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Fleur Blüm

~ writer, performer, musician

Fleur Blüm

Tag Archives: Romance Writers of Australia

Virtual conferencing

21 Friday Aug 2020

Posted by toearlyretirement in My Journey, Writing

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

just keep swimming, masks, Pandemic, Romance Writers of Australia, Romance Writing, working from home, Writing, Writing Conference

I bumped into a real estate agent in the supermarket yesterday who I had some dealings with about eighteen months ago; she recognised me behind my mask from my earrings.

‘How are you? Are you working from home?’ I asked.

‘Yes, I’m getting used to it now after a couple of weeks.’

‘A couple of weeks? I’ve been working from home since March.’ I laughed. She was pretty blown away. I didn’t even tell her my work life is now least 30% video conferencing.

I’ve mostly settled into the restricted lifestyle we have here in Melbourne although I do get a bit stir crazy every so often. Trying to find a balance at the moment is tough.

Last week I took a few days annual leave from the day job to attend the Romance Writers of Australia virtual conference. It ran Wednesday to Sunday, some of the sessions were great, others less relevant to me. I struggled to give my attention to my screen all day, especially in the pre-recorded sessions.

woman working at home using laptop

Photo by Vlada Karpovich on Pexels.com

In a virtual conference some death by powerpoint is inevitable but I came out of the week feeling pumped about writing and more confident in describing my current work in progress. 

The writing community is so encouraging and warm, I am hugely thankful to be a part of it. I’m glad the conference was able to go ahead in the face of a pandemic, hats off to the organising committee. I was disappointed not to be able to see Perth, or meet everyone in person. I guess I’ll have to wait till next year on the Gold Coast (fingers crossed).

I can only hope we come out the other end of this period of history wiser, kinder, safe and healthy. Breathe deeply, drink more water, get some sunlight, and remember you’re a like plant with complicated emotions.

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Auckland Writers’ Festival

29 Wednesday Jan 2020

Posted by toearlyretirement in My Journey, Writing

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Auckland, Auckland Writers Festival, Bushfires, Competition, Inspiration, Kill Your Darlings, Netflix, New Zealand, Perth, Romance Writers of Australia, Travel, Western Australia, Writing, Writing Conference

awf I’m a subscriber of an online literary magazine, Kill You Darlings. They’ve been around since 2009 and I admit I don’t read as many articles as I probably should.

What I do pay attention to are the excellent competitions. One I recently entered was to win tickets to the Auckland Writers Festival 12-17 May 2020.

I recently found out I’d won! Two tickets to the festival, three nights accommodation, and a voucher for airfares! It is a surreal experience to win something that cool.

I immediately went to the webiste only to discover the program won’t be released until March! First world problem, I know, but I wanted to go through and choose my sessions and swoon over the gorgeous people I’ll meet or hear or see.

The added bonus is that one of my very best friends lives in New Zealand and I will joining me at the festival.

It’s looking like my travel for the year will be largely to attend writing conferences. I’m also planning to attend the Romance Writers of Australia annual conference, this year to be held in Fremantle. I’ve never been to Western Australia before, so I hope to spend a week or two taking in the different sights and landscapes of our beautiful west coast.

I had a nice, if short, break away from the day job, and have been somewhat less productive than I had hoped to be with my writing, but with this announcement I have something to work towards and be inspired by.

The period of Christmas and New Years has been hard and weird for many Australians. Although I haven’t been seriously affected by the bushfires ravaging our country I’ve all been dealing with the terrible air quality and constant blanket of smoke along with many other city dwellers. I have no mechanism to deal with the enormity of the lost of life, both human and animal and insect and plant, and the scope of the recovery phase that will be coming. I find myself overwhelmed by the whole thing and just watch comedy shows on Netflix and hide my head in the sand.

I hope you’re all doing what you need to do to take care of yourselves out there. I’ll keep you updated with my adventure across the Tasman.

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Romance Writers of Australia Conference

17 Saturday Aug 2019

Posted by toearlyretirement in My Journey, Writing

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Inspiration, Romance Writers of Australia, Romance Writing, Writing

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?

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Winter nesting

02 Friday Aug 2019

Posted by toearlyretirement in My Journey, Writing

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Conference, Friendship, Inspiration, Romance Writers of Australia, winter, Work in progress, Writing

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!

imag2151.jpg

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.

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Reflecting on 2018

24 Monday Dec 2018

Posted by toearlyretirement in My Journey, Writing

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celebration, Inspiration, Melbourne Fringe Festival, Motivation, NaNoWriMo, NaPoWriMo, reflection, Romance Writers of Australia, Writing

Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house… I was madly cleaning! I have two weeks away from my day job (woo-hoo!) and I usually spend time over the Christmas break doing those jobs around the house I don’t get to normally – like vacuuming the inside of my car, or cleaning the window blinds.

It’s also a time for reflection on what I’ve achieved in the last year. You may remember I posted a list of my goals for 2018, now I’m looking back at whether I achieved them, and what I did that wasn’t on my list.

reflection pic

Last years goals were:

  1. Win NaNoWriMo 2018
  2. Enter 5 writing competitions
  3. Redraft ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ and publish it online (from 2017)
  4. ‘Fleur & Alexandra are Out of This World’ Melbourne Fringe Festival Show
  5. Edit ‘The Discovery of the Franklin’
  6. Submit ‘My Mothers Secret’ and ‘We Can’t Have Nice Things’ to publishers
  7. Perform with the new band regularly
  8. Two blogs per month

Of these goals I have achieved all but number six – I didn’t end up submitting my manuscripts to publishers. Since I’ve now started on the path of self-publishing, I’m happy to stick with this method for the moment. I don’t write strictly to genre, and I don’t write very commercially. For now, I’ll stick with the vanity publishing thing and maybe down the track, I’ll look into traditional publishing.

Number two, technically, I failed – I entered four competitions. I haven’t had any good news from any of them, although the Ruby won’t be announced until mid next year. But that’s okay, I entered them as a way to motivate myself, not to win.

Number five is very exciting. I am ready to publish my second novel, now titled Discovering the Franklins, which will be available to buy in February! The cover and exact release date are to be confirmed, but I’ll be sure to let you know.

In addition to that list, I have achieved a number of things that weren’t on the list. My band, Wasted Monday, recorded three demo tracks, I travelled in Japan, I’ve done a couple of online writing courses, I participated in NaPoWriMo and I’ve become involved in judging competitions for the RWA.

I’ve also taken on the role of Secretary for the Life Models’ Society. This has been taking up quite a lot of my time and energy, and I’m really glad to be involved. I think 2019 will be an exciting time for the LMS!

The last year has been busy at my day job, too. I was sent on an awesome leadership development program in June, and I’ve been learning a lot of new stuff about the new projects we have on the go.

It’s been busy, I’ve done a lot. I’m really proud of what I’ve produced over the last year. I think my career as a writer/artist is really coming along. I’m not making much money yet, but I am starting to feel legitimate, and that’s big.

My next post will be my goals for 2019! I hope you all have a safe and happy new year, and I’ll see you then.

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Was it Worth the Price of Admission?

12 Friday Jan 2018

Posted by toearlyretirement in Art, Writing

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ABC Comedy, Australian Writers Guild, AWG, Competition, Melbourne Fringe Festival, Melbourne Romance Writers Guild, MRWG, Prize, Romance Writers of Australia, RWA, Sit-Com

A few weeks ago I started working on the new show which Alexandra and I will be performing at the Melbourne Fringe festival in September. Currently titled ‘Fleur and Alexandra are Out of This World‘ it will be a pseudo-sequel to our last show, ‘Fleur and Alexandra Save the World’.

We’ve got a plot and we’ve started drafting the script, so we’re well on our way. I’m getting excited designing the puppets and set dressing and coming up with jokes and then late last week Alex suggested that we submit our script to a competition run by the Australian Writers Guild (AWG). I’d never heard of them, but apparently they’re THE people to talk to about writing for the screen/stage/radio in Australia.

The competition promised a cash prize which was to be used for development of the project, as well as the opportunity to pitch the Head of Comedy at the ABC. It looked good and I told Alex I was keen.

She did all the work to get the script from the first show into a screenplay format and down to 30 minutes, as well as most of the work to come up with plots for additional episodes (we needed to pitch six episodes).

Then we read the fine print – we had to be members of AWG. It was $210, double that of the Romance Writers of Australia (RWA). It didn’t really seem like something I wanted to sign up for, but if I wasn’t a member we couldn’t submit to the competition.

In the end I decided that it was worth it for the prize. I would do my best to get value out of the membership while I had it, but it got me thinking about the value of professional memberships, especially in the arts.

I’m a member of the Melbourne Romance Writers Guild, who meet once a month. The meetings and writing retreats are immensely valuable for both motivation and learning my craft. Writing is so often a solitary pursuit and meeting others in the flesh really helps you not feel alone.

I’ve been a member of the RWA, however the membership expired this month and I haven’t decided if I’ll renew it. I would have access to discounted rates for the conference, which I’m not going to this year, and to the online writing courses, but both of those can be purchased without membership, although one has to be a member to enter their competitions too.

I’ll do some more thinking about the pros and cons before committing. The RWA doesn’t have meetings I can attend regularly, which makes it feel like a much more ephemeral membership.

The tight-arse in me is skeptical of spending money on something for which I don’t earn any in return. Then again, I’ve paid for writing courses, I’ve paid for acting classes, I’ve paid for rehearsal spaces, and I’ve paid to record an EP.

Perhaps thinking of these things as strictly transactional is not helpful; measuring what’s put in against what comes out. It’s also possible that these transactions will have payoffs down the line. Networking with people in these memberships could end up creating an opportunity which bears fruit, or one day I’ll be rich and famous and all the money and time I put in will pay dividends.

We’ll have to wait and see, I guess. On the plus side, I now have a membership to AWG, an opportunity to win a sweet prize, and the seeds for four new shows. At least we won’t run out of material!

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Going Wild – 2017 RWA Conference

19 Saturday Aug 2017

Posted by toearlyretirement in My Journey, Travel, Writing

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Inspiration, Melbourne Romance Writers Guild, Motivation, MRWG, Romance Writers of Australia, Romance Writing, RWA, Writing

I’ve been pretty busy lately, including this blog I wrote for the Melbourne Romance Writers Guild about my trip to Brisbane for the RWA conference.

Now I’m working on getting my manuscript ready to submit to some publishers ASAP to take advantage of the renewed enthusiasm from going to the conference.

I’ll update you all soon.

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fleurblum@hotmail.com

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