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.

 

 

The dreamy locations in my books

Have you ever dreamt of visiting some of the incredible places that authors write about in their books? Well, as a writer, even I dream of those places that I write about in my books. No, I haven’t been to these locations yet, but I will eventually go to these places one day… maybe next week if I win lotto.

Beautiful New Zealand

As a writer, we are told continuously, ‘Write what you know.’ This is not a term or a statement that I agree with. I think that as writers, we should write what we are passionate about. That doesn’t necessarily mean that we have to know everything about the subject. We do, however, need to know how to do research.

As some of you already know, I have massive amounts of location research that I have stored away. I thought that from now on I would do a post a week on these incredible locations that I have so lovingly written about. It almost seems like a total waste just to leave all this wonderful research just sitting there with nowhere to go, and nothing to use it for. So I thought this was an ideal opportunity to utilise it.

Just to give you a little teaser for what’s in store – here are five locations that I will be writing about in the weeks to come:

• Menorca Island
• Bora Bora and Mataiva Island
• Venice
• Sesimbra town in Portugal
• Monaco

There are many more places that I will blog on as well, but I thought that this could be a good start. Once I have done these, I will have another look into it, and see if it’s worth me continuing.

So that’s my plan at the moment… we’ll see how it goes. Bring on the future travel related posts! I’m hoping that the first one will be up this weekend. Hope you all enjoy the ride. You never know what you might find out along the way!