FAQ

Well, at this point I still have a day job, so I do that. Hobby wise, I like yarny things (knitting, spinning, crochet) and sewing. If you’re interested in such things, you can keep up with my crafty adventures here. I like photography and would like to do more of that. I go to the ballet. Currently I don’t do enough exercise but when I do, I like to walk, do pilates, do Nia, swim and torture myself on the elliptical. I read a ridiculous amount (but not as much as I used to). I play cat butler to my torti girl. I hang out with friends, try not to spend too much time on the internet and watch a lot of TV and movies (story junkie!).

Asking me to pick a favourite book is like asking me to pick a favourite shade of blue (aka too hard). You can find a list of some of my favourite authors on my links page. A sampling of favourite books:

• Sunshine by Robin McKinley
• Welcome to Temptation by Jennifer Crusie
• A Civil Campaign by Lois McMaster Bujold
• The Fionavar Tapestry by Guy Gavriel Kay
• The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner
• Witches Abroad by Terry Pratchett
• No Place Like Home by Barbara Samuel
• Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Some favourite TV shows:

• Buffy
• Firefly
• Justified
• The West Wing
• QI
• The Vicar of Dibley
• Grey’s Anatomy
• Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
• Gilmore Girls
• Doctor Who/Torchwood
• Battlestar Galactica
• Glee

Some favourite movies:

• Pirates of the Caribbean (all of them)
• Sherlock Holmes (the Robert Downey Jr one)
• The Lord of the Rings trilogy
• Notting Hill
• Catch and Release
• The Abyss
• The original Star Wars films
• Serenity
• The Cutting Edge
• Iron Man
• The Philadelphia Story
• The Lion King
• Casino Royale
• How to Train Your Dragon
• The King’s Speech

I’m pretty much a story junkie. Give me awesome characters and dialogue and perhaps a hint of romance and you’ll have me.

No. The world of Shadow Kin has a Victorian-ish level of tech because iron and silver are controlled and rationed. But there aren’t goggles and gadgets and some of those other cool things that steampunk has. The closest term for it is gaslight fantasy. Dark romantic gaslight fantasy.

At this stage, three. Book 2, BLOOD KIN, will be released on 5 June 2012. I don’t have the date for Book 3 yet.

Mostly a pantser. I generally have an idea of a few key bits of the book (and usually the ending) but apart from that I don’t really outline or plot unless I get stuck.

I’ve written stories since I was quite young. The first one I remember was around age 8, something about a family of unicorns and their adventures! I first started writing seriously to try and get published around 2001. I sold in 2010. You can do the math on that one.  When I first started writing seriously, I was writing contemporary romance but inevitably, my fantasy/urban fantasy love stole in and I started writing urban fantasy.  My first UF finalled in the Golden Heart, won a few other competitions, and got me my agent. So I figured I was onto something. Shadow Kin is the fourth fantasy/urban fantasy novel I wrote and the third my agent tried to sell (but hey, never say never on those other books : ) ).

The way a lot of folks do.  I wrote a lot, submitted a lot, went to workshops and conferences, entered contests, found some awesome critique partners and kept at it. Most of important of all of that is the writing a lot. It takes a while for most writers to find their niche and learn to write a novel (novels are long…and hard to write!). I met my agent, Miriam Kriss, at a Romance Writers of Australia conference.  She actually requested my work through a cold read session she did there. I also submitted to other agents for both that book (and had done so earlier for my romance) but ultimately went with Miriam. She then took on the fun part of selling my books (for which I am very, very thankful).

There’s no doubt that the publishing world is going through an upheaval at the moment. E-books are taking off and there’s all sorts of opinions all over the place about the best career path to take. So this is just my two cents and I’m a newbie and who knows what my opinion will be in a few years time?

Have I ever thought of self publishing? Yes. Did I want to take that as my first option. No. Should you self publish? Well, to that I say…it depends. Depends on all sorts of things. What do you want from being published? How patient are you? How prolific are you? Do you write something that the “traditional” publishers (by that I mean both publish? How much time/money do you have to spend on the publishing side of things if you don’t have a publisher? All sorts of things.

Personally, I’ve always wanted to see my books in bookstores and I want the help and guidance an editor and a traditional publisher can give me.So I hung in there and went for a New York traditional house. That was what was right for me. Other people want different things. At the moment, I think self-publishing is a lot of work (even Amanda Hocking would tell you that) if you want to be a success.  I think it makes great sense for established authors with backlist that’s out of print. It probably makes sense for established authors who want more control or to do something different. I think it’s probably still a very hard path for a debut author unless you do have a lot of time on your hands to market the book and the money up front to invest in a good editor/copy editor/art work. But that’s my opinion.

I think the most likely result of all of this will be that most authors will wind up publishing in a variety of ways, some books with traditional publishers, some with digital presses and they’ll put out some things themselves. This is very cool for authors.  It’s very cool for readers. And if you want to hear some wiser heads than mine think about the subject, I think this series of posts by Jennifer Crusie and Barbara O’Neal is great.

I find my process changes a bit with each book but basically I write most days and try and meet a weekly page goal. I’ll write in order as long as I know what’s happening next. When I get stuck, I skip ahead to the next bit of the book I can “see” and write that then figure out how to go back and stitch things together.

I write a fairly short first draft, full of dialogue and talking heads, then have to go back and layer in more details.  It’s like the first time round, I can mostly hear the characters talking but the pictures that go with them are fuzzy. In revisions, I get a clearer picture, so can put in more details and fix what I got wrong the first time round.

As for actually doing the writing, I mostly work at home at my desk. I find it hard to concentrate in cafes etc but will do it if I have to. I do a lot of first drafting with Write or Die (basically doing writing sprints) so I can get the story down without stopping myself to much.  I use Scrivener and Word to help pull it all together after that. My home computer is a Mac. My netbook isn’t, though I’ll admit to coveting a teeny tiny MacBook Air. I put together a soundtrack for each book and listen to that as I write, either all of the songs or one song on repeat, depending on what I need at the time.  There are songs in my soundtracks that I get pretty tired of by the end of a book. I don’t really do a lot of pre-writing, plotting or worldbuilding before I write. I’m pretty much of the “if you build it as you go, they will come” school of writing. Which does sometimes mean having to stop and figure stuff out as I go and sometimes having to circle back to fix things because I’ve stuffed something up world wise. The only thing I really do before I write, besides choosing the soundtrack music, is a digital collage which helps me get the mood of the characters and the feel of the book.

I’m an Aussie, so I use Aussie english spelling and grammar on the site and the blog because that’s what my brain defaults to. I draft my books in US english and am often heard whining to my editor that I have to be tri-lingual in one language (there are differences between Aussie/US/UK English…it’s a confusing language!)

My caffeine delivery system of choice is Coke Zero. Terrible habit but there it is. I periodically give it up but somehow we always get back together.  Sadly, even though I think coffee smells okay, drinking it makes me feel sick. I will drink tea but am not really big on hot drinks. Particularly in summer in Australia. People say a nice cup of tea cools you down but I beg to differ. In winter I do like herbal teas. And am fond of chai (though not necessarily chai latte).