{"id":1195,"date":"2010-06-23T09:15:13","date_gmt":"2010-06-22T23:15:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bronwynparry.com\/blog\/?p=1195"},"modified":"2010-06-23T09:17:07","modified_gmt":"2010-06-22T23:17:07","slug":"still-here-and-there","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bronwynparry.com\/blog\/2010\/06\/still-here-and-there\/","title":{"rendered":"Still here! (And there&#8230;.)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Despite all evidence to the contrary on this blog lately, I am still alive. Life&#8217;s just been doing the up and down thing, so my brain has been somewhat distracted. <\/p>\n<p>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 &#8211; the third Dungirri book &#8211; just isn&#8217;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&#8217;s the right decision for now. It took me some days to come to terms with it; it&#8217;s very hard to let go of a book and characters that I&#8217;ve been working on for a long time! However, my plans now are to power on with a brand new book &#8211; new characters, new setting, new story &#8211; but at some stage, once that&#8217;s finished, I probably will write the third Dungirri book &#8211; although how, when and where it will be published I don&#8217;t yet know.<\/p>\n<p>Now I&#8217;ve got past the disappointment stage, I can confess I&#8217;m feeling excited again &#8211; I&#8217;m no longer struggling to push a story uphill, and I can enjoy the thrill of starting a new idea. While I haven&#8217;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 \ud83d\ude42 They&#8217;re not perfect; they each have some flaws or edges that should make them interesting. I think I&#8217;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&#8217;s a long wait. I&#8217;m sorry about that. But since I have major surgery ahead, and we can&#8217;t guarantee how much concentration I&#8217;ll be able to focus on writing in the next few months, we can&#8217;t commit to earlier than that.)<\/p>\n<p>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&#8217;d decided that the setting wasn&#8217;t quite right for this book &#8211; I envisage it further west &#8211; but we had a lovely day out, anyway.<\/p>\n<p>We drove north and a little west, up to the tiny community of Torrington, where we drove down the main road:<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/bronwynparry.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/20100614TorringtonMainRoad.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/bronwynparry.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/20100614TorringtonMainRoad.jpg\" alt=\"Torrington NSW Australia\" title=\"20100614TorringtonMainRoad\" width=\"479\" height=\"359\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1197\" srcset=\"https:\/\/bronwynparry.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/20100614TorringtonMainRoad.jpg 479w, https:\/\/bronwynparry.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/20100614TorringtonMainRoad-300x224.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 479px) 100vw, 479px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>and conversed with some of the residents:<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/bronwynparry.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/20100614TorringtonCattle.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/bronwynparry.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/20100614TorringtonCattle.jpg\" alt=\"Cattle on Torrington Common\" title=\"20100614TorringtonCattle\" width=\"479\" height=\"330\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1198\" srcset=\"https:\/\/bronwynparry.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/20100614TorringtonCattle.jpg 479w, https:\/\/bronwynparry.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/20100614TorringtonCattle-300x206.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 479px) 100vw, 479px\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n(The road through Torrington is also a common, where the cattle calmly graze.)<\/p>\n<p>We then wound our way through the eastern edge of the Torrington Conservation Area (not quite a National Park, but similar):<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/bronwynparry.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/20100614TorringtonRoad.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/bronwynparry.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/20100614TorringtonRoad.jpg\" alt=\"Torrington Conservation Area\" title=\"20100614TorringtonRoad\" width=\"479\" height=\"359\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1199\" srcset=\"https:\/\/bronwynparry.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/20100614TorringtonRoad.jpg 479w, https:\/\/bronwynparry.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/20100614TorringtonRoad-300x224.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 479px) 100vw, 479px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>which is granite country, rugged and rocky:<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/bronwynparry.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/20100614TorringtonRocks.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/bronwynparry.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/20100614TorringtonRocks.jpg\" alt=\"Torrington Conservation Area\" title=\"20100614TorringtonRocks\" width=\"479\" height=\"359\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/bronwynparry.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/20100614TorringtonRocks.jpg 479w, https:\/\/bronwynparry.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/20100614TorringtonRocks-300x224.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 479px) 100vw, 479px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Then on through the rolling hills of the tablelands, up to within coo-ee of the Queensland border:<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/bronwynparry.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/20100614Tablelands.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/bronwynparry.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/20100614Tablelands.jpg\" alt=\"tablelands - northern NSW\" title=\"20100614Tablelands\" width=\"479\" height=\"359\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1201\" srcset=\"https:\/\/bronwynparry.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/20100614Tablelands.jpg 479w, https:\/\/bronwynparry.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/20100614Tablelands-300x224.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 479px) 100vw, 479px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>We then travelled west along the Bruxner Highway for a half-hour so, before turning south and coming home via Ashford and Inverell &#8211; but the wind was chilly, so I didn&#8217;t hop out and take any more photos!<\/p>\n<p>Although the Torrington area is a wonderful place, this new book is telling me that it wants to be set further west. So, I&#8217;ll probably have to plan another trip or two soon; perhaps a couple of nights away, to revisit some places I&#8217;ve been to numerous times before, but this time with a writer&#8217;s eye. <\/p>\n<p>in the meantime, I&#8217;ve got two new characters to get to know even better&#8230; and I&#8217;m thoroughly enjoying that!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Despite all evidence to the contrary on this blog lately, I am still alive. Life&#8217;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 &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/bronwynparry.com\/blog\/2010\/06\/still-here-and-there\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,8,7,9,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-news","category-landscape","category-life","category-travels","category-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bronwynparry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bronwynparry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bronwynparry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bronwynparry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bronwynparry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1195"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/bronwynparry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1195\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1203,"href":"https:\/\/bronwynparry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1195\/revisions\/1203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bronwynparry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bronwynparry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bronwynparry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}