Category Archives: Writing

Romance Writers of Australia Conference

17 Saturday Aug 2019

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Last weekend I was lucky enough to attend the annual Romance Writers of Australia conference. It was held in Melbourne, my home town, this year so I thought I really should go.

The conference consisted of three days of writing and business workshops and seminars.

The first day was a full day workshop on plotting with Natasha Lester. I learned a lot and will need to go back through my work in progress with my new story structure knowledge.

The second and third day were a selection of short sessions, there were quite a few competing sessions I would have liked to see. I went to a panel of people in uniform; fire fighter, paramedic, police officer and nurse/midwife, a session on historical herbal remedies, a session on narrative through description, and many more.

By the end of the third day I was exhausted and I wasn’t really taking much in, but I was raring to get back to my manuscript and start implementing my new knowledge.

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This is the collection of book swag I got from the conference.

I also took along some of my own books to sell at the indie book stall run by Ebony McKenna.

I made one sale which was pretty good when the audience was entirely other writers.

I also had two sessions with book agents to pitch my work. Both have asked for me to submit to them by the end of the month which is promising. I won’t get my hopes up too far, I have a plan to publish another book early next year regardless of how the pitches go.

Anyone else doing professional development that’s both challenging and exciting?

Winter nesting

02 Friday Aug 2019

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A couple of months ago, I bought an apartment in Melbourne. It’s near a park, and a river, and nice cafes. It has two bedrooms, and only me to live in it. For a while tried to tell myself I wouldn’t spread out into the second bedroom, in case I wanted a housemate or air b’n’b it.

Earlier this week I finally bought a sofa bed from Ikea for the spare room. It seems unlikely I’ll get a housemate; I’m enjoying having my own space. I’ve been using the spare room for yoga and have recently set up the piano keyboard that I’ve had for a while but didn’t play much.

A friend of mine is coming to stay with me for a long weekend, the same weekend I’m going to the Romance Writers of Australia annual conference. It’s being held in Melbourne this year, and I didn’t make it last year so I’m very keen to go along to network and learn. It’s not ideal to have my friend staying and be unavailable for three full days, but hopefully we’ll have time to catch up in between times.

I’ve ordered some more copies of my books, Sophie’s Path and Discovering the Franklins, to sell at the conference. It’s like I’m a real author!

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My little orange tree and some little friends

I’ve also been doing a bit of work in my little outdoor area. It’s quite big for an apartment terrace, but doesn’t get much sun, so vegetables are out. I bought a dwarf orange tree, pictured above, and a couple of native pepper berry trees but they’ll take a while to grow. I’m planning to rip out the weird spiky bushes in the raised bed and replace them with other more interesting stuff but that will also take time. I’m in no hurry as I plan on being here for a while.

Once the conference is done I’m sure I’ll have more to tell you all. I hope you’re all warm and cosy, if you’re reading from the southern hemisphere, or keeping cool if you’re in the north.

Auckland Airport

16 Thursday May 2019

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Untitled design

I sit, headphones on, but no music playing
I can listen to things around me without attracting attention
The woman next to me on a phone call, the two men across
the way watching some code of football. Rugby I’d guess
based on the city I’m in. Slow revelation of meaning through
poetry has never been my strong suit. I don’t do well at
layering. I tend to put my subtexts into the main text.

If you were teaching my work, it would be easy for the
students. Although perhaps, as Judith Wright said,
I didn’t write that in there. Of course, the postmodernists
don’t care about the author so I suppose what I do
doesn’t really matter

The lighting is dulled, outside it’s dark, but like a casino
they don’t want too much reality seeping into an airport
People with different body clocks, different destinations
different languages, all want to sit, alone, protected from
other passengers by their books/laptops/phones/ear buds

There is half an hour until I head home
away from one family and back to another
I have created a life and a home – a settled little
nest. Friends have flown to create new nests with
new lives and young lives in tow. No one to greet me
at the airport this time, just long-term parking and
the promise of sleep in my very own bed.

NaPoWriMo Wrap-up

02 Thursday May 2019

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I made it through the challenge of NaPoWriMo again for April 2019!

It is always a struggle to feel that my poems are any good when I do this challenge, I seem to churn out so much rubbish, but as with NaNoWriMo, the point is quantity over quality.

I will have to set aside some time to revise and review the poems I’ve written this month, although I did publish one poem here and one poem on a couple of Facebook groups for life modelling. For those of you who haven’t seen it yet, here it is:

The art studio

1 convener
5 minders
9 artists
21 models

A room full of nude bodies
Holding perfectly still

The sound of one voice
And scratching on paper

The knowledge that in a few
Minutes we break to eat

Working to create great art
Together sharing our vulnerability

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Seven poses over four hours by a Monash University student (April 2019)

It was written on the last day of the challenge, close to midnight, after a full day of work at the day job, followed by a four hour life-model training session. I am not particularly good at drawing, but the act of performing as a model to be drawn has been something I’ve enjoyed for over five years. 

The Life Models’ Society is having an art competition at the end of the year. I’m helping to organise it and we’re finalising details now but I may even submit a work to the competition. I’ve been thinking about something like a charcoal drawing, perhaps several figures all together, with my poems about life drawing printed on transparency over the top. I think it could look quite good – obviously dependent on the quality of the drawing(s) I manage to produce.

I spent a little less than a week over Easter with my beautiful friend Cathy and her family in New Zealand. It’s been difficult the last few years as a number of my close friends have moved away from Melbourne. It’s not the same as having them here, but knowing I can pop over and visit and have their love and warmth on tap 24 hours a day is a great comfort.

My next projects are going back to some of my incomplete prose manuscripts; I wrote 1500 words in one today despite my procrastination!

Thank you to all my friends, family and supporters – I wouldn’t be here without you, and I hope that I support you in return. Big love.

The Painter

22 Monday Apr 2019

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‘I have done five layers of background
I want to make it twenty,’ she says.
‘What’s the background of?’ I ask.
‘Just colours, like everything I do.’

‘I spent hours on this one
making the background.
I was really pleased with it –
a rich matte black
but then I got drunk when I did
the foreground and now it’s ruined.’

I don’t agree. I think it looks like galaxies or
cells joined together with shining
bridges of silver and ink, but I’m not
the painter so what I think isn’t worth much.

Her works fill her lounge room
vast pieces of converted detritus
‘These are wardrobe doors
I found on the street one time,’ she says.
Now they are covered in
splotches and splashes of riotous
flamboyant colour. They didn’t deserve
to die on the side of the road
as doors, so she saved them.

NaPoWriMo 2019 WIP

19 Friday Apr 2019

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So far I have written eighteen poem as part of NaPoWriMo this year. I wouldn’t necessarily say that they’re all good, but they’re not all bad either. I will probably go back to them later in the year and review them, There’s sure to be a couple that are worth working on.

I had be usual monthly meeting of the poetry group I’m a part of on Wednesday night. I didn’t take any of my new poems, I took one that I started working on in my mind while at a book launch in February.

I promise I was listening and not being distracted by my own inner genius; sorry Chris.

I am not a poet

I am a teller of stories
long and complicated ones
or shorter ones
no less complicated
each person I create
or recreate
from fragments as deep
and complex as I am

I am not literary
I prefer pulp
to dense poetic prose
but I’m a snob
adverb tags
unchecked repetition
trite tropes and
prostrate plots
enrage me

I am not an editor
in my own work
I skim over
obvious errors
I skirt plot holes
with ease
reading others’ work
I find plenty
to fault

I write in a world
between
high and low brow
a place where I
aspire to greatness
but can’t explain
what that means

I will always admire
styles different to
my own
more sophisticated
more practised
more authentic
more colloquial
there will always
be something
to aim for.

And now for some poetry

30 Saturday Mar 2019

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It turns out I work best when I’m working on a deadline, and a month-long challenge is like a deadline every day.

In April I usually participate in National Poetry Writing Month. Modelled on the popular National Novel Writing Month, which I do in November, NaPoWriMo provides prompts and encouragement to help you come up with a poem every day for the month.

I’ve done this challenge a couple of times in the past. Some of the poems are dreadful and I never look at them again, some have excellent potential and are worth working on at a later date.

I have been a bit quiet here on the blog lately; I moved house last week, and into a place I bought! It feels very grown up to have a mortgage. I have a two-bedroom apartment near a park in a very nice Melbourne suburb. It feels very decadent to have a whole bedroom to spare. I may get a housemate down the track, but there’s no hurry.

I hope you’ll join me in the April poetry challenge, it is motivating to know that other people are also participating.

The month that was, the month to come

06 Wednesday Mar 2019

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Phew! February was the month of book launches. I had my own launch on 17 February, you can read about that here. I also attended three others: a novel, Small Blessings, by Emily Brewin, on 13 February; a poetry collection, Palmistry, by Chris Ringrose, on 23 February; and a collection of poems and photographs, Blue Milonga, by Edward Caruso on 28 February.  That’s not even counting the one I couldn’t make because my band were playing a gig. 

I don’t think I’ve ever been to so many launches in my whole life, let alone in a single month. Perhaps there’s something in the water at the moment. Each one was different, as were the books themselves, but all involved the signing table, and schmoozing of guests. Emily’s launch had the most wine, while mine had the best catering (if I do say so myself).

March is shaping up to be intense as well. To begin with, Wasted Monday are trying out a new drummer, hopefully we all agree that the relationship works and we have a full band again. Lu and I will be doing open mics around town to keep our performance skills up until the drummer is ready to join us.

I’m also moving house at the end of March. I recently made the bold, and terrifying, decision to purchase an apartment, so I now have the joys of mortgage repayments to look forward to instead of rent. At least this time I have enough notice to plan my move.

It’s also the time at work when we have an external body come to audit us, so that’s shaping up to be a pretty busy time.

My writing has suffered a bit as a result of all the stuff I’ve been doing. I’m trying to get myself back into a good writing practice but am very good at finding excuses. I have purchased, but not yet started reading, The War of Art, by Steven Pressfield, which is specifically about the tendency to procrastinate when attempting to do a large, long term project like writing a novel. Hopefully I’ll get around to reading it soon and it will give my a burst of renewed enthusiasm.

Things are ticking along. With a hectic last month and another hectic month approaching I hope that I’ll be able to make time for some productive writing work, apart from my morning pages which are going well. I look forward to keeping you all informed.

It’s launched!

19 Tuesday Feb 2019

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On Sunday I released my second novel. I decided to throw a small launch party for it.

Here are a couple of photos from the day courtesy of Stuart.

I would like to thank everyone who came along, and everyone who bought a copy of the book. I was very nervous about it, but I think it went smoothly and I hope everyone had a nice time.

Special thanks to Savannah Blaize for being the MC, to Alison for doing the lion’s share of catering, and to Lu for providing the tunes.

Discovering the Franklins is available in e-book on Amazon and other good retailers, and in hard copy from me directly.

Happy reading and thanks for the support.

Pre-order ‘Discovering the Franklins’

18 Friday Jan 2019

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I’m super excited to announce that my second novel, Discovering the Franklins, is now available to pre-order on Amazon and all other relevant sales channels!

Over the Christmas break away from my day job I finished the very last edits and I’m ready to show my new baby to the world.

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I am also having a book launch event in Melbourne for fans who are interested in purchasing a signed, hard copy version of the book. It will be February 17, 2019, from 5:00-7:00pm. If you’re interested to attend please email me for address details.

For international hard-copy readers, I can mail you a signed copy, or you can order through Amazon.

I will have copies of my first novel, Sophie’s Path, available to purchase at the launch and copies of my poetry zine.

Thank you to Charmaine Ross for the gorgeous cover, to Annie Seaton for editing, and my mum, Jenny for the beta-reading and proof reading. Thank you also to all my supportive writing buddies, my friends and by family for helping keep me on track to get this done. I couldn’t have done it without you (please buy my book!).