Hi Everyone,
I’ve been extremely busy this month with so much news to share.
At the end of last month, I went to the Rockingham Writers Convention. I had a wonderful time, catching up with old friends, meeting new people and making new friends, sharing information and anecdotes, and let’s not forget the main reason for going – educating ourselves in the art of writing!
I was fortunate enough to be able to ‘pitch’ my ‘hot’ contemporary romance, ‘Having Faith,’ to Escape Publishing’s Managing Editor, Kate Cuthbert. For those of you who don’t know, Escape is part of the larger Harlequin Group of Romance Publishers.
Although outwardly calm, inside I felt jittery, and knew I blabbered on a bit too much; silently wondering if my eye was twitching. But I threw my best ‘pitch’ and … woo hoo! I felt like Sam, with my ‘I do like Green Eggs and Ham’ moment, when Kate actually asked me to send my manuscript for her perusal.
The excitement has worn off somewhat, and now I’m going through what I’m sure most writers would suffer from – ‘the insecurity heebee geebees’. You writers must know what I mean.
The questions –
Does she ask for everybody’s manuscript and then bin them?
Did she read the first page and get bored?
Has she got so many to read that it will take her two years?
Maybe she hated it and is at this very moment, vomiting into a bucket?
This is followed by a very hard, self-inflicted mental slap across my face – STOP IT!
These things take time.
Okay, calm again. Soon. Soon. Soon. (My new mantra)
So, with that psychotic episode behind me. I am now editing and revising my follow-up book to ‘Justice,’ called ‘An Unholy Gift’. Thanks to my beta-readers who have given me some great feedback, insight, and advice, I’m working diligently. I’m deleting scenes, changing paragraphs, upgrading dialogue, adding a new character and fleshing out the current ones. I’ve even discovered a great logo/symbol for the start of each chapter. Hopefully, I can get this all ironed out and revised so I can publish mid-December -(fingers, toes, and eyes crossed).
I’ve got my book cover designer/genius, Danielle Maait, working on a great cover for Having Faith (in case I self-publish), and An Unholy Gift. She is a joy to work with, and is always eager and positive with all my changes and ideas.
I’ve even joined this great little online critique group with girls from the USA, all Indie-authors like myself where we are thinking about writing and indie-publishing a Halloween Anthology for next year. A great project for 2019.
Another project for next year – I’ve also been reading a couple of screen-plays and how-to-write-a-screen-play books, so that I can convert ‘Justice’ into a screen-play for either TV or Movies. Nearly everyone who reads ‘Justice’ tells me that it should be made into a movie. So… what the hell. Why not!
My new motto – You gotta go out on a limb, cause that’s where the fruit is! 
On the home-front things are quiet, although I did attend my family’s reunion. Firstly can I just say I’m not a great lover of family reunions. Especially my own. Not because my family is dysfunctional – although I do love hearing about dysfunctional families for some reason. I find it hilarious and I’m secretly pleased to see that my family isn’t the only ones out there with relationship problems and crazy hangups.
We aren’t close. Oh, we were at one stage. When we were kids. But then life’s problems, quirky personalities, and our extended partners got in the way and we had family arguments, grew apart, and became estranged. But a couple of years ago, my daughter organised a family reunion for my Mum’s 80th Birthday and what do you know… we didn’t kill each other!
In fact, we had a pretty good time.
Fast forward three years, and this time it was Mum who arranged the next one, which was the weekend just gone. Again it was very pleasant to catch up on good times, look at old photos, and reminisce. Now the family has grown to include grandchildren and things were so different. Noisier for a start!
In our mature age my siblings have all had little milestones as well. My sister has learnt guitar and plays in a band. I write and am a self-published author. My other sister and her husband invented and manufacture ‘Quobba Fins’, to make surfers move faster through the water. My sister-in-law is a budding painter/artist. Wow – I can’t keep up with it all.
But through it all I am proud of them. It got me thinking that although it’s a cliche’ to say that ‘Blood is thicker than water.’ It’s also very true. Siblings are the only ones that have known you the longest, know all your weaknesses and strengths and are biologically tied to you in a way no other people on the planet are. With an invisible bond that somehow we don’t feel is important, until that bond is wrenched away or you reconnect, as we just did.
I was glad of the time we spent together. Maybe in another couple years!!
Until next month – Once I fall in love with a book – I fall in love completely.