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Finished
I’ve finally finished the solid draft of Dead Heat and sent it in to the publisher. Now of course I’m chewing my fingernails waiting to hear if it’s accepted. I know it does need some more work – a little more smoothing and layering – but there are also some elements that are darker than my previous two books, so I’m not sure what she will think of those and whether they will work for the market.
However, after fifteen months, minor surgery for a breast cancer scare, brain surgery to bypass the aneurism in my internal carotid artery, a very demanding full-time-and-a-half first semester teaching at uni, and my Dad’s serious illness, I have finished writing a book – the first one I’ve finished since Dark Country in early 2009. It’s a darn good feeling – but I’ll breathe much easier after I’ve heard back from the publisher!
Now I have a few days of breathing space to get over my bad cold, maybe do some much-neglected housework and tidying, mark some student assignments, and try to work out what it is that one does when not writing or working!
Great new cover
As Darkness Falls, which is published in Germany as Schwarze Dornen, will be coming out later this year in mass-market paperback format, with a new cover – and I love the cover!
(German readers can read more about it at the Blanvalet site.)
Large Print and e-Formats
The Time-Warp Fairy has obviously been around, because it really doesn’t seem like a month since I last posted. Although I did warn you, gentle readers, that I might be somewhat distracted!
A couple of pieces of news to share – first up, the other day I received my two copies of the Large Print edition of Dark Country. I think that libraries are the biggest buyers of large-print books, so for the librarians out there, the publisher of the large print edition is ISIS Publishing of Oxford, and a Google search suggests that they can be ordered from Ulverscroft in the UK.
The edition is a hard-cover, with a simple but stunning cover:
And in other format news, As Darkness Falls should be available as an e-book in the Australian Apple iBookstore any day now, with Dark Country coming soon. ADF has been uploaded to Apple, but they’ve apparently got a backlog getting titles on the virtual shelves. I’m not sure, though, whether it will only be available for Australian/NZ readers, or more widely. UK readers can already buy the e-book of the UK version of both books in major booksellers in the UK, and German readers can buy the German e-book from all major booksellers, but as far as I’m aware so far it’s not available (legally) elsewhere. It’s a situation that I hope will change shortly, but e-books and territorial rights are a very complex issue – which I won’t get into here just now, as it’s late and time for bed! But please be assured that I do discuss these issues with my publishers, and I do keep them up to date with readers’ views on the difficulties and frustrations!
On a totally different topic, I spent a little time this evening going through photos of the trip my sister and I did last month out to the area that the new book is set in – so I’ll have some more posts with photos in the next day or two!
Here’s a teaser – taken at the Cranky Rock Reserve near Warialda:
(Australians of a Certain Age will appreciate that the atmosphere of this place was such that when Andrea walked ahead and disappeared behind a large boulder, once could almost hear panpipes playing, and there was a strong temptation to call out ‘Miranda! Come back Miranda!’ )
Deadline distractions – and a winner!
Whoosh – that’s the sound of the weeks flying past as I sit glued to the computer, mostly disconnected from the internet, working hard on the next book. I’m so sorry that it’s taken me ages to draw the winner for my birthday giveaway!
Thank you everyone, for all your lovely comments and your suggestions for settings for books – I now have a bad case of wander-lust! Must plan a nice long research trip (or 4!) for next year sometime 
But without further ado, the random number generator picked the number 7 – and the 7th commenter is: SN! I’ll send you an email, so you can pick your choice of prize
As mentioned, I’m concentrating on writing at the moment, and not doing a whole lot else! My agent and publisher have seen the first three chapters of the new book and are happy with it, so it’s full steam ahead for me. I have got rather more than 3 chapters, but not in shape yet, so there’s still a long way to go. However, now that I have the characters fleshed out in my mind, plenty of ideas for the plot, and we’ve got a good start, I’m hoping it will flow very well from here.
Giving me a time frame to work to is the news that my surgery, to replace the aneurism affected internal carotid artery, is scheduled for Dec 16th. Becuase I’ll have to come off anti-clotting and blood-thinning meds some days before the surgery and go on to a heperin drip, I’ll be admitted to hospital on the 10th December.
If I work very solidly on the book, all going well I’m going to try to have it finished before I go into hospital – or at least, before the surgery, since I’ll have almost a week of sitting around in hospital before that! I’m not sure if it’s doable, but I’m aiming for that, as it will be a weight of my mind to have it out of the way before the surgery, and I’ll be able to take the recovery period a bit easier without pushing myself to write.
So, that’s the plan! I’ll be disconnected from the internet a lot during these next few weeks, to focus on writing, so if blog posts are fewer than usual, please forgive me!
Short story sale
I keep forgetting to mention that the Australian Woman’s Day magazine has bought another of my short stories It may not be published for some months, but I’ll tweet and blog when I know which edition it’s coming out in.
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
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