It was the best of times and it was the best of times...

I've just spent five days in Sydney at the Romance Writers of Australia yearly conference and it was an absolute blast. I adore Sydney. Beautiful weather, a city surrounded by either water or park, and Jenny Crusie and Anne Stuart as your personal writing mentors for the weekend . How can you go wrong?

Well there's the $10 they charge you just to stand on the airport train station platform (not including ticket!), and perhaps the way everything seems to cost twice as much as it does here, but other than that, it's a beautiful beautiful town.

Statistics gathered from the conference include

Number of times that I...

Downed a bucked-sized cocktail in the bar: 2

Spilled something on my top: 6

Chewed on complimentary mentos while listening to speakers : 0 (hard to believe, isn't it?)

Bought a book: 7

Told my husband I'd won a book in a raffle: 7

Turned to the person next to me while Jenny Crusie was teaching and said 'that's pure gold' :5

Had writing epiphanies :4

Won a raffle/door prize : 0 (you'd think that would be humanly impossible considering the number of tickets I bought)

Spotted the Sydney Harbour Bridge: 4

Found a fabulous Cafe/Foodstore: 1 (thanks Gusto in Paddington!)

Whined about the fact that my pants don't fit: 25

Ate the donut anyway: 2


--000---

One of the highlights of the entire trip was watching amazing writer and fabulous friend, Melanie Scott, win the prestigious and much coveted Emerald Award. I think I was more nervous than she was on the night, but I guess when you've weathered being a double Golden Heart finalist, you can do anything. And what was really hilarious and kind of touching was that she was so surprised to win that she hadn't even prepared a speech, and sat in a total daze for fifteen minutes afterwards. Which was lucky for me, because she didn't notice that I'd totally scoffed her flourless chocolate cake.

And then there's Keri - who hit the extended NYT Bestseller list AGAIN with the wonderful Embraced by Darkness.

There's nothing better than a friend's success. It makes me smile just thinking about it.

Two Banana Coladas Later...

... and I was sitting by the pool with my alphasmart (I **so** wish I could say that all the time), letting my latest manuscript suck.

'Letting it suck' is the only rule I have to have when writing first draft because otherwise the nasty little perfectionist goblin will eat up every idea I have. And he really is a nasty goblin. He says things like 'oh come on, i've read a scene like that three billion times before, can we please do something original?' whereas if i smack him down, i write the scene i've read three billion times before, but halfway through something unexpected and original happens and suddenly I'm having fun. This book is looking like it's going to be written using the patchwork quilt method of writing. Bits of scenes coming through strong, but nothing even slightly linear - so it will be a case of putting it all together at the end and seeing what i've got. You can't fight the process. But i still try. Why oh why do i still try?

I only have three days of fluffy cocktail enduced writing to go before I have to come home, though, so I have to make the most of it. Yesterday I fed an elephant bananas (wow, what a smooth topic change) one at a time. She lifted her beautiful long truck and gently curled it over the banana in my hand. Okay, so I ended up with a sizable glob of elephant snot on my hand, but it was worth it. I kept running back and buying more bananas (they say it's a donation for the elephants they are rehabilitating, but I say it's a donation to the restaurant and bar they appear to be building. Hmph.) until there were no bananas left and the elephant was looking at me with disappointment in those big honey coloured eyes. By God can they eat!!

Travel Tips for your Romantic Thai Holiday

Tip 1: That red thing is not a capsicum. So when you say to your chef husband 'hey, is that a capsicum?' and he says 'yes', only to add 'I hope' when he sees the steam coming out of your ears, try not to blame him for the gallon of iced water and gastrointestinal distress.

Tip 2: That elephant you are riding does not have a ladder. So when you attempt to dismount, take care not to trip over your own feet and land sprawled on the gravel with your skirt around your ears.

Tip 3: If you bought travel sickness pills, please remember to take them before journeying in the back of a ramshackle red van over hills are around countless hair pin bends. Really. Nobody wants to see you turn a not so delicate shade of green and stumble around like a drunkard.

Tip 4: Try not to take a wrong turn looking for Baskin Robbins and end up in the red light district.

Tip 5: Do not try and ascertain what the 'Chopstick Treatment' listed on the menu handed to you in said red light district, entails.

Tip 6: THAT RED THING IS NOT A CAPSICUM!!!

Satay luck

What are the odds of rocking up to Singapore in the middle of two fabulous festivals? Not only is it 'Singapore's on Sale' (I'm calling that a festival, afterall, shopping is a national past time here) - but it's the also the Singapore **Food** Festival.
Did they know I was coming or something?
And O-M-G can these people cook.
Last night we totally lucked upon some sort of Satay cookoff where they'd turned a street into impromptu satay stalls. The street was lined with charcoal fired BBQs, red lanterns and a haze of satay fuelled smoke hanging in the 97% humidity.
Not to mention every type of satay you can imagine. Well, that's not quite true , there was prawn, lamb, chicken, beef and that's about it. But what more do you need? Put together with the homemade rice cake, cucumber, onion, pineapple - TJ and I were in satay heaven. We left there smelling of charcoal smoke with very full bellies.
I love this city!

We haven't tried the fried carrot cake yet - but it's only day 2.

Bunny of the Day

What's a baby rabbit called? I wasn't sure, so if anyone knows, the bunny is all ears to find out.
She fits in your hand and her name is Sooty -not that she's particularly sooty, so not sure how that came about.
But she's the new addition to my sister's household. That is, until Aunty Robyn comes over and steals her away for being too cute for words.
It's her own fault, really. She's got it coming.

So I've finished work at my last place of lucre. It was fun, but oh- my-God the commute was a killer. On the upside, traveling by train everyday is perfect for plotting - if you can zone out the guy in the seat next to you sniffing something up from his knees .
Not always possible.
And on another upside, I think I've done more reading in the past three months than I did in the whole year before it. Some excellent, excellent stuff that I'll post to the left sometime soon.

The book is coming along nicely. On the home stretch of the revision of the revision of the revision. No scene left untouched, no phrase safe from my wickedly sharp delete button.
Ha! I am the revision QUEEN!

Retract previous happy dancing

Ha! Apparently the book that I thought was FINITO is not as finito as previously presumed.
lol
People have read the masterpiece, and found some not-so-masterpiece like qualities like plot holes, loose ends and other various items needing urgent attention.
So the happy dancing and fun process of sending the MS off to the agent of choice is currently in a state of stasis.
As am I.

Oh my. Will somebody please rename this blog 'Procrastinating Up a Storm' because it's been oh, say TWO WEEKS since I got all this lovely feedback and I could only bear to look at the manuscript yesterday morning. And even then it was with the trepidation of someone sitting on an outdoor dunny seat knowing there's a nest of red-back spiders living in the corner.

Not that I've been sitting around with my finger in my ear - I started a new MS in a Don't Look Down draft and who wants to go back to a rewrite when there's a magic new world waiting for you?

But that's okay. I know once I get back into it, it'll only take a week or so and it will be all the stronger for it, and leaving it these couple of weeks means I'm coming back lots fresher and objectively.

So, I've pencilled in some Snoopy Dancing for later in the week, but for this afternoon, I'll just procrastinate a little more writing the new one.

Happy Dancing!

I've been a little absent lately - but it's only because I've been using every available second to finishe my current WIP.

And now it's done!

I can’t tell you what a relief it is. I’ve learned so much writing this book. I know I say this with every book, but really – SO MUCH.

Firstly, I started out trying to give my characters some ‘complex conflicts’ rather than a complex plot - a la the Nadia Cornier and Simone Elkeles theory from their workshop at the 2006 RWA conference.

I really love this way of thinking about a book – that if you just set your characters up with complex conflicts they can’t resolve, the plot considerations seem to take care of themselves.

Somehow, of course, in the midst of all those conflicts, I’ve managed to end up with Plotty McPlot anyway, but I’m sure I can balance it out. If I haven’t already.

Secondly – I bought in a few more characters than I’m used to dealing with and that put me on a great learning curve. In my first couple of books, I kept my cast of characters small, because I really couldn’t deal with too much more than that. But this time I’ve got sisters, step brothers, friends, parents of friends all mingling together.
Honestly I’m so immersed in this book that I can no longer see it clearly – so time to put it aside for a few days and play with something else.
Now there’s a sentence that brings a smile to my face – SOMETHING ELSE!

It’s back to that magical time at the start of a novel when anything is possible, everything glitters, and this is going to be the best story I’ve ever written. Sound familiar?

For me it means lots of lazing around, sleeping and napping. Because that’s where I can find that twilight place between awake and asleep where my most creative ideas come from. In fact the idea for THE YEAR MY MAGIC BROKE came on a warm spring day when I kicked back in my car at lunchtime with the sun shining through the windows and half fell asleep. Half fell asleep and dreamed of a girl who discovered her magical powers by a hot guy’s life (and subsequently turning him into a cat).

Mmmm starting a new book. It's better than chocolate.