I had a wonderful time at the Romance Writers of Australia conference two weeks or so ago, and enjoyed every minute of it. I learned from my experience last year, when I overdid things with two conferences one after the other, packed full, and instead took things easy this time. The Published Author Day on the Thursday was a first for the RWA conference, and had some great sessions. The three I found particularly interesting were psychologist John Barletta, media/PR professional Jennifer St George, and the woman (who’s name I have temporarily forgotten, but if I go searching for my notes I might never finish this blog post!) who co-wrote the scripts for the Underbelly TV series, about organised crime in Australia. I found it fascinating hearing about the decisions they had to take to turn complex, real-life crimes and criminals into a cohesive TV program. There were definitely lessons in there about choosing what to focus on for dramatic cohesion and effect!

My take-it-easy strategy meant that I didn’t register for the workshop on Friday, and I was glad of that decision! Instead, I went into Newtown (an inner Sydney suburb) and met up with my good friend, librarian Vassiliki, for morning tea, in one of Newtown’s many cafés. Then a stroll down King Street, and short visits to an amazing button shop, a bead shop, and A Coffee and a Yarn. I managed to resist the temptation of pretty things, however, and didn’t buy anything.

Friday afternoon was the booksigning, organised by the Australian romance Readers Association in conjunction with RWA. It was great fun! We authors were seated alphabetically – so I was between my good friend, Valerie Parv, and fellow Outback Romances author Fiona Palmer.

After the booksigning came the cocktail party. There’s always a fancy dress theme, although no requirement to dress up. I had originally planned not to wear a costume, but then had an idea that fell in to the Fantasy theme, and was easy to execute. I fast-forwarded to 2012, and wrote up a series of frontpage newspaper articles, announcing major literary prize wins for various romance authors. I stuck them onto two sheets of cardboard, which I wore as a sandwich board. It was a fun bit of fantasy, and gave a few people a good laugh.

Highlights of the rest of the conference included, of course, the awards dinner on Saturday night. It’s always a lovely night, friendly and buzzing with positivity, and this year was no exception. I didn’t win the R*BY award in my category, but huge congrats to my good friend Tracey O’Hara, who did! The winners in the short romance categories were the lovely Sharon Archer, and wonderful Madam Res of RWA, Amy Andrews. The long romance category went to historical author Sophia James, who I haven’t met, but I’m sure she’s fantastic, too!

The workshops on Sunday included a very interesting, if somewhat unsettling one, by a Forensic Pathologist. A lot of very valuable information, sensitively delivered, about investigating the cause of death. After lunch, I attended quite a different workshop, delivered by a martial arts expert who trains the military, police, journalists going abroad, and airline staff, in fighting techniques. Not only did he know his stuff, he was a great performer, too, with expert comic timing. I guess it was less serious because we’re fiction writers, and not frequently confronting potentially dangerous situations in real life ourselves. But I learned heaps, both of relevance to writing fight scenes, and to real life. Hopefully I’ll never have to use any in real life, but at least I have more knowledge than I did!

Another part of my take-it-easy strategy was to stay on in Sydney on Sunday night, instead of racing home Sunday afternoon. I am SO glad I did. It was so much more relaxed, and I enjoyed the winding-down with friends, having a cocktail in the bar with a few others, then going out to dinner with a small crowd.

On Monday, I drove home with the wonderful Kelly Hunter, and we had a great trip. She drove, and I took notes while we brainstormed ideas for her next book series. It was a heap of fun, bouncing ideas and possibilities around, and now I can’t wait for her to write the series!

Since getting home, life has continued on, quietly busy. I’m still waiting on word about my next surgery, but it may be some weeks yet before I know the date. In the meantime, I finished putting together a photo album for Gordon’s mother’s 80th birthday, and posted it off – only a day or two late! (She didn’t seem to mind!)

Yesterday was another pleasant trip ‘down the hill’ to Bellingen, two hours drive away, for a meeting of the north coast 4 Points Author Network group of RWA. It’s a a great group of women, and a lovely drive amongst the peaks and ridges of the Great Dividing Range to the Dorrigo Plateau, and then down the escarpment to Bellingen, nestled into the river valley at the foot of the hills.

I’ll leave you with a couple of views from the road to Dorrigo:

Despite all evidence to the contrary on this blog lately, I am still alive. Life’s just been doing the up and down thing, so my brain has been somewhat distracted.

The major news is that, after months of struggling with it, my publisher, agent and I have decided that the book I was drafting and redrafting and redrafting – the third Dungirri book – just isn’t going to work at this point. Yes, that was a hard decision to make, and I know some readers are going to be disappointed (part of me is, too), but I know that it’s the right decision for now. It took me some days to come to terms with it; it’s very hard to let go of a book and characters that I’ve been working on for a long time! However, my plans now are to power on with a brand new book – new characters, new setting, new story – but at some stage, once that’s finished, I probably will write the third Dungirri book – although how, when and where it will be published I don’t yet know.

Now I’ve got past the disappointment stage, I can confess I’m feeling excited again – I’m no longer struggling to push a story uphill, and I can enjoy the thrill of starting a new idea. While I haven’t actually written a heap of the new book yet, I have the beginning, and the hero and heroine have been taking shape in my mind. I like them They’re not perfect; they each have some flaws or edges that should make them interesting. I think I’ve also worked out the initial crime and the person behind it, and yes, that will keep my protagonists on their toes! No news on publication date, yet, but probably mid-late next year. (I know, it’s a long wait. I’m sorry about that. But since I have major surgery ahead, and we can’t guarantee how much concentration I’ll be able to focus on writing in the next few months, we can’t commit to earlier than that.)

The weekend before last, G and I went for a long drive, partly to visit an area which I wondered about for the setting of the new book. Plus, we like driving through wilderness areas. By the end of the day, I’d decided that the setting wasn’t quite right for this book – I envisage it further west – but we had a lovely day out, anyway.

We drove north and a little west, up to the tiny community of Torrington, where we drove down the main road:

and conversed with some of the residents:

(The road through Torrington is also a common, where the cattle calmly graze.)

We then wound our way through the eastern edge of the Torrington Conservation Area (not quite a National Park, but similar):

which is granite country, rugged and rocky:

Then on through the rolling hills of the tablelands, up to within coo-ee of the Queensland border:

We then travelled west along the Bruxner Highway for a half-hour so, before turning south and coming home via Ashford and Inverell – but the wind was chilly, so I didn’t hop out and take any more photos!

Although the Torrington area is a wonderful place, this new book is telling me that it wants to be set further west. So, I’ll probably have to plan another trip or two soon; perhaps a couple of nights away, to revisit some places I’ve been to numerous times before, but this time with a writer’s eye.

in the meantime, I’ve got two new characters to get to know even better… and I’m thoroughly enjoying that!

Here I am in Sydney again – so different to the peace and quiet of home in the bush, but vibrant and fun in small doses! I flew in at lunchtime, caught a cab to the serviced apartment we booked, and then after doing some medical paperwork, I headed into the city centre and had afternoon tea with my wonderful publisher, Bernadette.

Then a browse amongst the shops for a while, before coming back to the apartment to wait for Gordon, who arrived on a later flight. We’ll go foraging for some dinner when he gets here – Newtown has plenty of cafes to choose from!

Tomorrow I’ll be walking across the road to the hospital for a test procedure on my aneurism – I expect to stay overnight, but fingers crossed we’ll avoid complications this time! I’m hoping to be out Thursday, so will update the blog sometime after that. The only Internet connection at the moment is my iPhone, so it’s a bit awkward typing

Thanks to everyone for the many congrats and messages about my RITA final – yes, I’m still grinning!

As mentioned in my previous post, we did a day trip yesterday into Oxley Wild Rivers National Park, with our friends Bob & Kerry, and Don, a National Park ranger. Bob is researching for a history of land use in the area since European settlement, so the purpose for the trip was to find the site of old stockyards and a hut, shown on a map from the 1890s. We accessed the area along a NP management track that is closed to unauthorised vehicles (we were authorised, and accompanied by a NP ranger.)

Here’s the satellite image from Google Maps of the area:

View Larger Map

The ridge that starts slightly right of the centre top of the photo is the ridge we drove down, to Top Creek (runs from centre left of the photo roughly through the midle), not far from where it joins the Macleay River. Later in the afternoon, we drove back up Top Creek, to the junction with Rafferty’s Creek – a lovely spot!

I tested out the video function of the new iPod a few times. The following short videos are a little shaky (hand-held iPod!) but might give some sense of the landscape:

A 360 degree view from a spot beside Top Creek – the site of the old stockyards and hut, now long gone:

A 360 degree where Top Creek flows (or doesn’t flow, in drier weather) into the Macleay River:

The junction of Top Creek and Rafferty’s Creek:

For those who aren’t able to view videos, here’s a few photos:

Clearing a fallen tree from the track

Track along the top of the ridge

Probable site of hut on Top Creek

Carrai Plateau across the Macleay River

Macleay River

Junction of Top Creek and Rafferty's Creek

And finally, a photo from the vehicle as we were driving back along the ridge, looking across to other ridges:

Ridges through the trees

It’s wild, isolated country – but very beautiful! And to connect this image-heavy post to writing, this kind of area is likely to be the inspiration for the fictional setting of the series of books I’ll write after the third Dungirri book. Still very much in the embryonic stage yet, but the ideas are developing, and we’ll see how it grows

I feel as though I’ve been away for a month, but it’s really only just on two weeks – and I did get home for two nights in between Brisbane and Melbourne!

The IASPR and RWAustralia conferences in Brisbane were fantastic. The papers at the IASPR conference were many and varied, but all interesting. I may do a little summary of a few of them once I’ve had time to think back over them and jot down some thoughts.

As usual, the RWAustralia conference was a great chance to catch up with friends, make new ones, and discuss and celebrate writing, books, and the romance genre. Special congratulations to the winners of the RWAustralia omantic Book of the Year Awards:
Short and sexy: Trish Morey, The Italian Boss’s Mistress of Revenge
Short and Sweet: Marion Lennox, His Island Bride
Long Romance: Anne Gracie, The Stolen Princess
Romantic Elements: Suzanne Perazzini, Beneath the Surface

I think Suzanne deserves extra congrats – she finalled in the R*BYs with not one, but TWO books! I’ve bought both of them, and am looking forward to reading them.

After catching up with my sister and my honorary brother and his family on the Sunday night in Brisbane, I set off to drive home on the Monday. It’s normally about a 6-hour drive, but I was very tired and battling a cold, so I had to stop frequently – and by 4pm, about 90 minutes from home, I decided I was simply too tired and sick to drive any further. So I stayed overnight in Glen Innes, had a (very) early night, and got up early the next morning, arriving home about 8.30am, before G went off to work.

I had just two days at home before I was off again – this time flying to Melbourne. My mother came down from Canberra, so we had a long weekend, staying at an apartment in the city. I went to the Sisters in Crime Davitt Awards dinner on Friday night, and also to a couple of Melbourne Writers Festival events, and then a fun brunch on Sunday with some romance readers. The rest of the time Mum and I just relaxed, with a little shopping, a few café visits, and afternoon tea with my cousins and a family friend. So, all in all, a busy but good time.

What’s coming up? Dark Country is officially out on September 1. But before that – tomorrow I’ll be able to announce something that I’ve had to keep quiet about for ages, and we’ll have a give-away of Dark Country to celebrate. So, pop back in again tomorrow!