Job update

So I got called in for an interview at Dream Job last week. 

EEEEE!!

Now, I haven't interviewed for a job since... wow. What century is this?

Was I nervous? Yes. Did I comport myself well?  Seems so. I don't think I stuck my foot in my mouth too often. I handled all questions well, except for the two I wasn't expecting: current salary and expectations, and when I could start.  The first was awkward because this job was a serious step-down in hourly salary. But I let them know I was okay with that. After all, I was moving from a part-time job to a full-time, and the money in my pocket would increase for doing more of easier work.

The second question I had no idea. I tentatively offered them an average two weeks' notice period, only to learn from my current HR that because I've been at my current job for over a decade and a half, my notice period really needs to be four weeks. (I updated Dream Job with this info as soon as I got it.)

Sidebar: From the very beginning I was open with my current job that I'd applied for Dream Job, because that's how we roll. Everyone knew what was going on and were following the adventure.

So, today I'm in a big important departmental team meeting when my phone rings.  (Bad me, for failing to put it on silent in a meeting.)  I had one look at the number and my supervisor goes, "Is that The Call?!"

I slip out to take it.

Alas, I did not get the job. Everyone they'd interviewed was more than qualified to do the work, and they went with the person who would have been the best fit.

Went back into that meeting to a dozen expectant eyes.  "Nope. You all have me for another couple of years."  Commiserations all around.

ETA: I requested and got feedback from DJ's HR. Nothing wrong with me or how I interviewed. Just for their selected candidate, a couple of things were a better fit, like salary expectations and geographic location, etc. Ah, well. 

Coincidentally, my Annual Performance Review was this afternoon. There, I learned that a proposal to make my position full-time was included in the Annual Budget, pending approval. Should that happen, I'll most likely take it up, and comfort myself over not getting Library Dream Job with the 50% more salary I'll get.

(Also, my review let me know I was doing pretty good in my job and am seen as an asset to the team. Good to know.)

Now, I also made it clear that I didn't plan on staying in this job forever. They know my ambitions towards being an author, but also that I'd love to get back into the Library system. I'm in my current role by accident.  Happy to do well while I'm here, but it's not the career track I want to be in.

But these things happen. Most people spend some time in a job that's not their dream career. It's normal and not a sign that one's life has gone wrong. We end up in these jobs because they were needful in the moment. Sometimes this side quest take a bit longer, but might be necessary to keep us alive until we can get back to where we wanted to go.

To that end, I'll have career news in the upcoming Quarterly Newsletter. If you're not subscribed to the QN, do so now before 30 Dec so you can get yours.

Rare Opportunity Job

Yesterday was the deadline for applications for a Rare Opportunity Job. You bet your sweet bippy I submitted my application.

A Rare Opportunity Job (sometimes called a Dream Job) is the kind of job you want to be working at, but aren't, because the opportunity to get one rarely comes up.

I'd love to be a Google Doodler. I'd love to be a score composer. But these opportunities aren't going to happen any time soon, so I've let my dreams settle into more realistic aims.

A ROJ at a library recently arose. While I'm not actively job-hunting at the moment, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to apply.

I got my first library card at age 3. We attended at least once a fortnight or so. Would have gone more often, if a library was within my underage commute distance without needing to rely on someone to drive me there. As an adult I've worked at three libraries and loved it. Currently I do part-time IT Support peripherally to a library, but it's not quite the same as working in a library itself.

Last week a Rare Opportunity Job arose at a library. What makes this the ROJ it is?

• It's in a library. After having worked straight IT for a while, I realised I'm much happier working in a library. I really want to go back.
• Location. Granted, it's a good hour away. But it's close to a daughter's school, and it's in a neighbourhood I wouldn't mind working in. Besides, long-term plans involve us moving into that area anyway. 
• Money. Sure the hourly rate is lower than what I'm making now, but as it's a full-time job, the actual amount of money that will be going into my pocket will rise. I need more money, but I also need less stress. This job will give me both.
• Work Load. Unless this job ends up being an outlier, the work load pace and stress will be less than what I'm doing now. I'm ready for a job where I'm a wheel cog and not a fire extinguisher. I'm feeling the faint edge of burnout nibbling at my heels at my current job. While my hours keep that at bay, this leaves me stuck in a corner. I could make more money if I could get more hours, but then I'd definitely burn out faster.
• Schedule. I confess I was considering going back to full-time work in 2-4 years time, now that Their Ladyships are much older and don't need their momma so much. Still, there's a few things they do that require me to be Mom. The work schedule, as posted with the job application, will allow me to continue being there for them when they need me. There's also the opportunity for the eldest to come to the library after school for some quiet study time, before going home with Mom (as long as she doesn't bother me too much and lets me get on with my work).  Only downside is that I will have to work one Sunday afternoon a month, and we've got afternoon church next year. 
• One weekday RDO (see previous). This one weekday off is a boon. This will be a block of time I can use for study and writing, plus daughter support.

"Wait," you say. "Isn't being an Author your Dream Job?"

Well, yes, dear reader, it is. However, unlike a regular 9-5 Day Job, the opportunity to succeed as an author doesn't come along as a job application that you score an interview and then a job offer and then you're in until ded or fled.

Writing's one of those things where to succeed you need Luck, Persistence, Talent (pick two; or rather, two will pick you. Only in Persistence do you have a choice).  Even if you do score a success, you're only as good as that moment of success, and you're back to the struggle. 

It's going to be several years before writing income is sufficient to replace a day job's income. Until then, I engage in that longstanding tradition of Author with a Day Job. I know more AwDJs than I do authors who make sole income from writing.

Library jobs are rare enough as it is. The last library job I applied for received over 800 applications. Eight. Hundred.  The chances I'll get called for an interview, never mind get this job are rather slim.

But those odds are better than if I'd never applied at all.

________________________
Her Grace daydreams about going to her new library job and spends idle time working out the logistics.

NaNoWriMo Day 26 - one very tight squeeze

NaNoWriMo is all about challenging oneself to push oneself to the limits.

Granted, when one gets to a certain point in her career, she finds that cranking out 50K in a month becomes easy. An author's progress comes when she gets a regular schedule, system, pattern that works for her, and she cranks out the wordage.  Many's the time a multi-book contracted author has to meet a publisher's deadline. That's when they eschew television, a normal social life and everything else expendable--even sleep if necessary--to meet that contracted deadline. After all, that's what they're being paid for.

While NaNoWriMo's imposed deadline of 50K/30dy isn't as dire as a publishers, one still has to apply the discipline to meet that goal.

There's a good chance I might not make it.

I didn't stick to my schedule. I didn't give writing the priority I should. Lots of other things happened that got in the way of writing (granted, school is one of them, and until writing brings in enough money to pay tuition, school gets priority). I played silly little games on my phone. I read Facebook. I watched some TV. I mowed the lawn and did the dishes and played with a cat. I even applied for a Rare Opportunity Job. Much of this I could have shoved to the side in favour of wordage.

The other day I sat down and did some simple math. I could still win NaNo, but it will require some marathoning. The numbers I need are daunting, but doable. I've done those kinds of numbers before.

So, can I make it?

Honestly?

I don't know. But I'm gonna try.

_________________________
Her Grace hasn't failed a NaNo in ever so long. 

NaNoWriMo Day 13 - A little behind

I will openly admit I'm a little behind my wordcount. This is because Life Happened, as it does.

Being end of year (EoY), I've got one final exam and three assignments I need to finish this week, one child has EoY exams, and the other has EoY performances, etc. And Thanksgiving.  Plus, we got a new foster cat we've nicknamed Hissy Pissy until his attitude improves.

I didn't get a lick of writing done on the weekend, and only a little study.  Still, I'm a professional. I'll catch up -and- get my assignments done.

Other things, such as housework, will most likely fall by the wayside. Don't tell His Grace. He thinks I'm keeping the house clean.

__________________________
Her Grace is also mostly over her infected throat so she can get back to narration as well. Oh, and singing, as rehearsals for Christmas have started.

NaNoWriMo Day 4 - Disappointment

So I'm writing along and I needed the name of a neighbourhood. No problem. After all, I did some serious research last week and came up with the best info for worldbuilding ever.

I go look through my notes and... nothing. What? Where did all my hard work go? Why do I only have half the info I thought I did?

Because several days ago my computer fell asleep and never woke up. I had to do a hard reboot, and it appears I forgot to hit save before the computer fell asleep. I lost eight hours of research time.

Fortunately, I remembered my search terms and Google remembered which pages I'd visited, so I was able to recreate most of my research in half the time it originally took.

Still, most annoying, as those several hours recreating my work could have been better spent creating new wordage. Also annoying are those few factlets that would have been perfect, if only I could remember what they were.


__________________________
Her Grace wants you to know that 19th Century clockmakers all clustered around Clerkenwell.

NaNoWriMo Day 1 - Epiphany

Welcome to NaNoWriMo, that month of insanity where millions of authors all over the world attempt to create 50K of a novel. (If you're one of them, feel free to buddy up, though I will be mostly working and not so much socialising. I've got goals.)

This is my 15+ year of doing this.

Before I started this year, I vowed to myself I would play with voice. I'm not happy with my voice and want to enrich it. Put some thought into what kind of imagery I wanted, read a few really good flash fiction with voice and did the whole imagine pre-writing idealism to get in mind what I wanted.

Attended an official NaNo Write In on Wednesday night. Sat down and, with the goal of voiciness in mind, cranked out 3K words. Cranking out wordage is a doddle for me. But when I got home and re-read my stuff, I saw my usual dull voice had drifted back in, despite my best efforts. Drat. I'd rushed things.

Spent Thursday morning on a NoNo for NaNo: editing.

The thing with NaNoWriMo is that once you push into pure wordage, habit takes over. For those who don't have a writing habit, it's pushes your boundaries. But for me, with more than a million words under my belt as an author, sheer speed doesn't challenge me.  Currently voice is a challenge for me, and to play with that, one must slow down.

So I went back and edited. I examined each sentence to see what it did right, and what it did wrong. I analysed my word choices and structure. I recast several until they sang instead of sat there.

However, when I was done, I was much happier with my words. Subsequent wordage for the month will go forward not so much with a focus on quantity but quality. If it means I must slow down, then I shall slow down.

Oh, I'll be able to get my 50K in, no problem. Not my first rodeo.

First Lesson Learned: Focus on your true goal. You don't get a Grade 8 piano player stumbling over a B Major grand scale. It flows under their fingers. But only if you make the thumbs fall where they need to.

To aid in this, my reading for the month is "Daniel Deronda" by George Eliot. Talk about voice!

November is a busy month for me, with the end of the semester (applying for Hubble time!), ladyships' end-of-year concerts and Thanksgiving as well as NaNoWriMo. While I've been doing my best to read more indie authors, I'm finding they don't quite have the voice I'm looking for. I'll be putting them aside for the month for tried-and-true Classic literature.

Second Lesson Learned: the Classics are classic for a reason. Yes, many a high school student finds them boring and dull and difficult to read, but if you move your focus from the tedious plot and the depressing characters and look at the pure beauty of how words are being used, that is where the classic-ness is to be found.

______________________________
Her Grace is also pushing herself by hoping to reach 80K instead of the recommended 50K.

The Feeling of Freedom

Busy-ness hunted me down today at the Day Job and dogged my poor, confused heels. We're in the process of changing/upgrading a few things, which means a change in procedure and documentation. On top of that, nearly everyone in the office headed off to a meeting, leaving me to guard the phones. So when I got stuck on something I'd never done before, there was no one I could ask for help until they got back from the meeting. Not that I was stuck in a rut; there was plenty of other things that needed doing. Still, it was frustrating.

TL;DR - I got nearly everything sorted, but it was a hard slog.

I'm lucky in that I work fixed hours. When it comes time for me to leave, I am expected to leave, whether or not all my work is done. Yep, that's pretty much a drop-everything-and-scram rule... within reason. We can finish off whatever task we're on, then ignore the rest in our company-sanctioned amscray.

Today when I left, it was such a profound sense of relief to simply abandon my work for another day and take off. I had to stop myself from running across the parking lot in my mad bid for freedom. I was so looking forward to getting home and getting to work on my novel outline. Nothing like a frustrating day at the Day Job to make me really appreciate my writing career.

Don't get me wrong; my writing career is also frustrating, but in a different way. I came home to learn a grant application had been denied, and two (TWO!) form rejections from agents. Le sigh. At least nothing can stop me from working on my outline.

Project Status

• Of The Dark - ready for final professional copyedits... as soon as I can source the funds for the editor.
• Currently Unsupervised - oaked and aging. Will come back to it in December (at the earliest) for first-round edits. Hoping to hop on the query train in early 2018.
• Victorian Clockpunk Telescope - outline nearly done for NaNoWriMo. While the NaNoGoal is a mere 50K, I'm hoping I can get 80K done in November, despite being unable to take the month off work, like I usually do.
• Audiobooks - paused for QC. Recording will continue as soon as I'm over my chest cold.
• Everything Else - waiting. The projects I'm working on right now are the best ones for the moment. Nothing else can progress until these all level up.

___________________________

Her Grace looks forward to a day when the Day Job is no longer required.

More state of the union

When I am quiet online, it is because I am busy in real life.

My latest newsletter went out a few weeks ago. If you haven't signed up for the Quarterly Newsletter, you missed out on some stuff I don't mention on the blog.

The Day Job is so-so, and I can't wait to transition to full-time author, but for now it provides a steady income without too much stress. Alas, it's not quiiite enough income to support my writing habit, so I've applied for a grant once more. Probably won't get it, as the grant-givers don't appear to support genre fiction. They seem to prefer the literary stuff. Is that prejudice on their part, overt or unconscious? They definitely support Australiana, which is something I expect them to do.

I am working on outlining two possible NaNoWriMo projects. Not sure which one I'll end up with. Depends on which one is ready to go on 1 Nov.  Are you doing NaNo this year? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

I know it's only October, but all the End of the Year stuff is happening. Australian school terms go from Feb to Dec, so Their Ladyships are in their fourth term. So much to think about, so much to do! I am looking forward to the end-of-year concerts.

Meanwhile, enjoy this brilliant Microwave Chocolate Cake in a Mug recipe from Cleobuttera. It is the best one I've found.


_____________________________
Her Grace has a perfect plan for a novel trilogy. Only thing it needs is money, or time. 

Observations: What you do is more important that what is

Before I get into this week's post, here's some state-of-the-union info:

• The semester started a few weeks ago. Tools of Modern Astronomy. It's all about the EM spectrum and what kind of light buckets we use to catch falling photons. I feel like it might be just over my head, but I shall persist. Will I pass? Yes. Will I get an HD? Probably not. That's okay. I'm a conceptual astronomer and my job will not depend on how well I can run a telescope.
• I finished the draft for "Currently Unsupervised".  It took me two NaNoWriMos and a few weeks of "get'er dunne". Now drafting the outline for my Victorian Clockpunk Telescope novel. It is not a coincidence I'm taking Tools at the same time I'm drafting this novel.
• My Quarterly Newsletter goes out at the end of this week. If you aren't signed up to my newsletter, you won't get it. I tend to tell my newsletter stuff before I tell the rest of the world. And yes, I've got news in there.

Yesterday was WA Day, a public holiday, in Western Australia. All week it's the Royal Show (think 'State Fair', for you 'Mericans). Naturally, Their Ladyships and I went along.  But my story is not about the Royal Show or WA Day.

Last week I went to the local grocery store to purchase tickets for the Royal Show. While I was there, I witnessed a young child throw a nuclear-level temper tantrum because they wanted ice cream. Mum was not going to buy them any. The kid screamed and stamped. Still, Mum said no, and proceeded to walk out the door in a controlled manner. Kid continued to scream and stamp, but followed after. This is because the kid, despite their complete meltdown, knew that Mum meant business and was not going to cave.

I respected her for having a plan and sticking to it. In my eyes, this is a good parenting skill.

At the Royal Show, as Their Ladyships and I were indulging in some expensive gelato, a pair of young parents came up with their young child in a pram (stroller). Like us, they'd bought a cup of expensive gelato to share. Young child got first bite because, as Dad explained, this was the first time she'd ever had chocolate ice cream. We had a pleasant conversation over introducing children to new foods, the benefit of teaching them to value high quality, etc.

Young child dropped something on the floor. Dad picked it up and dropped it into the umbrella they had hanging off the side of the pram. Upon closer observation, I noticed it was full of little bits and bobs. They had turned their umbrella into an improv bucket. "Oh, that is so cool!" I uttered.

"Yeah. We only just thought of it today. But I think we'll keep doing it."

They were really cool people and I'm so glad I encountered them. For many reasons, they became a bright point in my day.  I respected them for their parenting skills because they were able to go with the flow, anticipate things, and were able to come up with creative solutions when the unanticipated came up.

Later on at the show we were at one of the kiddie displays. While there, an incident happened which lead to a young child having a nuclear-level temper tantrum.  Unlike the mother in the grocery store, this mother did not have a single clue. Her coping technique was to try and placate and reason with the unreasonable child right there in the middle of the floor. The child was kicking and screaming. Also, this just happened to be the time a large trolley had rocked up with a delivery.

Unfortunately, the kid chose to have their temper tantrum right where the trolley needed to go. Due to crowding, the trolley could not back up, could not move. It blocked the entrance to the display, and nobody could get in or out. The kid in his screaming, struggling mess, came really close to hitting his head against the sharp edge of the trolley. The mother, so wrapped up in trying to placate her child, instead of taking control of the situation, became useless. She was not in control of a situation she should have been.  She had no awareness of her surroundings, the trouble she was creating by not removing her child from the central area, the immediate danger he was in, and, despite the offered help from other parents, could not control her situation.  Essentially, she was just as out of control as her kid.

People had to physically remove her and the child to a safe location, so that the trolley could be moved. She was incapable of doing this herself because she was not in control. At all. Eventually the father showed up. I could tell from the look in his eyes and the actions he took, that this was not the kid's first temper tantrum, nor the mother's first moment of "i can't parent".

When the mother first melted down, my first thought was sympathy. But as I watched her fail to get control over herself and complete strangers had to step in to deal with her situation, I confess my sympathy faded into annoyance. Surely this was not the first time her child has had a temper tantrum. Why did she not have a plan in place for dealing with such a situation?  At least the father had a plan. My annoyance faded into pity. Parenting is hard for all of us. But it can be harder if one doesn't have a plan.

In the space of a week I observed two temper tantrums by young children. One mother earned my respect. The other did not. Yet I am grateful to both women, for they led me to a moment of personal enlightenment.

We will not be judged by how things are. Many things are not completely (or even remotely) in our control.  We will be judged by how we deal with these things.

Having a plan is a good idea. Having enough objectivity when we don't have a plan to come up with a good enough solution, even if that solution is only to buy us more time to think of an even better one, is a good idea. Being in control of ourselves, even when others are not, is a good idea.  Knowing when walking away is the best solution is a good idea.

I hope I have leveled up enough to apply these lessons when my moment comes.

______________________________
Her Grace believes in regular self-reflection and personal improvement. She does not think she can progress otherwise.

The Best Thing to be Doing

Mitch Mitchell wants us to read more.
I'm happy to write more books so you can.

"Is this the best thing you can be doing right now?"  I often ask myself that, but not as often as I should.

A few weeks ago I was chatting with our marketing team at the Day Job about the importance of marketing. I realised I'd let my marketing slip on my books. This was half-laziness and half-analysis. I'd been monitoring the marketing I've been doing for my books, weighing costs vs returns. My current methods were not the most effective at the moment. I wasn't getting as good a ROI (return on investment) as I wanted. After a bit more analysis, I noticed what I'd been doing wrong.

The best way to market a book is to have more books out there. I've currently got five standalones plus one permafree short story sampler. In my recent research, this isn't enough.  Even when the some of my books go on sale with promo, I get some nibbles, but not sufficient to compensate for the price of marketing.  Really, one should be getting a ROI colour other than red. (I accept black or green.)

Obviously I need to get more books out, preferably in a series.

Some author/marketers recommend you spend some of every day writing and some marketing. Fair enough, if you've got the inventory. I don't think I have enough inventory.

So I've decided I'll keep doing little bits of marketing here and there, but not the full-scale I really should be doing.

Instead, I'm going to devote that extra time to finishing more novels. This is the best thing I can be doing right now.  The more novels I get out, the more effective my promotional efforts will be.

I just finished "Currently Unsupervised", which is now aging in a printout on my desk. I'm starting the research for my Victorian Clockpunk Telescope Romance and I've applied for a developmental grant for "Of The Dark".  "The Charm of Truth" needs to sit a little longer before I tack another 20K to it, then it'll be ready to go.

If you ask me if I can do something and I say NO, this is why. These novels don't write themselves.

_____________________________
Her Grace encourages you to leave reviews for her work. That's one of the best things you can do for an author.

The Chicken or the Beef?

Sometimes at a restaurant one looks at the menu and can't decide. Everything looks so yummy! Should I choose the chicken or the beef? Me, I adore tasting platters or ten-course degustations, where I get to try a bite of everything.

However, sometimes one does not get options like that, and one must choose the chicken or the beef. For some people with bottomless pits where their stomachs reside, they can choose both. Me, I have a teeny-tiny tummy and can barely finish what I do order. I am limited in choosing chicken or beef.

A favourite author Gail Carriger came to a realisation that sometimes it's best to choose one thing over another, if it nourishes you more.

I've been doing much of that, in that what little writing time I've got, I've devoted it to wordage in the novel, rather than blogging or social networking. While the latter two will help in my promo and marketing, ultimately, I need to finish novels.

No novels, nothing to promote.

I am eight thousand words short of finishing a novel. I'm sure you'll forgive me if I focus on that, rather than blogging.

Want to support an author? Go read her books, leave honest reviews.

________________________
Her Grace is half-way through the chainsaw massacre, though you might not recognise it as such once she's done. There will be a glorious catfight, though.

Whaddya mean "Chainsaw Massacre?"

I didn't get into PitchWars, and that's okay, because I've been working on a new book.

So I've been slogging along, getting some serious wordage done, when I noticed I'd finished the novel... way too soon.  Instead of approaching 80K, I'd clocked in at 60-something.

How on earth did my plot calculation end up fifteen thousand-ish words shy of my target goal?

His Grace, not being a fiction author, wasn't terribly sympathetic. "Why can't you stop there?"

Because the frickin' novel needs to be 80K! Reasons.

So, how does one come up with an extra 10-15K when the plot as-is is tight, with no wiggle room?

A subplot usually does the trick, except I wasn't sure how to fit in a(nother) subplot. I've got three already. The timeline of the novel doesn't have much room for such things, as the whole book takes place over the course of a single evening. There's only so much that can go on at a party.

"Throw in a Chainsaw Massacre," suggests His Grace.

I have a look at my RegRom w/ Magic and say, "Why not?"

__________________________________
Her Grace's plot issue may be solved. Will it be at least 10K? Ask her later.

I entered Pitch Wars!

Of course I did.

#PitchWars has been extra helpful this year with the addition of a ProBoards forum. I found this helpful for improving my query, not so much by the posting and critting of it, but by seeing what everyone else was posting.

I was able to see lots of people making lots of mistakes. For some reason, the more queries I saw, the easier it was to see the mistakes.

When I went back to my own query, I was able to see the mistakes I'd been making. Oops. Once corrected, I feel I got a much stronger query.

Think this is enough to win over a mentor?


 Adrastea, a simple country healer, is surprised to receive a marriage proposal from the Dark God Mor-Lath. As a devotee of a rival god, of course she turns him down. She was raised on chilling tales of this chthonic being who drags the souls of the unrepentant to the underworld. Adrastea loves her simple country life of brewing medicines and saving lives. Marriage to Mor-Lath would greatly complicate things. Besides, why would the Dark God propose to her?

Undaunted by her refusal, Mor-Lath insists on courting her. Sometimes he is charming, winning over the other villagers. Other times, he is ruthless in his actions, refusing to let anyone stand in his way of his pursuit of Adrastesa.

She sees him the dark god he truly is. While he makes it clear he’ll only have her willingly, he’s making it very difficult for her to say no.

Adrastea faces a quandary: her continued refusals puts not only her village under threat of destruction, but possibly the entire land. If she accepts the Dark God's marriage proposal, her soul will never ascend to the Light. Mor-Lath's plaintive desperation hints that even more might be at stake. But what? What is he really after?

Either way, the price is too high. 

OF THE DARK is a 125,000-word Fantasy novel, loosely based on several Greek myths (especially the Adrasteia and Jupiter stories) and is the first of a completed trilogy. 

I'm an Australian author of moderate repute. I've had dozens of short stories and non-fiction articles published and have had several novellas published with The Wild Rose Press. I've been a member of the Online Writing Workshop since its inception. I'm a member of Romance Writers of Australia. By day I work part-time in IT Support. By night I'm an astronomer and citizen scientist, because that's when the stars are out.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

---------------

And here's my first five hundred words.


Adrastea descended into the dark. As her feet touched the cellar's stone floor, the scent of brandy enveloped her. It was stronger here, redolent of peaches and hot summer days and possibly forbidden kisses. Something had broken. Oh dear.

Up in the stillroom Ari Healer peered into the cellar, her anxiety palpable. Her skinny hands gripped the top of the ladder and she sniffled. "Was it my barrel? Please tell me it wasn't my barrel."

"I don't know." Something shimmered at the edge of Adrastea's vision. The auras? She pushed away Ari's worry and squinted into the darkness. Was it a bottle of new brandy that broke, or the barrel of old brandy? Please, not the new brandy. Adrastea had worked so hard distilling enough. Her heart ached at the thought of losing even one drop.

But if it had been Ari's barrel, the one that had sat in this cellar for twenty-five years, its precious contents aging to perfection, that would be a greater loss.

Adrastea drew a breath and coughed. The alcohol stung her lungs too much to tell which one had spilled.

A warm light wavered above the cellar door. "Here. Take the lantern."

"No. Too risky." It would do Adrastea no good if the flame of the lamp ignited the brandy fumes.

Ari's voice shuddered. "It is my barrel, isn't it?"

Again, something shimmered out of the corner of her eye, flaring then fading. Now that was interesting. "Could be the barrel."

Ari let out a whimper.

There! The glimmer brightened at the far end of the cellar. How fascinating. Ari's grief sent pulses along the threads that connected her aura to the barrel. That was new. Even without daylight, Adrastea knew exactly where the barrel was.

Mira Priestess once told her everything in Creation was bound by the Lines of Deeper Power. Everything and everyone was connected, whether they knew it or not. Her mother described them as the warp and weft of the world, present, even if most of the time they could not be seen. Adrastea had never given it much thought until now. They'd just been... there.

They reminded her of shafts of sunlight through a window, when motes of dust sparkled in the beams. As a child, Adrastea had always tried to catch those motes. They always evaded her grasp. She had always presumed these Lines were the same.

Out in the daylight, she could barely tell auras were there, just gossamer webs out of the corner of her eye. Down here in the cellar, they came to her much stronger.

Adrastea relaxed and focused inward, drawing a deep breath. Lines from dried herbs and potions she'd prepared lit up and connected to her. She'd made all this. It belonged to her and brought her deep satisfaction. How comforting to know that something she created with her own two hands did some good in the world.

--------------------

I'm especially proud of this opening, as it passes the Bechdel Test.

So here I sit and forget about #PitchWars until 25 August, when mentees will be announced.

If I get in, YAY! 

If not, I have a Plan B. Sooner or later, this book will be published.

_________________________________

Her Grace hopes her first chapter is voicy enough. That's what mentors are looking for.

Tuesday's Tale - A Tale of a Phone Call -or- Checkmate

Over the past several months a friend of mine had a situation with a series of annoying phone calls. In the end she found a solution. I was so impressed with this solution I want to write about it. However, the identity of my friend will remain anonymous, because her solution is considered illegal in the place she lives.  Also, Joe, the true villain of the piece, is not his real name. Coincidentally, his last name sounds very much like my friend's extremely common last name. This  might have added to the confusion.

A few months ago my friend started to get phone calls on her landline from a collection agency, asking for Joe. She said they had the wrong number and there was no Joe at her place.

Saying you have a wrong number is a common tactic for people trying to avoid collection agencies, so this particular agency did not believe this very true bit of info. Thus, they kept calling back, at first once a week, then more often.  She kept telling them that there was no Joe, and that they had the wrong number.

She asked to speak to a supervisor.  The supervisor informed her that they knew they had the correct number because that was the number given on the application, and the company who'd passed on the debt had successfully contacted Joe in the past. As far as the agency was concerned, this was Joe's valid number. Because of that, they had no compunction over calling at annoying times, like early-early in the morning, at dinnertime, etc.  Anything to get my friend to hand them over to Joe.

This went on for months. My friend, who'd had this phone number for several years, tried everything she could think of to get them to stop. She tried sending them notarised proof of her identity and ownership of the address and phone number. Company didn't care. They'd only accept proof that Joe didn't live there "any more" (their words).  This baffled her, as the Agency's records did not list her actual address as an address-on-record for Joe.

It would have been too much hassle to change the number, as this was a number she used for her home business. She tried getting the number blocked, but whatever regulating body she'd gone to said that this couldn't be done without proof that this person was harassing her.

But how to prove the harassment?  My friend came up with this idea:

The next time they called, she answered the phone and listened to them rant on about how they were going to escalate, blah, blah. About five minutes in, she told them, "By the way, I'm recording this conversation without your permission." Indeed she was. She'd set up a recording device and was capturing the lot.

Agency:  You can't do that. It's illegal.

My Friend:  Yes. I know. There's nothing you can do to stop me.

Their reply: they hung up.

However, this did not stop them from further phone calls. Every time they called, she hit "record" and then informed them about five minutes in that she was recording their conversation without their permission. They'd hang up.

Until two weeks later.

My Friend (five minutes in): I'm recording this conversation without your permission.

Agency Supervisor: We are aware of your actions and have decided to take this to the next level. We have reported your actions to our attorneys, who will be taking legal action against this.

Normally, this would rattle the usual blowhards who such tactics as recording phone calls as bullying actions, but taking things to the next level was exactly what my friend wanted.

My Friend: Excellent. I'm glad you've chosen to get your attorneys involved. See, in order to serve notice, or contact me in any way, they'd have to verify that I am who I say I am, and then serve me with notice. They will finally be able to prove to you that one thing that you've refused to accept all this time; I am not Joe, nor am I associated with Joe in any way, shape or form.

Agency: We do not have to prove you are Joe to serve you with notice to stop your illegal recording.

My Friend: No. But it will drag your sorry butts into the courtroom. You will provide evidence in the form of your records stating I've informed you I'm illegally recording your phone calls. I will then provide evidence of those recorded phone calls, which are many, including the ones I might have recorded without informing you earlier.

Agency: You will be found guilty. This will have an impact on..... blah blah, stuff about legal ramifications regarding her job, her credit rating, and that it's not worth all this trouble to protect Joe when it would be much easier to just get Joe to pay, yadda, yadda. Usual agency bully tactics.

My Friend: Actually, it will serve to prove that you've been calling me and harassing me. All the information you have regarding Joe will become a record of the court, thus giving me access to his information.

(Note: she didn't have access to this information before, as the agency wouldn't release any information beyond Joe's first and very common last name, so my friend couldn't sleuth out any further info, including the company who had reported the debt. Essentially, she had been held an information prisoner.)

My Friend: Once we've established beyond a reasonable doubt that all these phone calls I've been recording have come from you, looking for Joe, and I am able to track down Joe, me and my attorneys can then file harassment suits against your company, with Joe as a witness to corroborate that he has never lived here, nor was this ever his phone number. We shall also include the original company in our suit for providing false information. Either way, somewhere someone has listed an incorrect number for Joe, a number you've been using to harass me. I'm going to tell you, for the very last time, that you have the wrong number. You might wish to consider contacting the original company. Could it be they accidentally gave you an incorrect phone number, and nobody at your agency has bothered to check this when I kept telling you you had the wrong number?

By this time, my friend had had enough. She told them if they called her once more, they would hear from her attorneys.

A few days later, the agency called back. My friend informed them she was recording their call, hung up, and then contacted an attorney.

The attorney wrote a stiffly-worded letter to the agency recommending they re-check the phone number with the company. Also, if the company verified the number as correct, and were so sure it belonged to Joe, that they contact my friend's attorney. Any further direct contact with my friend that didn't go through her attorney, would results in charges being filed.

My friend reports she's not received another phone call from the agency. However, she does not discuss any contact her attorney might have received.

That makes me wonder. Did the agency learn they did, after all, have the wrong number and the story is over, or that there's some upcoming legal action my friend can't talk about?

The problem with true stories is that sometimes you don't get to know the ending.

A name by any nose can smell as sweet

An amusing side-conversation on Janet Reid's blog regarding my name looks like it could use a little bit of explanation.

Yes, Kneale is a cool name. I always thought so. That's why I opted to change my name upon marriage. (That, and I never had an official middle name growing up. No middle name is worse than too many middle names.)

More on the surname Kneale:

Kneale is the Manx spelling of the name, shortened from "MacNeale", as the Manx often do. The root "Neale" is a spelling variant of the Irish O'Neill, of Ulster fame. It goes back to the Battle of Ulster, where the winners were surnamed Neil, which means "Champion".

Yeah. My last name means "Champion", which is really cool.

My first name Heidi is a diminutive derived from the German Adelheid, which means "high and noble".

Put my first and last name together and it means "Noble Champion".  How awesome is that?

As for Kneazles, they're spectactular in their own way and I have no objection to being alluded to one. Wouldn't mind owning a hybrid either.


_____________________________________
Her Grace, when she wants to be pretentious, goes by Heidi Lucile Wessman Kneale, which means "Noble White Champion of Light".  Maybe if she does get a Kneazle, maybe she'll name it that.

I've got a website

Had one for quite some time (since 1993). Thought I'd mention it, as someone this morning was asking if I had a website.

I do. Here is it:

The quick URL is:  http://tinyurl.com/heidikneale


__________________________________
Her Grace isn't that hard to google.

All-You-Can-Eat, I hate you

I got a gastric sleeve back in December, which completely changed my life. For the most part, it's been great and I'm glad I had it done.

However, it does put to flight the concept of All You Can Eat. My current stomach capacity is about 200ml, which is just under a measuring cup.

In theory I eat all I can at every meal, which is about three or four bites of whatever, then a little something to drink. And I'm full.

This puts a cramp in my old habit of enjoying restaurants.

Some friends are planning on going to an all-you-can-eat Brazilian barbeque. They're hoping to get a group booking so they can "get the price down to $30/head".  Alas, I can't participate. No way am I paying $30 per bite, er I mean, per head.

If I'm going to pay that much for that little food, it had better be Wagyu beef drenched in truffle sauce.

Another downside to a teeny tiny stomach is I can't participate fully in degustation menus. These are the delightful ten course meals put on by the fanciest restaurants to allow you to sample all their glorious art, er, food. His Grace and I enjoyed going out to degustations a few times a year. While the individual serves are teeny-tiny, believe me, after ten or more courses, at the end your normal stomach can be quite full.

Can't do that any more, at least, not the way I used to.

I might be able to participate in a degustation, but only if the restaurant is happy to accommodate my dietary restrictions. (The best restaurants will cater to dietary restrictions, such as food allergies, religious restrictions, etc.)  I have no idea if they would allow for my particular restrictions.

Can His Grace and I go to a fine restaurant and order one degustation to be shared between two people? I do have a card from my surgeon asking for restaurants to consider letting me order smaller portions. We haven't been game to ask for this consideration. It would be nice if they could. The degustations we indulge in are often $150 per person.

With a degustation, I would literally have one bite of His Grace's plate, and he'd finish the rest. We used to go to a brilliant restaurant that closed a few months ago. They were more than accommodating for issues. I wonder if they would have been accommodating for something like this. Maybe if we had a party of four or more, where they would have been making enough money per head to allow one "freeloader" chair space.

It's now that time of year when we'd go out and indulge.

His Grace and I have some thinking to do as regarding whether we may be able to enjoy the culinary arts equally in the future.

Book Reviews - Finish or Forget

I haven't done book reviews for a while (blame the semester. Planetary science took up more time than I realised).

I've been downloading and reading various books, mostly sourced from BookBub and Fussy Librarian, but also from the occasional recommendation from friends.

I confess, I did not finish reading many of the books I got. At .99c, I can afford to ditch a book that simply does not catch my interest.  I thought I'd go through some of the books I've recently read, including my reasons for finishing or forgetting it.

Note: my tastes may vary from yours, and you might enjoy a book I failed to finish, because what turns me off might be your crack.

________________

Book: The Woman who Saved the World (and was hated for it)
Author: Ebony McKenna
Finish or Forget:  Finish! And read a second time.
Why:  First of all it was a short read, which actually disappointed me. I wanted more. I read everything from this author I can get.  This book was a delightful time-travel story with many layers of nuance.
Many of her books are currently on sale at the moment for .99c or less.

---
Book: Ever Shade (A Dark Faerie Tale #1)
Author: Alexia Purdy
Finish or Forget: Forget. Got to chapter four
Why:  The plot felt one-dimensional. It simply didn't raise any questions to keep me going. I'm a stickler for complex plots. This didn't seem to have one. Sorry.

---
Book: Marine Biology
Author: GL Carriger (Okay, it's really Gail Carriger writing modern stuff)
Finish or Forget: Finish!
Why: Her voice and style is bright with a bit of humour. Her characters are likeable. While I'm generally not a fan of contemporary real-world settings, this one worked for me, because of how she painted the layer of magic over the contemporary world and made it relevant. Don't know if I'd hand it to most of the teenagers I know, as it's really for grownup people who can handle mermen and werewolves smooching atop ladders.

---
Book: Midnight Marriage
Author: Lucinda Brant
Finish or Forget: Forget. Made it to chapter two.
Why: Style didn't catch me. Also, the secretly arranged, forced marriage between a teenage boy and a twelve-year-old girl (even there was no consummation) felt very squicky to me, partly because of their ages, but also by the men forcing both parties to the marriage. They get married, and then don't see each other again until a decade later. Still, I couldn't feel any chemistry.  Might come back to it. Maybe. If I do, it'll be in hopes of plot complexity.

---
Book: Mademoiselle at Arms
Author: Elizabeth Bailey
Finish or Forget: Forget. Got to chapter three.
Why:  Characters felt too inconsistent. I couldn't get a sense of any depth from them. "Mademoiselle" claims to be English through and through, but always speaks with a French accent. Reader is given no clues why. Also, the style isn't as deep as it could be, with filter phrases distancing me. Also, don't really get a sense of the historical setting.

---
Book: The Last Necromancer
Author: C.J. Archer
Finish or Forget: Finish! And went on to look for more in the series.
Why: The voice! It drew me in and didn't let go. Even the concept of the last necromancer in the world intrigued me enough to abandon my Kobo and secure this one for my Kindle app on my mobile phone. Normally I can't stand reading for too long on light-emitting screens, but this one tempted me. Style was smooth, details rich and the characters distinctive.
I wish Archer had a box set of this series. She's done box sets for her other series. But I wanted to indulge in this series now!

---
Book: The Twenty-Sided Sorceress
Author: Annie Bellet
Finish or Forget: Finish
Why: Voice. I started reading this book because the title sounded so hokey. I honestly was expecting some shallow story about gamers who suddenly discover their AD&D actually casts real spells.
Glad I was wrong! The voice hooked me and made me read contemporary paranormal. The setup and the depth of the main character (who's got really big, nasty secrets) kept me until the end. Might be tempted to read more of the series.

---
Book: The House of Closed Doors
Author: Jane Steen
Finish or Forget: Finish.
Why: This was more a historical novel, rather than anything fantasy-like. Maybe I found the genre refreshing enough to stick through to the end. I liked the main character Nell's journey and how she deals with some of the challenges that come her way. One slight downfall was that plot events felt a bit too idealistic. Personally, I enjoy idealistic, because for me, fiction is escapism. But sometimes, the idealism was a bit too convenient at times. Not sure if I'm ready for the next in the series. Maybe when I need a bit of optimism in my life. It's not frothy, but the heroine doesn't really end up in any dire situations that can't turn out all right in the end.

---
Book: World Whisperer
Author: Rachel Devenish Ford
Finish or Forget: Forget. I persisted to chapter nine in hopes it would get better, but it didn't.
Why: The plot was so dull. Also, characters felt flat.  I'll forgive one or the other, but not both. While there were some interesting world-building elements, the strangeness of each element functioned in isolation and there was insufficient cause-and-effect to make for some really rich worldbuilding. Alas.

---
Book:  Destiny Blues
Author: Sharon Joss
Finish or Forget: Finish.
Why: Because strong characters, interesting plot and voice will trump my meh attitude toward contemporary paranormal. The worldbuilding was well-thought-out in this one, offering the sort of complexity I like to see. I loved how Joss handled the supernatural Djemon et al.  Sucks to be Mattie, but can you blame her? 

---

Book: The Smuggler's Gambit

Author: Sara Whitford

Finish or Forget: Forget. Couldn't even finish chapter one.

Why: It wasn't the voice. There was voice, but it didn't sing to me. Wasn't the setting. Plenty of that. Could have been the plot. I didn't get a sense of the direness of the plot. Yeah, Our Hero Adam gets abandoned to die by some smugglers. But otherwise, I couldn't get any sense of the plot. Maybe it was the characters. I simply didn't connect to them. Another big turnoff for me is when the MC gets bullied first thing. Francis Smythe bullies Adam in chapter one. Maybe I wasn't in the mood for this story. Might give this a try again. If plotty goodness picks up in the next chapter or so,  I might give it another chance. Normally I'm into historical stories about pirates and smugglers.

---

Book: The Devil's Concubine

Author: Jill Braden

Finish or Forget: Finish, and am looking forward to the next book in the series.

Why: Boy, can Braden deliver! Her fantasy worldbuilding so redolent of Southeast Asia was so refreshing. Her characters were well-imagined and round. The plot satisfied my inner drama mama and the depth of the characters only made it better. I wanted to care about these characters. I loved that they had good sides and bad sides. 

---

Book: Naheli's Sacrifice

Author: Rabea Scholz

Finish or Forget: Finish, though this kind of book isn't really my thing.

Why: I tend to find dystopias rather isolating and self-contained. They're often like little bubbles. This one felt like that. It was consistent within, but felt like the island on which it took place was completely isolated from the rest of the world. Might have come from the characters, that had their own sort of dysfunctionality. I did read this to the end, because the main character had her own conflicts, which propelled the story enough for me. Most of the other characters tended to appear rather flat, but Naheli had her own complexities. I like how she wavered between her determination to be the Sacrifice, and to not be the Sacrifice.

---

Book: Mr Dracy to the Rescue

Author: Victoria Kincaid

Finish or Forget: Finish, but driven only by hope. Alas, they were a bit dashed.

Why: I'm a P&P sucker, so I'll read any of the public domain derivatives. This one, while having an excellent premise, failed to deliver on character development. Elizabeth Bennet accepts Mr Collins' proposal out of duty to her father and Mr Darcy realises he's obsessed with her after all. Unfortunately, that's about all the character development that happens. Darcy's obsession doesn't develop, wax or wane. Elizabeth puts up with Collins until he decides to break the engagement. I almost wanted her to gird up her loins and start slaying zombies, but nothing so exciting happens.

---

Book: Box set: The Dragon Blood Collection, books 1-3 (Blade's Edge, Death maker, Blood Charged)

Author: Lindsay Buroker

Finish or Forget: Finish and went looking for more. 

Why: Excellent blend of steampunk and magic. Aeroplanes! Dirigibles! Pirates! Betrayal! Complex characters, imaginative worldbuilding and an easy-to-read style that carries you along.

---

Book: Dragon Seed: The Story of China at War

Author: Pearl S Buck

Finish or Forget: Finished, but disappointed in this well-beloved author

Why: I first read The Good Earth as a child, I loved it. It was an interesting look into the peasant life of Pre-revolutionary China. As her books have appeared on my Kobo list, at really good prices, I've been buying and reading them up. Unfortunately, while this one started out as expected, the plot fizzled out toward's the end. I think she could have ditched the story of the daughter who went away, and just stayed with the main character.

---

Book: Twice a Rake

Author: Catherine Gayle

Finish or Forget: Finish

Why:  I'm a sucker for Regency Romance. I enjoy reading them, but I tend to forget about most of them after the final page. This one had an interesting enough plot with a heroine who writes scandalous fiction in her diary. Naturally, the diary gets lost, and wacky hijinks ensue. Worth reading once.

---

Book: To Wed the Widow

Author: Megan Bryce 

Finish or Forget: Forget. Got to chapter eleven, and couldn't stand the company of the characters any longer. 

Why: They felt too contemporary, like the popular kids in high school. Not my tribe. Didn't really want to know how their HEA turned out.

---

Book: Slave, Warrior, Queen (Of Crowns and Glory, Book 1)

Author: Morgan Rice

Finish or Forget: Forget. Chapter five, and I'm happy to abandon this.

Why:  The plot. It's like everything is hand-placed in front of Our Heroine Ceres so she can succeed. I don't get any sense of anything happening because of her own actions, nor did I get enough sense of the consequences for her choices. It's almost as if she's drunk too much felix felices. The other characters feel flat.

The Curse of Time

No, I'm not talking about lack thereof. That happens to us all.

I'm talking about how we measure time, according to our planet's circadian cycle, and the fact that we've colonised all 360º of it.

Recently I've been hanging out on Twitter for pitch parties and the such. Alas, most of the fun on Twitter happens when the US is awake. That's my middle of the night.

Eastern Standard Time is diametrically opposite Western Australian Standard Time.  Also, WA does not have Daylight Savings Time, because we're smart. See, we have a greater awareness of how time zones can affect others. Perth is the only major city within our time zone. When we need to conduct business with Adelaide, Sydney, Auckland, London or New York, we've got to deal with different time zones. Daylight Savings Time, that leftover dinosaur from a time when most people did not have electric lights and the Internet, is useless in the 21st Century. Spring Forward and Fall Back does no one any favours, and causes more problems than it solves.

But I'm not here to rant about DST. It's your own bad luck if you live in a DST Zone. DST can change. It can be legislated out of existence. Really.

I'm talking about things that governments can't change: science. Planet is round. You are on one side, I am on the other. If you're a diurnal creature like me, chances are we won't be awake at the same time. This bums me out.

This affects my professional life.  As an author, I spend half my time writing and the other half marketing/networking. My ideal work day would be to get up early, get about four hours' writing time done, then spend the warm afternoon in promo and socialising.

But I can't, because most of my audience is asleep during my afternoon. If I am to be social and interact with everyone, I've got to do it first thing, before everyone goes to bed.  Scheduling tweets and blogposts doesn't do me any good, because I'm not there to interact.

This is not an ideal schedule, as I'd much rather spend my more brain-awake hours working on great novels, not marvelling at the witty sayings of social media. Going nocturnal for the sake of my career isn't an option at this point, as I still have children at home.

I see lots of authors having great networking success because of Twitter. It's a shame I can't take full advantage of its power simply because I'm on the wrong side of the planet.

__________________________
Her Grace, in spite of geographical isolation, prefers the lifestyle of Perth and Australia. She gets paid a living wage and does not need to fear that one little medical issue could send her bankrupt.

PitchWars 2017 - Pimp My Bio (Heidi Kneale - Adult Fantasy Romance)

Prologue

I'm Australian. G'day mate. But I'm not completely dinky-di, as I was born in the US; howdy. Being a dual citizen has its advantages and disadvantages.

Chapter One

I'm Heidi Kneale and this is my bio.  Welcome to PitchWars and PimpMyBio.

Yep, I'm obnoxious.

I write Fantasy and Romance, usually blending the two. My previous works have been compared to Gail Carriger's and Mary Robinette Kowal's.  I'm currently published with a reputable small press (as you do when you're a Romance author) and have recently gone hybrid (as you do when you're a 21st Century author). Now's the time to take my game to the next level.

I've learned much along my publishing journey, enough to know I wanna join all my published mates from the OWW who've done rather well for themselves.


I have a fifty-year career plan. This includes getting an agent and getting published by some Random Penguins. PitchWars could be that one thing that helps me take that next step. So here I am, hoping to impress a mentor, then impress an agent.

Many faces of me?

In my life I have a wealth of ambidextrous polymath skills upon which I can call: (mezzosoprano-schoolteacher-braillereader-swimmer-greenbelt-composer-painter-astrobiologist-chorister-reliefsocietysister-itsupportofficer-webcontenteditor-director-conceptualastronomer-filmmaker-violinist-camper-seamstress-jeparlefrancais-mastercostumer-watercolourer-excellentcook-mother-soundengineer-driver-critter-gardener-womanofcourage-potter-pianist-idealist-driver-richardarmitagesgirlfriend-gamer-habloespanol-supportteam-problemsolver-letterwriter-catfeeder-worldtraveller-mormon-tlhInganHolvIjatlh-leader-volunteer-lawnmower-quilter-and-more).  I won't bother to go into them here in depth, because while this is my bio, it's really about me as an author.

Chapter Two

I write books. I've always wanted to write books, ever since I was eight.

Okay, I first wanted to be an opera singer (age 3), then an astronomer (age 6), then a teacher-astronomer (age 7), then a shuttle went boom (age 8), and I thought it might be better to remain on Earth. That said, I do spend a lot of time here as part of my MSci degree:

But yeah. I was a voracious reader from a very young age, and was impressed to learn that people wrote books, and could do that as a living! So at age 10 I wrote my first novel. Currently working on my 20-somethingth novel.

I've written a handful of books, some of which will never see the light of day and some that I believe will do well published, but the Of The Dark series must be my favourite three children.

I wuves 'em soooo much with much muchness!

Chapter Three

"Waitaminnute," you ask. "Didn't you sub that last year for PitchWars?"

Indeed I did. And I'm subbing it again this year because I love it with all the wuvs in the world and I don't have another novel that's sub-ready. I have done some revision. And I really hope I can find an agent who understands how much love and heart and soul and work and everything I've poured into this beautiful little tale, and that it really needs to be shared with the world.

Like Greek myths?  Of The Dark might be for you. It's based off the Adrasteia and Jupiter stories, but I've thrown in a whole bunch of other Greek myth elements, like Jupiter and Juno, Pluto and Proserpina, as well as a few others. If you're familiar with Greek mythology, you will recognise elements here and there.

But I've not set it in Ancient Greece. Instead, I based my secondary worldbuilding from a period of history I know very well: 19th Century America.

I've got a chthonic god and a bewildered maiden and some rather unfinished business. I have men of courage and women of devotion. I have people with secrets and people with agendas. I have a rich tapestry of a village where actions roll out ripples of consequences.

Chapter Four

Is it a sweet little Romance with a neat and tidy HEA?

No.

The vibe is more like this:

Yeah. There's a bit of darkness in the tale. It's not light and fluffy like all my other published stuff. There's coersion. There's death. There's the breakdown of a village. There's mass murder. There's invasions and battles and betrayals and all sorts of knots of woe. Comp authors: Dave Duncan and Emma Hamm. My regular bevy of Regency Romance with Magic fans may or may not enjoy it. My beta readers are going to wet themselves if I can't get this published. Unlike my other works, the two main characters are not kept apart by circumstances, but by each other.  Relationships are not easy. Sometime the biggest hurdle to a happily ever after is one's own self.

Chapter Five

And the plot. I looove the plot!  It's like this:

My beta readers were impressed. They were all...

Yes, you do. I am not afraid to kill off your favourite characters. And those are the ones who got off easy.

I don't Tweet much, having a life and all, but I'll do my best to keep up and make the occasional lame comment. I love the sense of community with PitchWars. 

Fortune smiled upon me when I got into #MenteesHelpingMentees where the lovely Maxym M. Martineau is helping me get my act together-er.  Even if I don't get in to PitchWars, I plan to pay forward this favour to someone.

End Book One

Book Two: Wherein Her Grace manages to finish her #MenteesHelpingMentees revisions, support and cheer her fellow future mentee potentials, and hopes to have something polished enough to win over hearts.

Book Three: Wherein Her Grace gets into PitchWars, impresses a lot of people, and takes the next step in her career.  Or doesn't get into PitchWars and finds another path for the next step in her career. Regardless of what happens, stuff is going to happen, by gum! I simply prefer one path over another at the moment.

Potential follow-on series: Fail to find an agent with Of The Dark, go indie with it, finish this next Regency Romance with Magic book and query/pitch it next year. Sooner or later I shall woo an agent. It is really hard to have written nearly a million words and not get something right.

______________________________

Her Grace would like to reassure you that yes, that's how Aussies play footy. She still remembers a commentator's tossed out line of "It's only a broken jaw. He'll be fine," from the first game she ever watched.

This week's Twitter Pitch Party: #SFFpit

I recently participated in #SFFpit, which is probably one of my favouritest of the TPPs (Twitter Pitch Parties). 

I like it for its simplicity, it's genre specificity, and the fact that there's no limit as to how many pitches an agent/publisher can like. Sure, the next step is to query as one normally would, but it's not a cold query. You're querying an agent who already thinks your Twitter pitch sounds like something they'd be interested in. Also, my odds of making progress seem to be better than the other TPPs or contests I've been subbing to.

During this latest #SFFpit I had an epiphany, possibly because I allowed myself some sleep. (PSA: sleep is one of the greatest tools for triggering the creative mind. Give it a try the next time you're stuck/blocked.)

Then I had another one, and then yet another one.

Epiphany #1: My old query letter was dull, but now I know how to make it better.  

I'd been trying for years to get my query letter for this particular project to work, with little success. When a few agents liked my #SFFpit pitches, I squee'd for a while, then, like any wise professional author, put the news aside and let things process. IOW, I had a weekend off work. Then, when I was doing something else, I thought back to the last project I sold. How did I pitch that, and why did it succeed? 

I realised what I had done right with that query letter, why it had worked, and realised how to apply those points to my new query letter. So I redrafted once more, and sent those off to the kind agents who wanted to see more of my work.

Will it work? Stay tuned.

Epiphany #2: My voice in my project could be tweaked a little more.  Let's wait and see what these agents say before I go tweaking 125K words.

Epiphany #3: Nobody cares how bad your book is if you've got VOICE.

I've been participating in these TPPs for a few years now, and something's been nagging at my spidey senses. I keep seeing people get into these contests that offer mentorships or other structured feedback. Often I'll follow along long after I failed to get in to see what it was people saw in these hopeful works. 

All too often I'd read blogs from both sides talking about how much work a book needed to bring it up to scratch before it was ready to go before an agent. They talk about how they needed to do global revisions on a plot, how the characters needed lots of work to round them out, and all sorts of stuff. They practically make it sound like these books, which they thought were far superior to the others in the contest, were nowhere near ready.

And I'm wondering, if these books needed so much work, why on earth did you think they were "ready" to be chosen? 

And I realised. They chose them because they had voice.  And that was it.

I'm wondering if that's entirely fair.

What I would like to see is a TPP where hopefuls can offer their submissions and the worst pitches are chosen through several rounds of traige, and the authors offered the help they so desperately need to lift their craft.  (No, I'm not going to run it because I don't have the time, the Name, or the connexions to make it successful.)

Epiphany #4:  My current publishing path is currently the correct one for my needs now.

As well as agents, a few small presses also liked my pitches. While I'm primarily looking for an agent at the moment, I thought it worth due diligence to research these small presses. Learned a lot.

TL;DR: there was nothing any of these pitched small presses could offer me that I couldn't do with indie publishing, except move the cost of production from my pocket to theirs.  

For some, that might be worth it. But as I've gone hybrid, I've seen both sides, and unless these small presses are able to give me the marketing support my current Romance small press offers me (and most of them didn't look like it), I'm not seeing much value in shifting production costs to them, for what I'm getting in return.

~*~

I'd  L O V E  for an agent to pick up this particular project. It's been near and dear to my heart and I want to see it get the best chance out in the world. Right now, I feel an agent would give it that best chance. If no one wants it, then I may consider self-publishing, for I (and my beta readers) do believe this is worth releasing on the world.

________________________________

Her Grace does learn much from these TPPs, even if she never gets selected.

When Writing Takes a Back Seat to Love

The last quilt I made.

For the past week, my writing word count has been exactly - 0 -.

That's right, a big old goose egg, and I'm not ashamed.

Instead I've been helping my daughter with a really big project. See, her best friend's turning sixteen next week, and having an absolutely big old blowout Sweet Sixteen Ball to celebrate. Best Friend is one of those lovely young ladies who's pretty, intelligent, thoughtful and creative--the sort of person you always want to know. I'm glad she's in my daughter's life.

Because her upcoming birthday is a Big Deal, I suggested to my daughter we give her something that said Love. I suggested we make her a quilt. Nothing says love more than spending hours hand-making something for someone, especially if much thought is put into the project.

If anyone ever gives you something handmade, like a crocheted afghan, a knitted scarf, a quilt, or anything that took them hours and days to make, recognise the time and love they put into the project, all the time thinking of you.

In one of my other lives, I quilt. Many creative people have more than one creative outlet. We're Creators. We can't help it. In the past my daughter has helped me make quilts. Now, I'm helping her.

She asked her Best Friend what kind of colours she liked, and then we went fabric shopping  until we found a fine Japanese Lawn that had the right feel to it. We considered different kinds of blocks, but settled on a Hexagon Kaleidoscope because they're easy and pretty. While I would  normally be writing, I've been helping her fussy-cut isosceles triangles, doing the initial layout and stitching together so many, many little triangular blocks. We don't have time to properly quilt the finished product, so we're going to tie it once we get it on the frames.

We have to be finished by Saturday. I've been documenting her process, so as soon as we are finished, I'll post pics and results.

_________________________________
Her Grace encourages anyone who feels a little sad to go make something. The act of creation lifts the human spirit.

Tuesday's Tale - Manspreading

Trains were quieter at 2pm, just after the lunch rush, but before students escaped from school for the day.  Two cars down held a mother with several noisy toddlers. Next car over had three commuters, engrossed in their phones.

This car, besides myself, enjoyed the silence of emptiness, until Aubin Grove cursed us with another passenger.

I did not care to know his name, nor desired any further acquaintance. Yet he insisted on sitting next to me--to me!--in the  middle of an empty train car. No decent person did that. The rule was that if you were not the only person in a public space, it was up to you and everyone else to fill up the space as evenly as possible. Strangers did not cluster together.

He was not a decent person. He even manspread, as if he'd forgotten to dry his balls completely this morning after his shower and had to let them air out, lest they develop a nasty condition.

I gave him The Look. You know the one. We all communicate with strangers with The Look. Dude, you're in my space, my eyes said.

He knew what I was saying. He glanced at me, then looked away, clearly dismissing me.

I knew that cut. Men did it all the time. It was an admonishment, that if I didn't like what he was doing, then I could move.

No way. I was here first.

I leaned over. "Dude, you're sitting in Mike's spot." I looked around as if afraid of being overheard.

That got me another glance and a sneer. With my finger I began counting invisible spots on his shirtsleeve. "Mike doesn't like people sitting in his spot. That's why I sat here, to the side."

Now I got his full attention.

Four, five, six, I silently mouthed as I counted my way up his sleeve. He pulled his arm away, but I kept counting. It wasn't until I got to twelve, that I paused. "See, Mike sits there, Barney is on the other side."  I pointed across the train. "Darren and Karen are over there, but they never argue, and Wilson keeps his own company over here." I gestured to my other side. "Anywhere else is safe to sit."

I resumed my counting of invisible dots on his sleeve. Even when he moved away, I leaned over until I reached twelve.  Then I started again at one.

Sure enough, he got up and moved, not to another seat, but out of the car completely.

That's right, dude. My brand of crazy outranks your brand of assholery.

_____________________________
Her Grace can now go back to working on her novel.

Didn't get into #pg70pit

Nope, didn't get into #pg70pit (aka #70pit17) either.

Surely my work isn't THAT bad, is it?

Could be.

Doesn't help when people attempt to "comfort" me by telling me Harry Potter was rejected twelve times before Bloomsbury picked up up.

Oh, only a mere twelve times? I've got a spreadsheet listing more than ten times that in rejection for Of The Dark, many of them form rejections. I do take a bit of professional reassurance that I don't have any of the scathing rejections that some authors get. Any personalised rejections I do get, especially from full requests, say nice things. I get a lot of "I like it, and you're really good at [x], but I'm afraid it's not quite right for my list."

This is the sort of feedback that drives an author to drink self-publish.

___________________________
Her Grace is considering the indie route with OTD, and possibly going straight to Victoria Arden for snagging an agent.

A Clarification of Definitions

So I'm throwing my hat into a three-ring circus this month with all the pitch contests.  One consistent quality is that each entrant has to define their genre.  Always useful.

I'm pitching a Fantasy Romance, but not every contest has #FR as a category. Do I cringe and stick a #PR tag on it, or do I be true to the novel and double-tag it with #F and #R?  I've been doing the latter, because Of The Dark, despite it's magic, is definitely NOT a Paranormal Romance.

There is a difference between Paranormal Romance and Fantasy Romance.

• Paranormal Romance is a real world with a layer of magic over it. 
• Fantasy Romance is a fantasy world (sometimes a second world, alternate reality or otherworld) with magic in it.

If you take all the magical stuff out of your world, and left everything else behind, how would your Romance be categorised?  If you remove the vampires and the shifters et al., you'd be left with a contemporary Romance. Take magic out of a Fantasy Romance, you've still got a Fantasy Romance.

I can't call an otherworld Fantasy Romance a "Paranormal", because there's no "normal" to para.

______________________________
Her Grace finds these contests fun, but doesn't eschew the Original Contest of sending a query to an agent the old-fashioned way.