The end is nigh…

February 5, 2021

Yesterday, I looked at the word count of Reliquary, my current manuscript, and realised I had passed the 100,000 mark. I was surprised. It seemed only a short time ago that I watched 50,000 tick over and then time just slowed and it seemed no matter how often I wrote, the numbers barely changed. Some days, I would delete a page or a paragraph. And at one point, I accidentally opened the file at the very beginning and decided I wanted to hit the readers pretty hard from the get-go and so added a kind of prologue to set the scene.

I have still to get the editor’s approval on that one but it works for me…

March is almost done?

March 29, 2018

Really?

April’s coming? The last month of the first quarter of the year?

Crikey!

I have to look back and ask: is there accomplishment in the last almost four months?

Well, yes. I’ve almost finished Michael, despite the hurdles that are being thrown my way.

Inspired marketing…

November 18, 2016

I was listening to a well-known Australian writer on the radio this afternoon.

She was talking about her latest release – a story taking place in WWI. Woven into the story is a tin of chocolate.

This writer is adept at marketing and promotion. To entice readers to her Meets and Greets, she had a chocolate made by an Australian chocolatier to give to trusty fans. And to make it even more special, the chocolate is blended with blackberry which is the name of the heroine’s horse.

And in a previous novel about perfume, WWI and France, she had a special French perfume blended and readers were invited to buy the limited edition.

Inspired marketing? Yes, I believe it’s very clever…

What a year!

December 21, 2015

What a year it has been!

In so many ways…

Twee?

February 5, 2015

(Note: this post contains spoilers of The Gisborne Saga.)

Most of my reviews are excellent, between 4.5 and 5 stars, but recently a reviewer remarked of Gisborne: Book of Kings that the ending was twee. She still gave me a high star ranking for which I am very grateful, but I’m guessing she didn’t like the way in which the story was resolved…

The Saga’s complete…

June 27, 2014

The Gisborne Saga has concluded. More – the final in the trilogy has been published at last.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00LBBLZZG

How do I feel?

Marvellous and nervous…

Busy by choice…

May 31, 2014

As the day rapidly approaches for the launch of Gisborne: Book of Kings,

(to e-book in the first instance, and then print) this is how the days progress.

My chapters return from my editor in the UK in blocks of three. I make the necessary changes and save them to my master file. I have been so very lucky to date with this book – so far there have only been line-edits, no major structurals where I need to re-write pages. I don’t know if this is due to the fact that I wrote the book very slowly and really gave it a hard edit between each chapter as I transcribed from paper to computer. Plus another hard edit before I sent it to the editor. I do remember scrapping whole paras and pages as I wrote, until it flowed the way I wanted. So here’s hoping for the rest – yes, I am holding my breath.

In between editing Kings, I’m writing a little 6000 word story on a troubadour called Flori de Mazanet…

Pawns, knights and kings…

March 9, 2014

I’m in a bit of a dilemma about the cover of the next book. The title as everyone knows, is Gisborne: Book of Kings.

This doesn’t necessarily refer to monarchs though. The trilogy’s titles have tended to be built around the awful manipulation of people’s hearts and souls in the Middle Ages and so we began with Pawns, moved across the board with Knights and will have the denoument with Kings.

Richard, Luca and a tiny little sportscar…

November 17, 2013

Until I began researching for the Gisborne books, I knew very little detail about Richard the Lionheart’s history – that is beyond the glib oneliners: ‘A Crusader par excellence’, ‘He would sell England if any would buy it.’ Always between Hollywood and the history and romance had been the image of a tall, proud man with red-gold hair who was as strong as an ox and who had a mother of whom even Popes were afraid.

My Guy…

November 2, 2013

It’s tough being cast as a baddy. It’s what happened to Guy of Gisborne when Robin Hood rose to his (questionable) prominence.

Seriously, how can someone who robbed and killed people because they happened to be wealthy be considered a hero? By the fact that he gave the cash to the poor?

Tag: The Gisborne Saga