One week to go!

On By leiossIn achieved, The Beast's Heart, writing, writing goalsLeave a comment

Book cover: The title "The Beast's Heart" is written out in ornate writing surrounded by rambling red roses. At the bottom of the image they are in bud, a little further up in full bloom, and at the top, bare branches. Above the words, and surrounded by bare winter branches is a picture of a fairy tale castle.

On Feb 12 The Beast’s Heart gets its US release, and I’m officially counting down the hours, now.

I’ve got plenty of time to do it, too, because I’ve just kicked off two whole months’ leave from my day job, in which I’m going to do my level best to get the next WIP as close to done as I can. This will also mean I’ll have loads of time for all the little bits of PR stuff that comes with a book release without the inconvenience of having to put on pants and turn up at an office in a state that makes it worth their while to pay me. So: yay for purchased leave! I will be doing all of this in my pyjamas.

And that’s another year over…

On By leiossIn holidays, lifeLeave a comment

Wow. 2018. In many respects a very, very challenging year. But now it’s done, and I lived to tell the tale.

Here are my high points, some of which were pretty freaking high.

1. Publication dream come true

The Beast's Heart_finalI probably don’t need to go into detail on this one. But this dream has come so comprehensively true in so many ways. It’s actually a whole lot of dreams all bundled up together and tied with a giant bow.

Dream publisher, dream editor, dream cover.

And it’s still not over. February 12 will see TBH come out in the US, and while that’s obviously a 2019 thing waiting to happen, all the legwork for that happened this year. And again, another dream publisher, another dream editor and, oh my stars, another beautiful cover revealed.

2. Editing fun

AHOK_frontcover_medium_resolutionI didn’t have any of my own short fiction published in 2018, but that’s OK. Because I published a whole 19 pieces of other people’s short fiction! Along with the very lovely Chris Large, my co-editor for A Hand of Knaves, and with the backing of my wonderful writing community, the CSFG.

It was a big job, along with running the crowd funding campaign, and the learning curve was a big one. But we produced some really, really good fiction, and I love love love the art Shauna O’Meara created for us.

 

3. Figuring stuff out

Some stuff you just have to figure out for yourself. Like exactly how busy having a novel published is going to make you. This year has just been one giant learning curve for me, and central to that has been the age-old metaphor of the straw that broke the camel’s back. And it really has been a case of tiny things building up to form an intolerable burden. Which has been a hard thing to learn, because I like doing lots of stuff. But realising I have limits, and making some changes in my life to reduce my personal quotient of straw back to a manageable degree has been an important thing this year. I’ve been doing a bit of journalling (examples from my journal above) and this has helped me get my head around getting stuff done. And helps to remind me about what I’ve actually achieved as well!

4. Reading some great books

One of the consequences – and frankly, one of the warning signs – of being so busy this year is that I didn’t get anywhere near as much writing done as I wanted. And trying to rekindle the creative spark is almost impossible if you’re a bit burned out. So in October I gave myself a month off writing and just read. This worked a treat, and really reminded me of exactly why it is I write: because stories are wonderful. I also really got into audiobooks this year, which seriously helped me get through my TBR. So here are some of my best favourite books I read this year, in no particular order.

So charge your glasses and here’s to the end of 2018, and to all the possibilities and potential that lies ahead in 2019. Wishing you and yours the very best of all of it.

Bring on the fireworks!

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Conflux 14: The Unconventional Hero

On By leiossIn A Hand of Knaves, appearances, conventions, Events2 Comments

 

conflux14-finaldateIt’s that time of year again! Yep, Conflux is next weekend.

This con is very dear to my heart – and not just because it’s my local SFF con and always has really strong programming aimed at writers. But it is a great opportunity to hook up with my tribe. If you’re new on the Australian spec fic scene (like I was, once!) it is the best place to connect with people involved in the SFF writing community from across Australia – not just writers, but editors, agents, publishers, the whole shebang.

Anyway, here’s where you’ll definitely find me over the course of next weekend:

Pre-con stuff:

Friday, 28 September

From 6pm King O’Malley’s pub in Civic: Welcome drinks to Conflux 14.

Conflux 14, the Vibe Hotel, Canberra Airport

Saturday, 29 September

9am – Opening Ceremony

9.30am – Hero cliches & how to make or break them, with Ion “Nuke” Newcombe, Sam Hawke & Louise Pieper.

1.30pm – The Unconventional Romance, with Keri Arthur and Freya Marske.

Sunday, 30 September

5.45pm – Launching A Hand of Knaves (squee!)

Monday, 1 October

11.45am – The Book Love Fest

1.30pm – When the dream comes true – what really happens when you get a deal with a big publisher? With Cat Sparks, Sam Hawke, Craig Cormick & Claire McKenna.

At all other times, try the bar first!!! And if you want to know what else is on, all the details are up on the Conflux website!

 

Australian Reading Hour, 20 September

On By leiossIn Reading2 Comments

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I’ve never met a bookshop I haven’t liked. So this Thursday, for Australian Reading Hour, I’m going to be spending some time in bookshops telling anyone who will listen why reading is wonderful.

Wait, hang on… I hear you say. Thursday is Australian Reading Hour? Huh?

Well the deal is that on Thursday, you take some time – one hour, to be precise – out of your day to indulge in some reading.

I’m presuming most people who peruse my little blog will be unlikely to need convincing about the benefits of reading. But here are some of my favourite reasons why reading rocks (borrowed from the Australian Reading Hour website and tailored for me).

  • Apparently reading is great for stress relief. Thinking back books I’ve read, I’m not sure that’s entirely true. But I have to admit, stressing about things like dragons eating you, or being pursued across stormy oceans by ships of war bristling with canons, or being cursed by a vengeful fairy into premature old age, is so much more fun that stressing about credit card bills and deadlines.
  • Reading a gripping novel causes positive biological changes in the brain that can last for days. Some of these positive change can be embarrassing, such as forgetting you’re not in the 18th Century. But the buzz is pleasant. (Less positive brain changes involve things like lingering sadness that men no longer wear knee breeches, tricorn hats and frock coats, but with time we learn to adjust.)
  • When tested for empathy, readers of narrative fiction achieved significantly higher than other groups. I mean, of course. Empathy is about being able to identify with other people’s experiences. And when you have actually kind of been another person for a good chunk of time, of course you’re going to have increased your capacity for empathy.
  • Reading is closely linked to increasing our understanding of our own identities, or in my case, understanding that the kind of fairy tale princess I wanted to be was the kind that was capable of doing things like climbing down an ancient wisteria vine to run away from home, or being able to survive in a forest for six months with only a friendly squirrel and a talkative raven for company.

Anyway, if you’re in Canberra next week & you want to hang out in a cool bookshop and chat about reading, I’ll be here:

3.00-4.30pm Bookface, The Marketplace, Gunghalin

6.00-8.00pm Harry Hartog Bookseller, Westfield Woden; with children’s author, Tania McCartney & the Guardian Australia’s political editor, Katherine Murphy.

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10 Books: #10 The Secret Garden

On By leiossIn amazing authors, Fantastic books, inspiration, TouchstonesLeave a comment

The Secret Garden

The Secret Garden

By Frances Hodgson Burnett

It’s back to my childhood for the very last book. Although, FWIW, I did buy myself the pictured edition as a Christmas present last year, and started reading it all over again. (I mean, who could resist Inga Moore’s illustrations? Seriously?)

I honestly do not know if my first experience with this story was via the book or a BBC television children’s series. Either way, there are a bunch of things about this story that had a profound impact on me.

First things first, let’s start with the central concept. The idea of a secret garden, a place of green, growing things that was once cultivated and manicured, but is now running a little wild, is something that has entranced me my whole life. Especially a place that has been hidden away, and is there, waiting to be discovered and explored. There are so many delicious themes wrapped up in this concept. I love everything about it.

I also love the mystery at the heart of this story. The little moments of discovery leading to Mary finding her way into the garden are completely enchanting; a perfect combination of her personal determination and a little bit of low-key magic. But finding the secret garden itself only leads to more questions and the discovery of a deeper mystery that must be solved. There’s nothing quite so compelling in a story as layers and layers of secrets!

The undercurrent of natural magic that pervades the story is another compelling element for me; the close observations of the cycle of the seasons and the way animals and birds have their own agency and power.

Then there’s the house – I’ve always been obsessed with big, old, complicated houses with too many rooms and corridors and mysterious parts you’re not supposed to go into but you do anyway because how could you possibly resist?

And I have to mention the heroine, Mary, a strong female character with agency in spades, having adventures under her own steam. She is cranky, irrepressible, inquisitive and utterly unsubmissive. She’s also interesting from the perspective that her physicality, as a female person, over the course of the story, is not primarily characterised in terms of her attractiveness to others, but in terms of her health.

First published in 1911, the Victorian sensibilities are strong in this story, and I’ve found a new raft of things to be fascinated about and to critique in reading it as an adult (the role of mothers, for example, and the way class privilege plays out).  But there are so many aspects of my personal aesthetic I feel emerged from my early engagement with the story of The Secret Garden, I have to count it as a book that had a profound, early impact on me.

10 Books: #9 Desolation Island

On By leiossIn amazing authors, Fantastic books, inspiration4 Comments

Soooo… it’s been a while. Serves me right for trying to pick just 10 books. It was fine until I realised I only had 2 spots left… (Procrastination has always been my first choice for dealing with tricksy problems.) BUT! Australian Reading Hour is a mere 3 weeks away and on 20 September I’m doing a couple of gigs where I’ll be talking about reading and why I love it. So I’ve done some soul-searching & at long last hit on the two books I’m gonna use to fill those last three spots. I mean two spots. Wait, maybe I should just start over from 1…

Desolation Island

Desolation Island

(Well, actually ALL the Aubrey-Maturin novels…there’s 20…and a half)

By Patrick O’Brian

I first encountered these books when I was working in a bookshop in my early 20s. They were some of my favourites to tidy on the shelves, because the covers were great (you can’t see it in the cover pic above, but the publisher used old maps – a different one for each book – for the spine & back cover, and I have a bit of a hopeless fascination with old maps) and the titles were fantastic. Here’s a few of my faves: The Nutmeg of Consolation, H.M.S. Surprise, Treason’s Harbour, The Letter of Marque. For some reason, though, I didn’t pick them up and read them at the time. Just admired them.

Then my grandfather asked for the first one for Christmas as he had heard good things about them. I think I gave him the first three or four. Anyway, not long afterwards my grandfather’s health deteriorated significantly. He had a couple of small strokes and afterwards found reading difficult. So he gave them back to me, thinking I might like to read them. They sat on my shelf for a good while. I don’t know when I picked them up, and I don’t know why. But… Oh my.

Patrick O’Brian’s prose is like drinking a really good, red wine. He’s the only 20th century author I’ve read who successfully (and flawlessly) manages to capture a truly 18th century writing style. His knowledge of that era is nothing short of encyclopaedic, encompassing all things naval, the medicine of the era, natural science, music, mathematics, global geography in astonishing detail… the list goes on. He’s also funny, with that kind of understated humour where it takes a beat for the other foot to drop and suddenly you’re gasping with laughter.

He’s also written one of the most masterful suspense scenes I have ever read – and it’s in this book, which is why I picked it (it also happens to be the book they used for a chunk of the plot in the movie Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World). Two warships chasing each other down in a storm with mountainous seas… Holy hell, I had no nails left to chew on at the end of that one.

And his heroes are wonderful – flawed, genius, wonderful. And the world… Oh my. If you love wandering around in the 18th Century, these books are for you, my friend. They taught me so much about that era. They certainly cemented my burgeoning fascination with tall ships and naval officers (which possibly, probably was started watching Ioan Gruffudd in the Hornblower series). Honestly, there are too many things to rave about. One day I will sit down and read them all again.

10 Books: #8 The Secret River

On By leiossIn amazing authors, Fantastic books, inspirationLeave a comment

And now for something completely different.

The Secret River

The Secret River

Kate Grenville

I’m going to qualify my inclusion of this book by reiterating these posts are about 10 books that have had a significant impact on me. And this one absolutely did. It is an incredible book. The writing is top shelf. The story is compelling. The characters have depth and substance. They are human and monstrous. It is a very hard book to read, and it hurts to think about. This book opened my eyes to the depth of the injustices done to Australia’s Aboriginal people by white settlers and the awful, unhealed wound of the atrocities white settlers visited upon them (read this & you’ll understand why it can’t heal. Yet, anyway.)

But.

In posting about this book, I acknowledge that the very fact it took a book by a non-Aboriginal woman to bring me to this place of understanding and awareness is, in itself, a perfect example of how the problem – the roots of which are so eloquently and awfully laid bare in this book – continues to exist and perpetuate in Australia today.  Some voices are not given the opportunity and the platform and the amplification that other voices seem to so easily find.

I used to think this was a book every non-Indigeous Australian should read. And to a certain extent, I still do. This is a brilliant book. By all means, if I’ve intrigued you with this post, read it. But what you should do is start with one, or all, of these.

 

Dark Emu; Bruce Pascoe
My Place; Sally Morgan
Taboo; Kim Scott
Terra Nullius; Claire G Coleman

 

10 Books: #7 Harry Potter

On By leiossIn amazing authors, Fantastic books, inspirationLeave a comment

All of them. For so many reasons.

Harry Potter

Harry Potter and All Of The Things

J K Rowling

A friend lent me the first three HP books when he was heading off on an overseas trip. The fourth one was due out whilst he was away, and he promised me I’d have bought it before he got back. I had resisted reading them until then, thinking “Surely they can’t be all that.” Well, yes. Gregg you smug bastard.

What a comprehensively wonderful story world lives in these pages. This book (by which I mean the entire series), more than any other, encapsulates for me the idea of the story world as a character all on it’s own. I don’t re-read this so much to re-live Harry’s adventures as to just immerse myself in the world, explore Diagon Alley, hang out with Hagrid in his hut, try & find the Room of Requirement, open up the Marauder’s Map to find out who is sneaking around Hogwarts after hours…