Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Busy, busy, busy

Have a ton of writing to do in the next few weeks - have to revise a short story for submission to an anthology that I really love and would just about faint to be included in! Also have to prepare my pitch for Professor Fawkesbury's Ingenious Elevator, which I have to deliver to the amazing Kristin Nelson in August at the RWA conference. And here I am writing my blog instead - lol. Ok, back to work.

Monday, May 30, 2011

2011 NQ RWA Writing Roadshow

Have a fantastic weekend with the NQ Romance Writers and all our Roadshow guests and attendees. Saturday was packed with great sessions delivered by Helene Young, Barbara Hannay, Kelly Armstrong and Anne Gracie followed by a very fun conference dinner (at which Helene's husband Graham was of course the star! haha).

Sunday saw our group unwind and talk writing with Anne at The Lime Tree Restaurant at Trinity Beach. Great food and even better company! Look forward to being apart of many Roadshows in the coming years and helping to bring such wonderful talents to the Far North.  And now I'm exhausted but still typing away!

 Above: NQ Romance Writers - (B) Helene Young, Barbara Hannay, Havva Murat, Alice Honsa, Shannean Moncrieff, Noreen Allan. (F) Becca Quin, Mervet McClintock, Bernadette Rowley and Lilian Begelhole

Saturday, April 23, 2011

RWA Emerald Award 2011

I finally got the results back from the Emerald Award (national writing comp run by Romance Writers of Australia) and I was lucky enough to come in 8th place - I never even hoped to get through to the second round so this was a huge bonus. There were some great writers amongst the final twelve and the top three are now judged by an American Editor. Great competition and well worth the effort.

Sunday, April 17, 2011

holiday work

So glad school is out for the week! Gives me time to work on finishing the setup of my little glass studio - quite happy with the results as I now have my grinder and glass shelf stocked. I don't think there's anything as gratifying in the world as a well-stocked glass or book shelf!

Have worked on a few designs and starting to cut the glass - only going to do glass mosaicing from home for now - might work on some copper foiling later on. I much prefer copperfoiling/tiffany method to using lead.  Also have to sort out registering business name/ABN - hate that boring, paperwork side of thing! I just want to create.

Almost finished my paranormal/crime noir short story to submit for an anthology. It was a hard slog! Went complete 'Panster' on this one but I think it has worked out ok. I find it really challenging when i'm in that place where i don't know how I want things to end in a story, but I think this one ends ok. Soon as this is done i can get back to my novel.

Happy writing/reading/creating and Easter (if you celebrate it). 

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

fairytale images

Stumbled across a great blog yesterday 'Love at First Blush,' and found these great fairytale images:
Great to get the story ideas flowing...


Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Little Gems Short Story Contest 2011

Have now heard the results for the Little Gems contest - I scored 91% which unfortunately wasn't enough to make it into the anothology but I think is a pleasing result for my first attempt. The compeition is fierce! haha. I also got some great feedback which I will take into account when writing future stories.

Congrats to Lillian, my friend and member of the NQ Romance Writers, who tied for third place. She is the queen of short story writing and an inspiration to the rest of us. Great work Lillian xxx.

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Prof Fawkesbury update

Have stalled majorly with my novel writing! Nothing done for the past month! Am starting to feel itchy about it all. I re-read the eight chapters I have completed yesterday and was happy with most of it. Am thinking of writing in a seance scene though. A great article on Victorian Mediums is : A Willing Suspension of Disbelief:
Victorian Reactions to the Spiritualist Phenomena by Candace Gregory.


"Spiritualism entered English society in the middle of the nineteenth century, arriving from America via the migration of mediums in the 1850s. <5> The movement began officially in 1848 at the New York home of the Fox sisters, who gained fame as mediums through their apparently innate ability to summon spirits and to incite spirit messages and communiquis through tapping. <6> The phenomena of "table turning and spirit-rapping" found an immediate popularity in England. <7> Through the human agent known as the "medium," the spirits communicated through raps, tappings, materializations of spirit forms, levitations of persons or objects, and anonymous lights that had no apparent source. <8> With some elements of society, spiritualism soon developed into a social pastime, particularly by the upper classes, who were accused by one admitted cynic of "having pretty well exhausted the pleasures of this world" and were seeking "any new amusement they can get out of any other world." <9> The image of a frivolous tea party seance can almost seem justifiable with such an attitude, narrow and biased though it may be. "

http://www.loyno.edu/~history/journal/1989-0/gregory.htm

Now to write my seance scene ; )

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Sherry's Wedding

Posting some photos from Sherry & Semir's wedding last weekend. Sherry is my cousin and I starred as one of her five bridesmaids - a larger than life occasion full of hot-blooded southern Europeans, great dancing, great food and fantastic Lebanese drumming. Sherry was a beautiful, elegant bride and now that she has moved to Melbourne we will miss her greatly!