Birthday Book Launch!

Posted on September 2, 2017 by

Its coming, its so close and I am so excited to start talking about it!

SIX WEEKS TO GO until The Well of Youth will be officially released and available for purchase! To celebrate this culmination of years of hard work and passionate creativity, I will be hosting a launch event in my home town of Trentham.

I invite you to join me to celebrate not only the release of the first book in the Last Prophecy series, but also, my birthday!

The launch will take place at the Cosmopolitan Hotel in TRENTHAM, VICTORIA (21 High Street, Trentham) on Saturday, 14 October, from 4-7pm (AEST).

I will be speaking on the day – as will some invited guests – and I expect that the local, intimate nature of the event will provide plenty of opportunity for you to grill me about what you can expect as we continue through the Last Prophecy stories!

Now, I am very aware that Trentham is a bit of a hike – even for those of you based in Victoria – so I have decided that the event will also be live recorded on my Facebook page. This will mean that the prizes (yes, there will be prizes) will be on offer to my wonderful supporters and network all over the world. Stay tuned as the event approaches for more details!

So get out your bookmarks and save the date – Saturday 14 October, 4-7pm – and come along and join me in toasting the release of my new book, The Well of Youth.

 

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New Horizons…

Posted on August 24, 2017 by

It is with *great* excitement I announce that, thanks to my dear brother in law and his tireless efforts, that we have a Kickstarter for the Well of Youth!

The Kickstarter is for all of you who have supported and encouraged me, followed my work and become fascinated by the story I am telling.

Please go to this Kickstarter Page to see what we have an offer and what contributions can get you.

As a looksee at the Kickstarter you will also see the preliminary book trailer AND the official blurb during their first publication!

I couldn’t have done this without the help of my husband, brother in law, composer friend Tim, but especially Nushie who spent so much time helping me with the beautiful artwork –Nushie.com

Please join me in my preliminary celebrations of many years hard work, and excitement over my growing plans for the Last Prophecy series.

UPDATE

 

Thank you to everyone who got on board with this, in less than 24 hours we made our goal.

I want to hug all of you, even if you just shared it, for helping me achieve this, it will be one of the highlights of my life that people were so supportive.

Until we can hold the books in my hands, from the bottom of my heart, thank you.

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Short Update – Setbacks

Posted on July 9, 2017 by

I had made tentative plans to release the Well of Youth in July 2017, and after meeting with the editor several weeks ago, we’ve both decided that we’re cutting it too fine.
I could release in August, and still be alright, but it’s struck me that for our estimated release schedule (yes, I do actually have one), needs to be tweaked a little to make it the best it can be, and so I will release the Well of Youth in October, on the 14th.

Why?
Well for a couple of reasons, firstly that by then the book will have had a lot of love and care, that it deserves it to be the best novel I can give to you, and show you what else is to come for this series.


The Hidden Monastery has copped flack in a few reviews for some errors (which were fixable) and writing style which was also fixable, but I chose not to amend it more than I already had. Important as the story was, the Hidden Monastery was scary for me.


I’d never done this, I didn’t know what was involved, I learnt a lot and it will still remain very important to me.


With the release of the Well of Youth, what I learnt between when I wrote the Hidden Monastery, and when I release the Well, will come to shape my books for the better, and I hope you see that when you read it.


The other reason is that the 14th of October is International Indie Author Day, and when I found that out, after being disappointed I couldn’t release the Well next month, I decided that it was the right thing to wait. Because that’s also my birthday.


So it’s a bit farther away than I promised, but will be all the better for it, and (ahaha) well worth the wait.


Please don’t kill me for punning.

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When I’m Breathing

Posted on June 14, 2017 by

‘So…. How many novels have you actually written?’ A work colleague asks.

‘Three of the novellas for my series, they’re pretty short, about 45k words. The novels though, are about 130k words, and I’ve done a couple of them as well. Plus I have two others about the 50k marks, they’re longer ones, and another book series I’m starting that’s at the 30k mark.’ Running the numbers of my current projects through my head tells me it’s still not enough.

He actually sits on those numbers for a moment before responding. ‘Wow. I can’t imagine sitting down to write fifty thousand words. Let alone 140!’

‘Yeah, it’s a lot, I’m pretty pleased with it.’ I’m not. It doesn’t seem like much at all, and there is still so much to do that isn’t about writing.

‘I don’t even know how you find the time to do that.’

And for a moment I don’t know how to respond.

Its unfathomable.

I can’t describe the ease it takes to find my place in a story, stick on the head phones and punch word after word hour after hour, forgetting the total as the story wraps itself around my thoughts. There is the greatest freedom feeling the wind on your face the sway under your feet as your imagination takes you further than the stars, to new worlds where the infinite is tangible. Dipping your hands into the waters of creativity and drinking deep, slacking a thirst you never knew you had.

Stirrings of ideas grow and flourish inside, and they come pouring out, a fountain of unstoppable colours, thoughts, and feelings, and unable to contain the flow you decant it down in words. It takes time but you pull them all together, string them like glass beads on the thinnest of strands until you make something whole. Something beautiful.

Telling someone what you have done, and the frequent congratulations that devolves into uncaring incomprehension. Their inability to see what you have created doesn’t matter so much, you just need to get better with your expression and design.

I think about them all the time, all of the stories, as I’m walking to the shops, talking to my pets, doing the laundry, working in the real world. They are my constant companions, the voices in the dark, they are my bravery, and telling them my deepest desire.

Reminding myself that this is just the beginning and there is still so much to come, as I bite my tongue against the mockery for spending so much time on something that isn’t real, as though vindication of my work’s value must come from someone who’s never read a book.

Those people add flaws to characters I have yet to create, and the first impressions of them only hint at what they will become in spite of those failings. Some I recognise in myself even as I describe completely different people, who hide themselves in the shadow of my stories. In other cases they are as clear as the glass windows of my car as I drive home, working out how they will face this chapter’s challenge.

I’m the antagonist wishing to leave the dinner table so I can plot my protagonist’s demise, knowing as soon as I sit down after a long day’s work I will have to slice open my soul and cut the pieces of emotion out I need to articulate this arc of my character’s journey. To put aside what I feel, from warmth and love to sink into despair and hopelessness of my character’s suffering. Or on darker days, to pull myself from this ravine of desperation and find the light of joy, giving it to the pages of my passion.

As I turn up the music and sink myself into the turmoil of indecision and uncertainty they face, I, as their creator, have no time to dither on such emotions, though they hover about me, as though a plague. I go to bed, tasting their sadness and unspoken words, unstoppable sorrow eating a hole in me my husband has no idea how to stop.

Maybe tomorrow we can watch a movie instead, except where am I supposed to find the time when I get up and continue the façade that I am here and a functioning member of society who’s perfectly normal. And I watch it go by from the inside grieving over the time I am not punching ideas into my phone’s reminder, writing down plot twists during my lunch break, pulling over by the side of the road when traffic is awful and crying while trying to remember an escaping facet of the narrative.

I’ve forgotten I needed to be somewhere this weekend, so I can’t edit that piece. I don’t have the funds to upgrade the website because I need to pay the credit card bill used for advertising. Somewhere in all this I need to find the headspace for myself, to take my estranged spouse out, to play some computer games with him. And then I berate myself that I shouldn’t have spent so much time on that when I forget the passing hours. Or avoid the guilt by stating I’m letting off steam, there has to be a moment I can let go. But if there is then I should use it to read for a while, except I feel disconnected as I critique the writing, or worse, suffer through anxiety I am not as good as this writer. Why am I trying?

The dread that I am as awful as that two star review I received, and I’m burning myself up on a fruitless endeavour, even when it’s the only thing that makes the harshness of life bearable. The stories surround me and some days I don’t know if they are strangling me or holding me together. When the loving words of my husband can’t crack through the shell of self doubt, even as he is screaming them at me, with the quietest of whispers, that one day I will make it.

‘I write a lot in my spare time.’ I answer my work colleague.

My spare time is when I’m breathing.

 

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All Work and No Play Makes the Author Happy!

Posted on May 12, 2017 by

Because I play with the lives of my characters… muhahahaha!

*ahem*

But there is a lot of excitement at hand!

The Hidden Monastery has recently been revamped, and re-released for… FREE!!!

It should be up again in the next few days and I will post all the links as soon as I can.

I posted on Facebook the other day that the book trailer is going really well. I’ve just finished with the composer (bless his patient soul!), the artist is halfway through the images, the voice actors are done and the video guy is looking at blender effects… all *really* exciting!

The Well is making its way through the edits and in the meantime I’m writing the next book in the series (the novella after the Well is already done), and I kind of feel like a script writer for Hanna-Barbera….

Do you ever get that feeling, when you’re writing (if you do) that you are just feeding the characters clues about a mystery? I can’t decide if I’m simply paranoid about being too elusive, or inciting Ruslana into making her own Scooby Gang. If she felt so inclined which she probably doesn’t given how… *has a fisticuff fight with the muse about giving too much away*

Ok, so that was a spoiler, the next book’s main character is a woman called Ruslana. A female detective. Anyone excited yet? I know I am. Even if I am not allowed to give anymore away…. *sulks*

And that isn’t even the end of all the changes!

I have a web designer poking this site into some semblance of order. I was going to give it a go myself but recently gave up, found someone proficient at these sorts of things, and then forgot to blogpost because I’d spent so much time on the admin side I’d forgotten to do it.

Its been very full on for the book lately, and I am really excited about all the upcoming changes and challenges over the next few months.

Then there is… something else in the works. Something unexpected. Something exciting. Something that isn’t the Last Prophecy. But is book related.

Beware the Queen….

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The End of the Beginning

Posted on April 10, 2017 by

For those of you who have read my last two novellas, The Hidden Monastery and the Last Prophecy, there has been a bit of a build up towards the first book, the Well of Youth and what may potentially happen. I left both these novellas on cliff hangers with characters from the first playing prominent roles in the second novella, and know people have questions regarding how these characters will feature in the first book of the Last Prophecy series.

Which brings me to an interesting tidbit of information for you all, in that these characters have a finite life cycle within my writing. I’ve described this before, but will do so again here in more detail, this series was always about the Last Prophecy, and as such, I will be focusing my writing now on others whose lives will change because of the prophecy, whether they know of it or not.

This isn’t meant to give anyone ideas as to the fates of my main characters in the Well, who’s view have been used in the last two books, no, Kat and Nick are busy with the editor, as well as our new hero, (though he’d glare at me for calling him that), Andy. What happens to them… well you’ll just have to wait and see.

The three have been in my dreams and every waking thought for over two years, and now that the Well of Youth is written, getting ready for final stages before publication, its now all out of my hands, and it is sadly time to say goodbye.

I am by no means revealing their fate, more talking about moving on from their specific lives and on to writing other characters, and this makes me rather despondent.

My sister and self-professed number one fan once told me that writing stories is like having children. In this case, I have watched my characters come to life, evolve, and move beyond my reach. Before long they will journey into the unknown of readership, where I hope everyone loves them as much as I do.

I didn’t think I would be this melancholy letting go of the three that started this journey for me, they have been my constant mental companions, but as I sit to try and focus on the next book in the series, with new characters, and commence writing I find it harder and harder to forget them.

Its not an uncommon theory that we give a part of ourselves away when we create great works, ones we are proud of, and ones we hope the world we see as we do, a small sliver of our souls and who we are. The Well has not left me yet, but the time is coming, and while I am happy with it, there are moments of grief that this part of the journey is over, and my feelings a similar to how I felt when the Fellowship left Gandalf in the mines of Moria.

The story must go on, and there is far more to the quest than these three, so much more to tell, but for now, I have come to the end of the beginning.

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I’ve written a book, what now?

Posted on March 5, 2017 by

So you got it, you filtered through all those inspiring ideas and mad illusions, you found the time to put pen to paper (lol, no way, I mean fingers to keyboard), and came up with a great story that you think other people would want to read too.

Congratulations, because that is freakin’ awesome. Doing that part is sometimes the hardest of all.

Now you want to share it, but what do you do? Send your manuscript to get rejected with millions of others and give up? Do the risky, time-consuming self-publishing option? I’ve followed the latter, so it’s hard for me to advocate the former, but I can tell you this: Do the former, the worst that will happen is you’re rejected. Especially if you have a genre. If you can say to me: I wrote a Sci-Fi book! Then send it to a Sci-Fi publisher.

I didn’t.

I wrote a book that’s been called Star-Trek crossed with the Mummy, another called it Indiana Jones meets Victorian Goth. I call it a steam flavoured fantasy with a suspenseful horror twist. What a mouthful.

And I instinctively knew from online research I was going to have a really hard time selling it to a publishing firm that was going to look past my pitch in the first place. So I took the risk and self published.

If you are going to self publish, here is what I have learned so far, and I wanted to share it, and kudos to a cocktail loving friend of mine who wanted to pick my brain on how to go about it, and inspired this month’s blog post.

 

  1. Edit.

This takes the top priority, there is NOTHING more annoying to ANY form of reader than bad editing. Don’t ask me about the hours I spend at the computer or printed works looking for faults, I still miss them, and my editor is human and he misses them too. I’ve seen professional authors with publishers ask readers for editing mistakes before the book is republished. We ALL make mistakes, the more you can find the better. Get an editor, get beta readers, get friends and family to find them… and slaughter every one!!

*cough* I mean fix, fix every one.

When you are ready to publish I recommend Pronoun. They publish to Amazon, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, iBooks and Googleplay, they are super helpful and have made this much easier for me than I thought it could be.

 

  1. Get a good cover.

I think this is the most critical of your $$ spending. I am reading a fantastic book as part of a review club, and I cannot believe it doesn’t have heaps of reviews. I decided to review it because it had none, and while the blurb put me off a little, and needs an edit, I read the sample on Amazon and was quickly messaging the author screaming “GIVE IT TO ME!!!”

As the author was quick to let me know, he couldn’t believe something so insubstantial was of any importance, but we are fickle human beings, and are quick to judge books on their covers, despite what we say.

 

  1. Social media platforms

Have them. Work on them. Send out random tweets, update your FB page three times a week, get programs to help you do it if your time conscious. I have sold books based on my social networking, not many, but it’s a start. People know I exist, I have my own domain and website, if people try to look for me, they will find me. If they don’t know who I am and stumble upon me and like what I have to say then perhaps I’ve found someone who will read my book and love it as much as I do.

 

  1. Advertise

I see a lot of authors complaining their book isn’t selling but they aren’t willing to invest a little in smart advertising. And I do mean smart advertising. Don’t sell your dystopian Sci-Fi thriller to a contemporary romance e-magazine. Look up what other people are doing in your genre, and where their books are being displayed. I looked up “Steampunk e-newsletters” and found a group for fantasy/scifi fans and for a very small sum sold more books than with another enewsletter group wanting three times the price for a very generic readers group more interested in popular fiction i.e. romance.

I don’t have a romance…. Yet. Watch this space.

Or maybe not this pace but this website? Let’s stick with that.

 

  1. Get reviews

This is the hardest. Shouldn’t be right? But it is. How often when checking out a local restaurant do you see it only had 3 stars and after reading the mediocre reviews, give it a miss? Tripadvisor is a pinnacle of this, when I travel I check out the worst review and see if I can live with whatever warranted the poor review.

Now the tricky part. Don’t get friends and family to buy a copy, not read it, and say on Amazon: “This is better than Harry Potter and the Lord of the Rings combined! Five stars! Buy this book!” People are going to look at those reviews and squint at them for being peculiar.

Join a readers group. Offer the book for free for honest reviews on your social media platforms. I can really recommend the Books Go Social Team, and their facebook groups. It’s a kind supportive and caring community and troll free (weird right? Yeah, completely troll free, indie authors don’t have time for that….)

 

Most of all? Don’t give up. I frequently wonder if getting up at 6am and staying awake till midnight is worth it, spending every spare second not at my full time job trying to squeeze in whatever task awaits next be it feeding the bottomless pit of twitter or facebook, checking reviews, editing, writing even, when I get to it. If you gave up writing on the keyboard then you will give up here. Don’t.

If you have a story you know you want to tell the world don’t give up. Don’t give in. Take a breath and realise what I did; that even though a year after publishing my first novella I’m not J.K. Rowling, but I have set out and achieved what I wanted, I started this, and by gods I’m going to finish it. If you really want this you’ll keep going too.

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