The Trouble With Dying has FINALLED!

goldaward

OMGOMGOMGOMG!!!!!! The Trouble With Dying has reached the FINALS of the 2015 InD’Tale RONE Awards in the Suspense category!!!!!! I heart you all so much because it’s YOUR votes that got it there! 😀 Now I just need to waitwaitwait for the winner announcement. No problem… o_O

A Real Book Launch!

Book Launch 1

Sunday 15th March 2015.

It’s a day I’ll remember for a very long time. After I published my debut novel – literally the push of a keyboard button – and experienced the total, utter flatness of not properly celebrating my first book’s release, I promised myself I would do it properly for book two.

So I did. I hired a venue, issued invitations, organised catering, shipped in boxes of books, and angsted over excerpts. Actually, I angsted over everything, but particularly over excerpts.

But after all that angsting, it was a wonderful occasion. I had a blast!

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Finished – Again!

Today I finished revisions on A HEAT OF THE MOMENT THING. Which is kind-of ironic, because when I look back over my old news I see that on 23 February 2010 – yes, 2010 – I announced that I’d finished the very same novel.

Of course, there’s been a lot of water under the bridge since then – earthquakes, more earthquakes, moving out of our (unsafe) house, insurance wrangles… and on the writing front, submissions galore, rejections galore, lots of writing, the rise of self-publishing as a viable option – and, from an exceptionally gifted critique buddy, amazing insights and editing advice, more valuable than any other post-quake assistance we received. (Don’t tell Beloved I said that!) Thanks to that critique, my revisions are finished, my fingers are crossed, and I’m back on the bucking submissions bronto . . .

That Pre-Christmas Madness

Last weekend I had two glorious days of uninterrupted writing with Carla, my writing buddy (waves madly). We hid out in a holiday home near Queenstown, and did nothing but write. Oh, and drink the odd creativity-enhancing beverage.

Just as well, because it’s been absolute bedlam ever since; pre-Christmas madness with a capital M. And I’m left wondering, as I do every year, why we allow ourselves to get caught up in it all. The desperate stampede for just one more gift, the frenzied supermarket bun-fights, the manic Christmas Eve wrapping routine . . . And, as we do every year, Beloved and I swear we’ll be finished in time to enjoy a quiet Christmas Eve wine. (Yeah, right.) If only our kids knew the half of what goes into the magic of Christmas . . .