In my last blog I wrote about writing a summary for a book submission. And although it's for a novel I'm still working on, it hasn't stopped me considering how to pitch it to potential publishers. I've created a 500 word and a 300 word synopsis, and a 200 word summary, in line with what …
Book Review – Anything But Fine by Tobias Madden
I don't usually read Young Adult novels. This book showed up on my socials several times and I browsed, no, I glanced at a bit of information about it. I believed it was a contemporary novel about a rising ballet star who has an accident that changes his life. Well, the last part is correct. …
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Realising your manuscript needs work!
I've just edited the initial draft of my novel set in the 1990s. Like any novel at this early stage, some scenes work, some need work. But for the first time I sense this manuscript needs more work than my recent novels did at this early stage. It's not because it's bad. It's because I …
Recycling characters
Many authors do it. They place their characters in several unrelated books. I've been doing it for a while although I'm planning to stop after my current release, The Midnight Man. And while the major characters in this novel are brand new, a whole range of characters from my novellas Nate and the New Yorker …
Writing about a dream lover
I was listening to Kate Bush. The track was 'Man With the Child In His Eyes' - a song about a mystical lover that waits for the songwriter at bedtime. It has been one of my favourite songs since its release in 1978. Natalie Cole does a beautiful cover version. Its haunting melody was the …
I wrote a sex scene without realising it.
The Midnight Man started with a nightclub scene. At least it did in earlier drafts. In the scene we meet middle aged gay couple, Stanley and Francesco, as they pick up a guy to share their bed for the night. After that opener was an erotic sex scene in which we discover Stanley isn't happy …
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Time to rethink my work in progress
I'm writing this during Covid lockdown. The date is the 9th of July 2021 and due to the Delta variant, we're not allowed to leave our homes here in Sydney unless totally necessary. As I've often mentioned in my blogs, I can't write unless I'm alone without distractions. My husband is home with me and …
The first draft is when you get your ideas down
I'd heard this many times. Due to lack of a private space to write during Covid, I have one completed first draft and one still being written. I usually have three works at various stages of progress. One at first draft, one at third and one almost ready to submit. But this week I finally …
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Researching the Sydney Gay Scene of the 90s – Part 2
Writing these blogs is helping with my research. I realised this during the past week. It's a great way for me to categorise the different themes I want to explore in my novel set in the 1990s. In the last blog I talked about my first impressions of the pages I copied from the Sydney …
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Researching the Sydney Gay Scene of the 90s – Part 1
A whole box of microfilm was waiting for me at the State Library of NSW. A lovely librarian arranged copies of the Sydney Star Observer from the 1990s, as well as a couple of years' worth of Capital Q, at my request. Both were significant street press which covered queer issues. The former still exists. …
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