The story’s working title is ‘Echoes of Daniel’ (thanks, Jenn, for brainstorming that!) and it’s a romantic suspense – and yes, it was a challenge writing a romantic suspense story in 1500 words! But a fun challenge, once the idea came to me

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!

The great news is that Dark Country is a finalist in the 2009 Australian Romance Readers Awards , in the Favourite Romantic Suspense category. The ARRA web page has the full list of finalists in all the categories.

And, to top it off, I am a finalist for the Favourite Australian Romance Author of 2009 award. There’s some pretty wonderful competition though – and huge congrats to the other finalists!
* Angela Verdenius
* Anna Campbell
* Anne Gracie
* Christine Wells
* Denise Rossetti
* Keri Arthur
* Paula Roe
* Stephanie Laurens
* Tracey O’hara

ARRA members are currently voting to determine the winner – if you’re an ARRA member, don’t forget to check your email for the link to cast your vote. The winners will be announced at a gala dinner in Sydney in May. Many thanks to those who nominated me and Dark Country in the nomination round – I’m delighted to make the finals.

The not-so-great news is that we’re having internet connection woes, and will probably be offline for a few days. Our internet box has to be replaced, but they apparently disconnect the old one when the new one is shipped – and it will take probably three days to get here. So, we’ll be internetless from any time now, until it arrives. I can connect via my iPhone to check emails and do the basics, but it’s tricky to read and write on the small screen, so I’ll only be doing urgent things. On the bright side, I hope this will take away some distractions and give me more focus to write!!

There’s not a lot of news to report from here, since my butt is firmly in my chair, day after day after day, gradually making progress on book 3. Some days are good, some days are frustrating…. at some stage in my writing career, I may actually learn the lesson that those frustrating days could well be a sign that I’m approaching a scene the wrong way. Yes, 2,000+ words went out the window the other day when I realised, after three days of struggling with a scene, that it was simply all wrong and needed deleting. Sigh. I’m not a fast writer, so tossing out a large chunk of words is always painful. However, the new scene worked much better.

I do take breaks from the writing – making cups of tea, bringing the dogs in from the run, taking the dogs for a walk, giving dogs tummy-rubs, and their favourite – playing biscuit-games. (For my US readers, biscuits=cookies.) Tansy, being a smart bundle of energy, likes the games with running in them, and is always trying to anticipate when I’ll give the order to ‘come’. Jaffa, aka The Princess Dog, is slowing down, due to her seizure medication, and possibly just her temperament. Her favourite biscuit game is ‘I’ll just sit at your feet looking adorable, and you give me a biscuit.”

We’ve had a lot of summer rain, so everything is looking very green – the greenest I have ever seen this district. Most of the trees around here are stringy-bark eucalypts, but there are peppermint gums (eucalypts) and box gums as well, and the box gums are flowering, white blossoms high in the canopy attracting a constant buzz of insects. The native blackthorns are also flowering, and as we have a lot of them, it’s a delight to see the haze of tiny white blossoms as we walk around the block. They’re quite straggly bushes, but the bunches of flowers are lovely:

And yes, I do think it’s a lovely coincidence that the title of the German edition of As Darkness Falls, coming out next month, translates to ‘Black Thorns’. The translator probably didn’t have such a pretty image in mind when coming up with the title, however

If you’re wondering about the title of this post, it’s because one of the strategies I use to keep my butt in my chair and my brain focused on my book, is to knit while I’m staring at the screen. As mentioned before, I’m not a fast writer. Some people write quickly, get a ‘dirty draft’ down, and then go back and polish it – sometimes revising it multiple times. I write slowly, spend a lot of time getting each part right, and therefore do a great deal of staring at the words, thinking how best to express the mood of the characters, and weave together the plot elements. So, for me, knitting something uncomplicated is a good way to help the concentration process – it keeps my hands busy, and away from the mouse and the temptation of clicking all over the internet (or even just over other files on the computer), and it relaxes the restless part of my brain, with the simple, repetitive rhythms, and just the sheer pleasure of holding beautiful yarns. It also dramatically reduces any desire to get up and go and clean bathrooms, spring clean the house, or any of those other procrastination devices that afflict restless students and workers.

I usually keep my knitting ramblings over on my textile blog, but just to pretty up this post a little more, here’s a photo of second shawl I recently knitted from a pattern I designed:

(It looks more complicated than it is – the lace pattern was easy rhythmic knitting, and so suited to knitting while writing! I did take a few breaks, though, earlier in January, to write up the pattern, and after test-knitting by some friends, the pattern’s now available on Ravelry, the big knitting community.)

Okay, now that I’ve had a short break to communicate with the world beyond my computer, I’ll go and wash my breakfast dishes, and then get back into the writing. The current knitting is another shawl, in a rich dark red wool – dramatic shades for a dramatic scene!

I hope everyone had a joyful Christmas season, and that 2010 will shape up to be a wonderful year for you all.

The year isn’t my only new beginning lately. I’ve been working on book 3… but I was struggling. I was behind after the medical dramas, it took some weeks to get my concentration back to normal – and then the book still wasn’t working, every word and scene a battle. On December 28 or thereabouts, as I was thinking about the book, the thought occurred to me… ‘what if I changed it?’ On December 29, at around 1pm, I opened a brand new Word document, and started all over again. Same premise, same characters, but a different beginning, leading to some key differences in the plot.

Sometimes, you have to know when to start again. Tough as it was to throw out a heap of work (okay, it’s saved on the computer, just ‘thrown out’ in my mind), the structure of the story simply wasn’t going to work as it was. It’s now much better, much stronger. The heroine – a new character to Dungirri – is active from page 1, and in danger from about page 6, which is a good way to start a story! I’ve also found a better way of dealing with some of the challenges of this book; the hero, Mark, was a secondary character in the previous two books, and is – or rather, was – a politician. Yes, I know – making a (former) politician heroic is a tough ask! I do like Mark as a character, though – I’ve always seen him as a man of integrity, dedicated to serving his community, and with many layers beneath the courteous surface. The new structure sees him introduced in the book in chapter 2, but as a hard-working grazier, out in the paddocks, rather than in any political role. We see him, too, through the heroine’s eyes, and she doesn’t know him, so she sees him as he is, the man behind the public face.

I’m so much happier with the story now, and on the right track with it. However, it’s due in at the end of February – so things are going to be quiet around here for the next two months, while I take inspiration from Nora Roberts’ hard working example and discipline myself to write, write, write!

Sometimes a writer’s just got to do what a writer’s got to do….

I’ve been involved in the mentor program for the past three years. I really enjoy it – there’s an online discussion board, plus we have full-day workshops when the students travel to the university to work in small groups with the program mentors. Because we’re in a regional area, some of the students travel quite some distance, arriving here the evening before the workshop, and staying in the University’s residential colleges overnight. As well as the workshop, it gives them a chance to experience a taste of uni life.

For various reasons, we’ve only got a small group this year, and therefore had only one workshop – which was yesterday. Eight students and their teachers from three different schools came, so Martin, the other mentor and I had a group of four students each to work with during the day. The young people in the program are always bright, interesting students, with great ideas for their major works, and yesterday’s group were no exception. It was a real delight to work with them.

So, thanks, Rosalie, Sarah, Sophie and Maree for a great day! I hope you went away with some useful ideas for your projects, and a boost to your inspiration and motivation. I sure did!

This is me, hiding from my manuscript, so it can’t find me….

Yesterday wasn’t the best writing day. I ended up scrapping most of what I’d written the previous day, and agonising over how to bring various threads and plot points together into the final act. I still haven’t got all the answers, but I think I finally made some progress – in my head, anyway. I’ve still got to get it down on paper screen.

This morning, I’m going to take a bit of a break and go into town – I haven’t left our place, so haven’t seen anyone but Gordon, since Monday. The grocery shopping needs doing, so I volunteered – yes, the exciting life of a writer, when the grocery shopping becomes a break from routine! Although I’ll probably have morning tea in my regular cafe, as well.

Oh, and the photo is of an echidna. We have a few on our place – Gordon has seen three at the same time – so we see them reasonably often. This one is hiding from me and the dogs. I did leave the dogs some distance away, so I could wait quietly nearby to get a better photo – but just as it decided it might be safe to move, my camera battery died.

And to finish this on a positive note, I have walked in the treadmill EVERY morning for 16 days in a row now. (So, I’d better go now and get on it and make it 17 days in a row…)

But a  short while ago when I took the dogs out for a walk, this was the view to the south-west of the house:

Sunset behind the trees

I love the sunsets here – but they do sometimes bring a stark reminder of the risk of bushfire.

However, tonight is a lovely night – warm, still, and peaceful. The sun has been gone for a while now, the waxing moon is hanging amongst the stars, and through my open study window I can hear a soft chorus of frogs and insects, with the occasional rustle of a rabbit or a possum.

So, I’d better draw on that peace and inspiration, and write some more words in my manuscript.

ETA: A few minutes after I posted this things got even more peaceful – and dark! We had another power failure, which lasted over an hour. It’s just as well my laptop battery was recharged. We always have candles at the ready, too, so I spent a quiet hour writing. I took the dogs out for a wee walk, and with the house lights off, the moonlight and moonshadows were lovely. It’s amazing how much light the moon provides on a clear night. But now we have power again, and are connected to the world, and it’s getting close to bed time – after we reset all the electronic clocks, for the second time this week!

The study was working fairly well, though – until I resigned from my university job at the end of last year. When I left there, I brought home a heap of research materials and books and papers from the work office – and since there wasn’t really anywhere for them to go, they sat on the bed. Fortunately, we don’t have overnight guests very often at all, because the bed gradually got covered by things that I couldn’t find a home for.

Over the past couple of months, I’ve gradually been sorting through stuff, reorganising into limited space, trying to set things up properly for working full-time at home. It wasn’t too bad in winter, because I mostly worked at the dining table where it’s warmer, and could close the door on the ‘study’. But once the warmer weather started, I felt the need to get the workspace set up more effectively.

I threw out a heap of papers from the old, 2-drawer filing cabinet. I bought a new, 3-drawer filing cabinet. I sorted out numerous copies of manuscript drafts and shredded some, keeping only significant stages, and put those into archive boxes -  there being a strong historian streak in me, that needs to see important things archived.

I cleaned out the drawers of the desk my Dad built for me years ago. One drawer was full of old disks – backups disks, old files etc. I got determined and threw them out, and that freed up a drawer. Another drawer had software manuals and boxes – I tossed some, found better spaces for others.

The top drawer is the drawer I toss pens, clips, tape, scissors and other useful things into. I’ve been doing this for a long time. I do buy a few pens, because I like decent ones that write properly and are comfortable to hold. I also use mechanical pencils in varying sizes. But conference pens, hotel pens, author’s pens, and sample promotional pens, all ended up in the drawer as well. So, I started sorting out the top drawer. I put all the pens and pencils that worked on top of the desk, tossing the ones that didn’t work.

Ahem. There were quite a few:

Inadvertent pen stash

At least, if the power fails for a lengthy period, I won’t run out of ink to write by hand Nor paper – because when I put all the notebooks and writing pads in one place, there were about a dozen of them.

A year or two back, I’d bashed together some rough shelves to go above the desk and the boxes beside the desk, but once I put the new filing cabinet in place of the boxes, the shelves no longer fitted. So, I had to rebuild the shelves – and made them stronger in the process, using angle brackets instead of nails. I do not have the carpentry skills or patience of my father (or the tools), but I finally finished remaking the shelves and staining them a couple of days ago, and I’m fairly happy with the results. They’re more ‘rustic’ than beautiful – and the stain recommended by the guy in the paint shop was darker then I wanted – but they’ll do the job.

Desk Corner

Today I’ll be moving the laptop back to the desk and settling in there to work again. The bed still isn’t all cleared, but now I have the filing cabinet and shelves I can do that a bit at a time, in the mornings which aren’t my best creative times. As long as nobody wants to come and stay soon!