Archive for the 'Uncategorized' Category

August 27, 2010 • Comments

This is a very exciting week for me because my fabulous critique partner, Christina Phillips, has her book debuting. Below are details about her launch party and the fabulous prizes on offer. I know it’s not YA (she writes hot and steamy) but I couldn’t let this moment pass without giving her a HUGE shout out!!!

To help celebrate the release of Forbidden, Christina Phillips’s debut Roman/Druid Ancient Historical Romance from Berkley Heat, she’s holding a launch party with lots of amazing authors and fabulous giveaways! In addition, Christina’s giving away a signed copy of Forbidden to one lucky person who helps spread the love. All you have to do is mention the party (you can copy and paste this blurb), being held from 1st to 6th September at http://christinaphillips.blogspot.com. You can Tweet about it, blog, Facebook, MySpace or anything! And then drop her an email at ChristinapPh @ gmail dot com (no spaces) to let her know. Please put Forbidden Launch Party (or something similar) in the subject line. The winner will be drawn for that on Monday 6th September.

August 18, 2010 • 6 Comments

Got home from the Romance Writers of Australia conference the other day and had the most amazing time. It’s the first time I’ve been to this conference and was also presenting a YA workshop with my friend and CP Amanda Ashby.

We laughed and laughed all through the weekend, in fact it started in the taxi on our way there. The taxi driver asked where we were heading and we said to a romance writers conference…. big mistake!!! He then handed us something he’d written, complete with pen, and asked us to look at it. Luckily for me I can’t read in a car because it makes me feel sick. So, Amanda took charge. After assuring him several times that it was very well written, and that no it didn’t need any more emotion (it turns out it was a sermon he was giving about the composer Hayden and his religious beliefs) he allowed us to pass it back to him. But then, having discovered that Amanda’s husband is a composer decided us regale us with his version of Ave Maria (hummed!!).

The conference was so slick, the workshops amazing and getting the chance to meet all the people I’d only known online was awesome. And of course catching up with people I already know, and love, was fab too.

So here are my some of my photos:

Amanda and Christina (my fab CPs) also known as the Tiara Girls, or as we’ve now decided to rename ourselves the Tiara Mafia…. which we thinks sounds more kickass!!!!

Me by the Sydney Opera House, it was awesome!

The Tiara Mafia at the cocktail party

Cocktail party: I can’t remember the name of the person on the left, sorry, who we met; Amanda, Christina, Giovanna, Kris, Trish Morey.

Me, Emily Gee/May, Amanda at the cocktail party – Emily is trying on the Tiara for size.

It was fantastic to meet Vanessa Barneveld again and she came out to dinner with us on the Sunday.

At our YA workshop: me, Amanda and the fabulous Robyn Grady who introduced us, and lived to tell the tale!!

Emily and Barb enjoying drinks in our room before the awards dinner!!!

That’s it for photos, I wish I’d taken more. I can’t believe I don’t have any of the fabulous Rachel (soon to be neighbor), Amy, Allison Rushby, Anna Campbell, Maxine Sullivan, Kerri Lane, Louise, Nalini……. I could go on forever.

Next year I’ll try better!

August 11, 2010 • Comments

One more sleep until flying to Australia. And I’m beyond excited!!! I can’t wait to do the tourist bit in Sydney, and to meet up with people I’ve only talked to online.

I’m looking forward to giving our YA workshop…. we’re going to have another run through this morning…. it’s a good job run throughs and the actual thing bear no resemblance to one another because they’re usually very bad and we giggle a lot!!!

Will pack this afternoon, last minute washing is hanging up drying and must remember to leave instructions for the motel…. I’ll worry about that when I get back, I’m sure it will all be fine… and as I said to my husband: don’t worry I’m only a phone call away – and of course my phone will be turned off during workshops (which is pretty much all the time!!!)

Hope you all have a good week. I will be posting lots of pics on my return… providing this time I remember the memory card!!

August 5, 2010 • 2 Comments

A week today and we’ll be flying to Sydney, and if I said I was getting excited that would be an understatement….

I haven’t started packing yet but my suitcase is open beside the bed and I’m dropping things in there, or near there as I remember…. most importantly our three Tiaras. Because what is a Tiara Girl without her Tiara. The Tiara Girls are Amanda Ashby, Christina Phillips and me. We’ve been crit partners and best friends for years and it’s only once a year (though we’re planning for more when Amanda and I move to Australia) that we can all get together. And this year we have so much to celebrate, not least Christina’s debut book is just about to launch!!

I’m trying frantically to get as much written of my new book as possible before we go, well at least 50 pages so I can whizz it by my agent to see what she things. Yet again, I’m writing edgy near the knuckle stuff… which seems to be what suits me best.

Anyway, have a great week, I will try and post again before I go away, but with my track record I wouldn’t bet on it.

After conference there will be lots of photos and goss.

July 23, 2010 • 2 Comments

So……….. I haven’t posted in two weeks, which is long enough for WordPress to forget my log-in…. ooops. Which is always a worry because I can never remember all my different usernames. I thought about writing all my passwords and usernames down in one place, but then you’re told not to do that. Not only that I have so many where would I start?

Anyway, I managed to remember and got in here to blog.

Not a lot has happened, apart from yesterday Amanda and I spent the day preparing for our YA workshop at the Australian conference in 2 weeks and six days. And also creating a very pretty raffle prize (which, seeing as neither of us are creative, was a huge achievement in itself). I’m so looking forward to going…. I’ve never been to Sydney before and can’t wait to see the sights. And of course hearing Deb Dixon on Goal, Motivation and Conflict is going to be the most awesome experience ever. It’s an area that I think I understand until one of my CPs points something out and I realise that maybe I don’t!

Talking of CPs at the moment we’re on a writing 1k a day stint,  and for every time a person misses the target that means they have to buy the other two a drink at conference…. now I know we’ll be doing that anyway but it still seems to be a great incentive. And I’m in charge of recording our progress…. I have my sheet of paper and tick off each day when each person meets their word count. I have the added pressure of having to get my words done before Masterchef…. a new series has started (Australian version) and I LOVE it!!!

Not as much as Glee though, which annoyingly is finishing next week, as are so many of my favorite TV series. Luckily, I got the first two series of Bing Bang Theory for my birthday so I’ve been filling up on those, it has to be the funniest program on TV.

Okay, I’m off to start on my 1k words for today…. as well as the usual motel work which needs doing…. wish me luck!!!!

July 9, 2010 • Comments

Check out my post on Teen Fiction Cafe about making friends.

Other exciting news, I’ve just signed with the awesome Amy Tipton of Signature Literary Agency, and already my book is out on submission.

Getting really excited because it’s only 5 weeks until we go to the RWAus conference in Sydney. I’ve never been to Sydney before and we’ve scheduled in a little sight-seeing time….. can’t wait to see the Opera House. And also really excited about doing the Deb Dixon workshop on Goal, Motivation and Conflict. And then there’s the matter of our workshop….. we’ve prepared some slides (because the conference organisers needed them for the conference packs) but other than that we haven’t done any more preparation….. nor have we bought the chocolate (which is most important). We’ve found the promise of sweets (candy/lollies) works well when enticing people to attend…..

Hope you all have a great weekend…. I’m hanging out for some sunshine, we’ve had way too much rain and cloud recently.