t think I can juggle it. Those of you that know me, know that I am a huge and avid supporter of NaNoWriMo. I can’t wait to hear how everyone goes with it. It’s an awesome process, and you really can write a book in 30 days. Everyone knows that a first draft is crap, and usually it needs a thorough cleaning up job done on it – but its brilliant to be able to get down the foundations in 30 days.

And that is the end of my quick update.

For those of you who are unsure about whether to take the NaNoWriMo leap – here is a little image for you:

 

The Next Big Thing – Week 12: Mediterranean Dreams

Firstly I would like to thank Kim Koning for tagging me into The Next Big Thing.

Today I would like to talk about Mediterranean Dreams, as I am just about to wrap up the final edits of this book, and press the submit button. There are a number of other books that I could have talked about as well, but I felt that since this is the book I am actively working on at the moment – it would be prudent to speak about this one first. Perhaps one day I will get tagged again in The Next Big Thing, and I’ll have the opportunity to write about my next project. Here’s hoping!

In the meantime – I hope you enjoy. I certainly enjoyed answering these book specific interview questions.

What is the working title of your book?

Mediterranean Dreams.

This book is based in the Mediterranean, and every character has a different set of dreams. Some that even gets them into trouble.

Where did the idea come from for the book?

My friend died in a diving accident when I first started thinking about this book. She was a dreamer, and wanted to travel all over the place and dive. My idea for Ruby was inspired by her drive and passion for diving.

When I wrote the very first scenes of this book, I began by writing about a man who had suffered some major emotional upheavals. I wanted to explore his pain, and see him come through it. But it all changed over the course of writing it. It quickly became about Ruby’s quest to help her sister, and seek some form of justice along the way.

What genre does your book fall under?

It would fall under the Thriller genre, with a bit of adventure and romantic elements woven throughout. I didn’t expect it to turn into a fast paced thriller. I originally intended for it to be more dramatic in nature.

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

This book holds a rather full cast; however I will only give you a glimpse of the characters that are in this book. If you want to know the rest, you’ll just have to read the book.

First of all, there is my heroine, Ruby. If this book were ever turned into a movie, I would want Eliza Dushku to play her. Hopefully one day, she will! (*dreaming*)

She physically looks like my character, and she’s got an attitude to boot.

Rupert Penry-Jones has always been the perfect actor to play Tom, the hero.

Tom is a relatively serious man, who has all but alienated himself in Menorca as he runs from his own demons. I thought that Rupert Penry-Jones looked serious enough to play him, but when he smiles, he looks almost carefree, just as I imagine Tom would.

In every book there should be a ‘bad dude’. David Anders was always the man I envisaged to play Dylan, my villain.

There is just something devilish about David Anders. Perhaps I have watched far too much Alias or Heroes, but I think he would play the perfect villain if this book were ever turned into a movie.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

Ruby comes up with a plan to help her her older sister, but the only problem is that it means intercepting a drug dealing payment in the Balearic Islands without getting caught.

The tagline for this book is: Be careful what you wish for.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

Can I say ‘neither’? It will probably be represented by a publisher, as I am approaching publishers who’ll take unsolicited manuscripts.

I can’t say that I won’t ever self-publish or that I won’t ever get an agent. Just that for the moment, my plan is to submit the manuscript directly. J

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

Four months. I actually started writing it just before we went overseas on a month-long trip on a boat around the South China Sea. I managed to write loads on that trip, and it was fantastic fodder for ideas.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

I would say that this book is probably in a similar vein to the books written by Clive Cussler.

Who or What inspired you to write this book?

I was holidaying on the Gold Coast of Australia with my sister and husband. My friend had recently died whilst diving, our parents had split up, and believe me – we really needed a break. While we were there, a yacht was found off the Sunshine Coast (not too far from where we were) completely abandoned. When the yacht was found – laptops were still running, place settings were still set on the dining table. Everything was as if the passengers had just decided to take a quick dip and then have some lunch.

It was a mystery that I couldn’t help thinking about. I wanted to know what had happened to the passengers. No other boats had sidled up to it to pick the passengers up from it – it was just completely abandoned. So I kept the newspaper clippings and articles about the ‘Ghost Yacht’, and when I returned from holiday, it took me a couple of months to mull the ideas over and put a plan for the book in place.

The other part that inspired me to write this book was my old boss who had passed away. She was a diver, and much of Ruby’s personality traits we inspired by her temperament.

Combining both those things together provided the right mixture of inspiration required to write a 90 thousand word novel based on a diver and her struggle to help others.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

A lot of time was spent researching the location of this book – Menorca.

Menorca is a UNESCO sanctuary, and is a leader in eco and community living. I chose this island from a map, and have come to know it extremely well. Unfortunately, it is becoming quite the tourist hotspot, which makes me a little sad. I know that while tourism is a lucrative income for Menorcan businesses and locals, I hope it doesn’t destroy or commercialise this incredible little island.

Other subjects that would also interest readers are:

• Architecture
• design
• sustainability
• travel
• boats
• super-yachts (Sunseekers specifically)

I would like to tag the following incredibly talented Authors to talk about their Next Big Thing:

Melissa Pearl – Author of a number of brilliant YA books – The Time Spirit Trilogy, Forbidden Territory, and Betwixt.

T.G. Ayer – Author of the Valkyrie Novels.

J.C. Hart – Author of several published short stories, editor, and slush pile reader.

 

Things are happening

It astonishes me how neglected I have been towards my writing and my blog over the last six months! To bring it back to life a little, over the next wee while I’m going to have some guests hanging out here with me at Parchment Place, who will not be at all dull or boring. I’m sure there will be entertainment all round for the masses.

Abby officially turned six months old on Sunday, and to be honest, that scares the crap out of me. I simply can’t believe how fast it’s gone. It was also Father’s Day here in New Zealand – so a couple of weeks ago, Abby and I had a special photo-shoot for the occasion. Here is a picture of the gift Abby gave her dad for his first father’s day. I find that a little bit of effort goes an awfully long way, and her Dad loved it. That said, he still said that the best present was her of course!

In terms of my writing – well – now that I have started to catch the train relatively consistently, I am starting to power through some work! It’s fantastic, and I’m feeling really good about the progress that I am making with my edits. I have decided to change the name of The Mediterranean Source to Mediterranean Dreams. I am a bit sad about losing the old name, but too many people didn’t quite ‘get it’ in terms of the storyline, so I’m changing it up. With the title Mediterranean Dreams it sort of collectively shows that each of my characters in the book all has their own dreams and goals. So that being said, I think that this new title fits a little better.

I have also been working on new cover design for it – not with self-publishing in mind at this stage, but more to keep my head in the editing/revision game when I have had interruptions or not any long amounts of dedicated time. This book is definitely one that will be going out on submission to publishers as a first option. Call me lazy, but at this stage in my life I simply cannot be bothered with the work required to self-publish. Perhaps if I didn’t have a baby, or worked and travelled long hours, then I would probably consider it as more of an immediate option. One day it may even become an option… but for the moment, I’m sticking to traditional.

The Nights Series that I have been thinking about and planning seems to be growing and growing. I’m looking to getting this backlog of work out of the way before I officially start. I did start writing Tijuana Nights back in January, however, that has been put on hold until I work a few things out with the series idea. Let’s just say that Mack (McKenna) my main character is full of klutzy awesomeness.  She is a right piece of work, but I feel my character planning of her needs to be a bit more rounded out with the planning of the series. After all – most books are character driven with a character journey. So I guess this means she is going to have a few journeys throughout this series.  

I think that’s about it from me at the moment. I will start coming up with better blog posts shortly about all sorts of interesting things, so there will be some decent fodder to read, instead of all my updates! I will also have a few guests here as well. Onwards and upwards – time to reopen Parchment Place properly for business.

 

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?

 

Inspirational luck

Everyone has good days and bad days. Some of us get a whole lot of bad days in a row… and that in itself isn’t too inspiring. I’m not saying I have had ‘bad’ days – In fact – they have all been great! I’m just saying that I have been so damn busy with my daughter that I haven’t had much of a chance to even look at my writing, let alone attending to my emails, blog, etc.

I thought that I was back on the band wagon with my writing… but it hasn’t happened. That’s okay though, because as my husband said to me when I was complaining to him about it – “You have a much more important job to do at the moment, so stop beating yourself up about it.” And he’s dead right. Every day Abby makes me laugh and smile a million times. Every day she pushes my boundaries. Every day she inspires me to be a better person. Every day I couldn’t imagine life without her.

I was talking to a good friend of mine last night, and was throwing some ideas around with her about writing a series of standalone thrillers using my main key characters from Tijuana Nights, and she said that she thought I could pull it off. I did talk about doing this many moons ago when I was originally planning this book, but I never went any further with the idea. But now… I think I might look into it.

I’m going to call it my ‘Night Series’ and set the locations of each book in a different spot. For example, the next book could potentially be called Parisian Nights or something along those lines. I know that it’s going to mean a crap load of planning and different character development/arcs etc… but just perhaps I might actually have what it takes to do this.

Now I just need to find the time, energy, and motivation to actually do it.

 

Award Winning…

No, no, not me personally – but I did contribute to an Anthology that has just won an award. An award for Best Collected Work, no less!

Tales for Canterbury was entered into the Sir Julius Vogel awards earlier this year. When it was nominated, we were all very chuffed about it, but never ever expected that it would actually have a shot at winning the award. But it did. It’s not that I don’t have faith… it’s just that it was up against some very big competition, and yet it still managed to pull through.

Anna Caro and Cassie Hart pulled together this Charity Anthology almost in record time last year after the February 22^nd Canterbury Earthquake. This meant sending out word to authors all over the place, reading through and accepting or rejecting work, then having the joy of editing it, and finally pulling it into a beautiful polished piece. Now as the crowning jewel, it has won the Sir Julius Vogel award for Best Collected Work.

So… A huge congratulations goes out to all of my fellow authors in this collection, as well as to our amazing editors – Anna and Cassie. I feel very privileged to have worked with them to be published alongside this brilliant collection of authors.

Go check them out: RJ Astruc, Philippa Ballantine, Jesse Bullington, Anna Caro, Cat Connor, Brenda Cooper, Debbie Cowens, Matt Cowens, Merrilee Faber, AJ Fitzwater, Janis Freegard, Neil Gaiman, Cassie Hart, A.M. Harte¸ Karen Healey, Lynne Jamneck, Patty Jansen, Gwyneth Jones, Tim Jones, Kim Koning, Jay Lake, Helen Lowe, Kate Mahony, Tina Makereti, Juliet Marillier, Angel Leigh McCoy, Linda Niccol, Ripley Patton, Simon Petrie, Grant Stone, Jeff Vandermeer, Mary Victoria, and Sean Williams

There are still a few copies of Tales for Canterbury left if anyone wants to buy one. But you only have until the end of June to get your hands on it. After that, Tales for Canterbury will be wrapped up and finished.

That’s all for now… much excitement, happiness, and satisfaction on a job well done J