Happy New Year!

I hope you all had a Merry Christmas and a happy New Year. I know I did, mostly just kicking back with my family. The wet weather we've been having here was a good excuse to to just stay holed up indoors with some wine and a few good books. Santa has brought me a few new additions to my TBR pile, including Divine By Mistake by P.C. Cast and Graceling by Kristin Cashore, both of which I'm itching to get into. I'm currently halfway through Grave Peril by Jim Butcher which is a cracking good read so far.

I haven't really made any resolutions this time. I'm tempted to could go with "try to read more", but that's not so much a resolution as just doing exactly what I wanted to do anyway. "Get more writing done" might be better. I'll certainly try. Happy holidays everyone!

Bargain E-books

Land of A Thousand Dances is being featured at the moment on Bargain E-books, a site that showcases E-books in any genre costing five dollars or less. It's worth checking out for anyone who's on a budget and wants something new to read.

And then...

I'm not dead. I've just been struggling to get much writing done lately because other regrettably necessary things keep getting in the way. Of course this is always the case, so it should just be a matter of managing my time properly etc. etc. I'm working on it. As always I have a couple of short stories in the black hole, awaiting editorial responses and more in the draft stages.

In the meantime, I have a shiny link to share. If you've never read this comic you definately should. Platinum Grit rocks my socks. It's by a couple of Australians and it is at times funny, at times poignant and frequently bizarre. The art is awesome and the characters drag you into their world and won't let go. Episode 12 is particularly close to my heart because out of sheer desperation and lack of ideas Kate, the sassy young magazine writer, is trying to write some erotica and finding that it isn't as easy as it looks.

"Her skin was hungry for his touch BECAUSE IT HAD ONLY HAD A SLICE OF TOAST ALL DAY..."

And now that I've posted that I see that there's an issue online that I haven't read yet. Dammit! I will promise it to myself as a reward when I get my latest draft finished. Bye for now!

Oh Me of Little Faith

Having been convinced for most of November that I would never get my novel finished in time I finished with a day to spare. The same thing happened last year. For some reason I can never quite believe in myself when I'm about halfway through. I don't suppose it matters whether I think I can do it or not as long as I keep typing just the same. I just need to accept that self doubt is a necessary part of the process.

This year's book is an as-yet untitled detective novel set in Brisbane, Australia. I plan on editing it, but I'm going to let it lie fallow for a month or so first. In the meantime I have more short stories to be getting on with now that I have time to think of things other than novelling.

Congratulations to everyone who took part in the Nano journey with me, whether you got to 50k, or beyond, or only a couple of hundred words. If you enjoyed Nano and learned from it the time certainly wasn't wasted.

Now, let there be chocolate for the Novelist!