Here’s how…
So easy. Anyone can do it.
So come on…be a shelf elf at least once a week.
Print books rock!
I’m being a bit of a smartie pants probably, and the idea may not go to plan, but it’s my little way of honouring some (there are many more) of the writers I love and who continue to inspire me to follow my dream.
Take Lisa Heidke who taught me about ‘author’s voice’ (which I blogged about earlier). She’s now featured in my latest WIP – The Simmering Season…
The heat last night hadn’t made sleeping easy, but it was Sleep-in Sunday today and Maggie refused to get up before she’d read at least three chapters of her latest Lisa Heidke novel. The author had a knack of portraying motherhood and the every day, showing real woman struggling to balance work, family and dreams, just like Maggie. Only in fiction there was a guarantee of happy ever after.
Bronwyn Parry is featured in one of my favourite and earliest works – MOSAIC…
Throwing open the flap on her knapsack, Gina took a quick inventory: denim shorts; a black, cheesecloth top; beach towel; the super-dooper-scrunch-it-up-all-you-like jacket she’d owned for years; her new digital camera; and the latest Bronwyn Parry novel.
And Helene Young is in House For All Seasons, currently floating around Penguin, Australia – not Helene…my ms! (Helene is a Hachette girl along with Bronywm Parry!)…
She’d packed plenty of books to read, choosing one – Helene Young’s Border Watch; a smattering of real life, a terrorist plot and ample fiction. Perfect escapism. She’d have it read in a couple of days. Then what?
Of course, should any of my books (above) make it to print one day, will such references survive, will I have to amend and refer to their 6th best seller, or will such references end up the victim of an editor’s red pen (for any number of reasons)?
I guess it will be a case of “it’s the thought that counts” 🙂
Okay, I admit to leaving last year behind with mixed feelings.
Personally, 2010 was a bloody awful year (family/health stress mostly). Professionally there were some seriously good highlights, but then a strange and terrifying nothingness, which unfortunately led this creative mind to making up crazy plots (usually with disappointing endings).
Enter the Queesland floods…. Nothing like a country being devastated by catastrophic weather events to give the whiney writer a reality check. (And if Anna Bligh didn’t show me how to remain positive and cope under pressure…well…I don’t know real pressure!)
So with my new I-have-so-much-to-be-grateful-for attitude, I am getting back into my happy grind of writing and blogging. I’m also donating to various flood appeals/initiatives (more on this and how you can win in a couple off days).
In the meantime I have sent off three entries into the RWA Little Gems Short Story contest. I made it into the anthology last year. Can I do it again?
Yes I can! (positive, positive, positive)