The Spring Bride -- another snippet.

Here's another little snippet of The Spring Bride, out on June 2. I posted several others on my facebook pages and on twitter.

There are two slightly longer excerpts on my website.  

Enjoy.

The Author Photo

I'm gearing up for the promo as my book, The Spring Bride finally goes on sale. Some authors adore the whirlwind of promo, the blitzing of social media channels, the public "look-at-me-buy-my-book." The rest of us go there reluctantly, channeling Lady Macbeth and muttering, "Screw your courage to the sticking point and we'll not fail."

I'm in the latter group. I do my best to embrace the world of social media, and most of the time I enjoy it. Not when it comes to telling everyone to to buy my book, though.  My natural tendency is to do that from the bottom of a deep well, while wrapped in a blanket and wearing a gag. A  natural salesperson I am not. And I know I'm not alone in that.

Mary Jo Putney once told me writers' conferences are full of introverts pretending to be extroverts. Many writers on social media are much the same. It's a bit easier, because you can do it from the comfort of your cave, hiding behind the computer screen, doing what you do every day anyway, creating a world and characters — only the character you're bringing to life is you. Authorly you — the one who is interesting and glamorous and lives a fantastically exciting life. Not the one who lives in track pants and trainers, who never goes anywhere because, well, that's how you write books, dammit! 

But it seems people —publishers — expect you to project some kind of image. And to this end, they require you to provide — horror of horrors!— an Author Photo!

Read the rest of this post here:

An Evening of Fantasy & Romance

Like to read? Talk books and writing and storytelling? Meet authors? Come join me and three of my writing buddies in Melbourne on June 18th at Dymocks Bookstore in Collins St in the heart of Melbourne. 

It's free, but you need to RSVP for the event at www.trybooking.com/HXNC Bring along a printout of your ticket to win a book pack including 2 signed titles from each of us!

Hope to see you there.

The Spring Bride - a snippet

An Anniversary & a Giveaway

The word wenches — the historical romance authors I regularly blog with — are celebrating their 9th anniversary. That's a long time in blogland.

We're celebrating with a series of posts about our first ever book, and with a giveaway. Eight winners will win one of these books, and one winner will win all eight of the books!

To enter the giveaway contest click here: http://bit.ly/WordWenchesGiveaway

Making stuff

In my downtime I pursue a range of crafts -- not for any reason except that I enjoy it, and because sometimes when I'm concentrating on doing something fiddly with my hands, it helps me sort out story ideas and plot problems.

One of the "craft" things I do is to make necklaces and bracelets and earrings — not for sale, but just for fun. And sometimes for friends. At the moment my passion is for rough-cut crystals and semi-precious stones and though I already have plenty of jewelry in these materials, I keep making more in different combinations -- just because I can. And because I enjoy it.

I made the bracelet above last night. It contains rough-cut amethyst, quartz crystals, chrysoprase and a couple of baroque pearls. Might have to make a necklace to go with it. 

I made the combo above back in December for a Christmas outing with friends -- red coral, lapis, chrysoprase, crystals and malachite. Funny how the light and the automatic camera shows things so differently -- both pics are of jewelry taken on the same untreated balsa wood tray. One pic shows it as white, the other as yellow -- and the greenish chrysoprase stones in both pics are from the same batch.

Do you follow any craft that gives you pleasure?

Puppy Love

On New Year's Eve I came home with a puppy — not a tiny puppy, maybe 5 or 6 months old. I'd seen this picture on Pet Rescue and I was a goner.

I drove down before Christmas to meet her and make the arrangements—she had to be spayed, innoculated and microchipped before they'd release her — and collected her on New Year's Eve. She was named Amelia then, but I changed it to Milly.

Since then we've had a LOT of fun. She's a sweet-natured, affectionate little soul, very playful and active, but also quite happy (after a good game) to play by herself in the garden, or snooze on her bed beside my desk while I work.

Of course, sometimes she's not snoozing, but yumphing happily on a rawhide donut.

When I first got her, I bought Milly one of those "tug-of-war" ropes, with a tennis ball at one end and a rope handle for a human on the other.

The tennis ball was first de-fluffed, then thoroughly killed (and a post-mortem conducted — disappointingly hollow and untasty — and the remains scattered) but the rope, one end all shreddy, damp  and delicious, the other end still a neat handle for a human, remains and we have fun playing tug-of-war and learning (one of us anyway) to "give."

So she was playing with the rope thingy all by herself in the lounge-room this morning, tossing it up and pouncing and catching it and giving it a good vicious shaking and all excellent fun.

Then her back foot got caught in the handle, and hah! the rope is fighting back! So naturally she's not going to be defeated by a shreddy old rope, no matter how delicious. So she gives a biiiig tug and plonk! Down goes a surprised puppy. Looks around. Who pulled my foot from under me?

But there's nobody there, and this rope needs to be taught a lesson, so up she gets and wrestle-tug-shake-growl...

And then plonk — floored puppy again — what? Pull my foot out from under me — again? Baaad rope. So growl harder, pull harder. . .  fall harder! Damn rope!

Over and over for about 3 or 4  minutes.

Heartless here did nothing to help, just laughed and laughed.