My Bling and I

There were five of us, comparing our bling. We were all struggling writers so there weren't any diamonds or pearls to show off but there were some beautiful creative pieces with wonderful stories to match.

And then it was mine turn to show and tell.

I have three bracelets. One is made of wooden beads, bought from the $2 stand at the markets at the end of the best holiday ever. One was found in the street and brought home because 'it's so you Mum'. The other was pulled from the rewards treasure box at school. The class laughed at my son's girlie lucky dip and the teacher offered him another turn. But he said: I'll keep it for mum. She'll love this. And he forfeited his turn at a prize for himself.

Total street value of my bling, adjusting for the second hand value of the bracelet found in the street!, $3.50. True value: priceless.

I once was a pretender poet

To help celebrate the launch of her new verse novel Toppling, I have been blogging over at Sally Murphy's Writing For Children blog on What Sandy Fussell Likes About Children's Poetry. At first I was hesitant - after all, what do I really know about poetry. I'm not a poet although I do love to read poetry and verse novels are high on my list.

I love the way words rise and fall in waves. I love the way they roll off my tongue and drop at my feet with a crash or a gentle plink. I love the sound they make. I can recite chunks of Slessor, Frost and Eliot, simply for the sound effects. Dylan Thomas doesn't make a lot of sense to me but his lines are music to my ears. And when I was 12 I asked for The Complete Works of Shakespeare for my birthday. Not because I was anywhere near clever enough to understand what I was reading but I had plugged in to Shakespeare's talent with language. He could make the words sing.

And now I have a confession to make. I'm not a poet. But I once was, although not a very good one. I had a poem published in The Canberra Times when I was 20. I scrabbled around and found it today. It's not as awful as I remember and it doesn't sing in tune - but it's still got a little hum going in my head.

The Painter

The mind crumples as twisted and tortured

as the writhing pieces of flesh

lying bloodless on the red canvas.

The eyes blink as deserted and wasted

as the lifeless backwash of sky

lying limp on the pain-sodden frame.

The brushes whip a convulsion of colour

the easel becomes the rack

and agony screams stretched over wood.

The painter stumbles as lost and driven

as the picture hanging impaled.

The colour, the mind, the pain and the canvas.

I know nothing about art

all I see is a man at work.

In Praise of Sisters (especially mine)

I only have one sibling. She's younger than me. And wiser, braver and stronger. We're like chalk and cheese. She lives out the back of nowhere on a farm where the internet connection is non-existent. Not that it matters. It's an unnecessary luxury. She works hard, despite poor health and wearily loves the land the way only country people can. I live between the mountain and the sea, daily surfing an on-line world of art and amusement. My working world is filled with technology and words.

One of my earliest treasured memories is our father laughing as he watched us walk down the long driveway to the family home, off to do some shopping for him. Apple and orange. Bohemian me with her long hair, long skirt, wrists and ankles a-clatter with beads and bangles. My sister dressed perfectly in heels and nail-polish. I had waited half an hour while she blow-dried her hair! (it was the early eighties). But we were the best of friends. And still are.

As a child, my sister didn't read for pleasure. It was too much of a struggle. But the persistence she brings to everything and the isolation of farm life eventually led us to the same place in front of the bookshelf. Suddenly she had read everything I had to lend. Everything! Children's books too.

I always send her a copy of my latest book and she rang this week to say Jaguar Warrior had arrived. Then there was a pause. "I'm sorry but I haven't read it yet. I get so excited every time I have one of your books in my hand. I want to make it last. So I put it on the kitchen bench and look at it every day until I can't keep looking a moment longer. Then I sit down and read as slowly as I can. I want it to never end."

Imagine apologising for a comment like that!

My sister is the best and I love her heaps. Even if she decides she hates my books.

Friday Websites for Writers

Today's website for writers is the cyber home of Brian Falkner, author of Brainjack and The Tomorrow Code.

With my software developer hat on, I am often asked by writing colleagues about web sites. My answer is always: Don't re-invent the wheel (or the website!). See who is already doing it right. And while you're looking, the key is.... content, content, content.

Brian Falkner Writes is one of my favourite websites for exactly the reasons above. It's interesting to look at, lots of reader related content, high-interest trailers on the front page... Check it out and see what I mean. I guarantee you'll want to click and go deeper into the site.

While the site is visually well designed, it's most important features are excellent content and navigation. A good-looking site won't attract repeat visitors unless it has interesting information and things to see and do. And it won't work if the visitor can't find them before they lose interest and click somewhere else.

My systems analysis report gives this site 5/5.

Guest Blog Post - George Ivanoff

#2 son and I are reading Gamer's Quest by George Ivanoff. #2 is not all that open to non-Goosebump books at the moment but the cover caught his eye. He gave it the 'one chapter read-aloud-by-mum' test. I stopped at the end of Chapter 1 and asked, "Well?" "Keep going", he waved me on. Instead of Goosebumps? High recommendation indeed. Today George joins me to talk about promoting Gamer's Quest.

Promoting Gamer's Quest

These days, it seems that authors need to be more than just authors… they also need to be marketers. They need to get out there and promote their books or risk them gathering dust on bookshop shelves, unread and unwanted (it’s such a sad and disheartening image, isn’t it?).

Case in point: my first book, Life, Death and Detention. It was published in 1999 by Margaret Hamilton Books, which had recently become part of Scholastic. I was young and naïve. I assumed that once the book was out there, my job was over. So I moved on to my next book, while Life, Death and Detention garnered a couple of good reviews and sold rather poorly.

Ten years later, older and hopefully wiser, I watched attentively as Gamers’ Quest was published by Ford Street Publishing. This time, I knew my job was only just beginning. Writing the book was the comparatively easy part — now the really hard work began: publicity!

Ford Street is a small publisher, but they actively publicise their authors. Gamers’ Quest had posters, bookmarks and stickers, and over 80 review copies were sent out. On top of this, I’ve been writing articles, guest blogs (just like this one) and publicity emails, as well as doing interviews. I’ve jumped onto the FaceBook bandwagon and even starting Tweeting (or is that Twittering?). I did a few school visits towards the end of 2009 and am trying to line up some more for this year. (Hey, if there are any teacher-librarians reading this, why not drop me an email and book me for a talk or a workshop. J)

But my two biggest endeavors have been the Official Gamers’ Quest website and the computer animated book trailer.

The website was the easier of the two because in a past life I used to work as a web development consultant (before I gave it all up for the financial stability and worldwide recognition of a career as an author). I looked around and found a cheap hosting and domain registration company based in the States. Then I put together the website myself using the book’s cover artwork (by Les Petersen) as a design starting point. To attract readers to the site, I wrote a couple of short stories using characters from the novel (which was a lot of fun) and made them available as free downloads. For some initial impact, I included a specially written piece of theme music on the homepage (my brother-in-law, Marc Valko, is a part-time muso and generously offered to write and record the theme).

With the website done, I moved on to the book trailer. In my previously mentioned past life, I had some limited experience with a web animation program called Flash. So I thought I’d whip up my own trailer (since I didn’t have the money to pay someone who actually knew what they were doing). I started work on it, and… well… it was terrible! I happened to make a passing mention of my misadventures in trailer making to a friend at a party. Said friend, one ‘H’ Gibbons, runs a one-man 3D animation studio, Fingers to the Bone . Next thing I know, he’s producing a computer-animated trailer, bringing to life several short scenes from the book. To say that I am overjoyed with the final result would be a massive understatement.

The result of all this promotion is that I’m EXHAUSTED! And I’ve not been doing as much new writing as I should be. But in the end, it has all been worth it, as it has been drawing attention to Gamers’ Quest. And the more attention it gets, the more people will read it.

If you’re feeling generous and want to help me with the ongoing promotion, consider linking to the website and/or the trailer from your Blog, Facebook page or MySpace page, or mention it on Twitter. And if you’ve read the book and like it, please tell people. After all, word-of-mouth is the best promotion.

***************

Thank you George. Visit the Official Gamers Quest website for more information, The Reading Stack to hear George talk about Writing Gamers Quest and check out the trailer below:

Can a Guest Blog Post Sell a Book?

Yes it can. I read a blog post this week and just had to have the book. The book was The Strange Case of Origami Yoda by Tom Angelberger and I found it on author Cynthia Leitich Smith's blog Cynsations.

First the cover grabbed me. I'm a Star wars fan ever since I sneaked out to see the first movie back in 1977. I love origami and the idea of Origami Yoda had me reaching for my pad of paper squares. But the final nail in the book order was Tom's blog post account of how the book made it's way through the tricky, trademark-obstacled path to publication. Heartwarming! I'm not going to spoil the story. I recommend you read it here.

And watch it here:


I'll be back with a review of the book another day. And if anyone wants a guest blogger author, I'm always available...

Friday Websites for Writers

Stephen King's article Everything You Need to Know about Writing Successfully in Ten Minutes is a great read. Full of excellent advice.

But I wanted to remove two sentences. Stephen said: Any word you have to hunt for in a thesaurus is the wrong word. There are no exceptions to this rule. While I agree with the intent, I think there is room for an exception. It depends what you want to do with the word.

I love my thesaurus. But I don't look up words to add them 'plug and play' into my manuscript. I look them up to find their friends and companions, the other words I can roll around my brain to take me there and expand my senses. I want to hear, touch, feel, sniff and taste my word. But to do that I need depths and gradations that don't immedately come to mind.


For me, a theasurus is inspirational. It also encourages me to draw my imagery outside the square. I look my word up and step a little to the left or right.


And with that in mind, this Friday's website is The Bookshelf Muse who does wonderful Thesaurus posts where she explores a word in all it's multi-dimensional glory. Here is one of my favourites Setting Thesaurus Entry: Waterfall.


Although... I wouldn't mind being able to write like Stepehen King. If I could do that in the first place, I probably wouldn't need a thesaurus.

Scrolling down

Sometimes you scroll down to the end of a web page and find... treasure! Booktopia supports Australian authors and yours truly. Thanks guys.

Cyberlaunching

Today I have my fancy dress on - the one with the shiny things on the front, my coloured glass jewellery (more shiny things) and gold sandals - OK I'm not much of a fashion follower - but I do have an important job today. I'm launching a book. Not just any book. A book by a very talented Australian writer who is also a friend. A wonderful verse novel by the author of one of my favourites, Pearl Verses the World.

So drop in here to attend the cyber launch of Sally Murphy's Toppling. We're partying all day.

Today is also the release day for a book I've been looking forward to ever since I saw the cover and read the blurb. Gabrielle Wang's Little Paradise. So it's busy reading evening for me.

I'm also celebrating one more thing- keeping the bubbles inside for the moment but watch this space... Today is also the release date of my latest book Jaguar Warrior, an adventure story set at the end of the Aztec Empire. the Spanish have risen against the Aztec people and Atl must take a message for help... But why should he? Until they needed his help he was a slave imprisoned for sacrifice. Even as he runs, another warrior hunts him down. Should Atl run for help or run for his own freedom? Read the Book Chook's review here.