It’s been a while since I’ve last checked in and I wanted to share some truly awesome news!
I last posted about entering Pitch Wars, an online contest where aspiring writers can submit their completed, unpublished manuscripts for a two-month mentorship. Well, I’ve had some good news since – I’ve been picked as a mentee by the fabulous writer Joanna Hathaway!! (By the way, check out her gorgeous website and her debut book, Dark of the West, which is up for pre-order!) READ MORE
This post is part of the #PimpMyBio blog hop for Pitch Wars, a contest by author Brenda Drake where aspiring writers can submit their completed, unpublished manuscripts for a two-month mentorship. Can we get a huge round of applause for Brenda for hosting Pitch Wars and for Lana Pattinson for hosting the #PimpMyBio blog hop? This is all so amazing! (By the way, Lana, I would totally talk booze, books and Scotland with you any day!).
This is my first time entering Pitch Wars and I’m super excited and nervous about this opportunity to connect with the writing community online! I’ve been a lone wolf writer for a long time and I’m really looking forward to making friends, meeting some writer buddies and hopefully some CPs too! Please come connect with me!
Who am I? (AKA am I animal, vegetable or mineral?) READ MORE
Write Through It.
This is the revision tip I’m sharing as part of #pwsummersplash right now, which is also part of #pitchwars!
So what does ‘write through it’ mean? READ MORE
We’ve enjoyed a warm and sunny start to the winter in Perth, but now things are starting to get real chilly! What better time then to settle in on the sofa with a rug, a good book and a heartwarming bowl of homemade pumpkin soup?
I don’t think I’ve ever cooked pumpkin soup before. Pumpkins scare me – I’m terrible at cutting them up (read: total weakling, so much so that even the strength of a whole pumpkin defeats me. Pumpkin=1 Maz=0). But pumpkin soup is so delish and I was really craving some homemade soup the other day so I decided to give it a go. READ MORE
Today’s Conversation features a fellow Australian writer!
I first came across Margot McGovern via her blog, Lectito. This site is a gem for readers, writers and anyone who loves books in general. Here, you can find book reviews, author interviews and writing how-tos, and even a little feature I love called Meet the Bookstagrammers. Bookstagrammers are some of the warmest, loveliest community of readers/writers out there and I love finding more accounts to follow from Margot’s blog!
And as if being a book reviewer and owner of a successful blog wasn’t enough, Margot has just recently signed with Penguin Random House to publish her debut book, a YA novel titled Neverland! How cool is that? I’m so excited and can’t wait to check out the book when it’s out.
In the meantime, Margot has been kind enough to take some time out to have a conversation with The Salonniere’s Apartments about reading, writing and blogging. Find out more below…. READ MORE
This week is all about authors whose books I cannot put down!
As you can tell, I’m a huge fan of the Golden Age of detective fiction and I’ve been loving the new releases of lesser-known detective authors from the era, particularly the British Library Crime Classics collection. Now in the midst of searching for some new BLCC authors to come across, I’ve had the pleasure of discovering Molly Thynne and her amateur sleuth Dr Constantine. READ MORE
I first heard of SL Huang when Tor Books announced they had picked up the North American rights to her thriller series Russell’s Attic. (Up till now, Huang had opted to self-publish her books, citing her disillusionment with the US copyright laws and her desire to make her work available on Creative Commons). Intrigued, I clicked on her website and found that she’s not only a great writer, she’s also a hell of an interesting individual in her own right – for example, not only is she an MIT graduate with a degree in math, she’s also a Hollywood stuntwoman and a firearms expert who has worked with actors like Danny Glover and Jason Momoa! How cool is that?
Also cool is her Russell’s Attic series featuring Cas Russell, a woman whose superhero power is that she’s really, really good at math. READ MORE
It’s a known fact that most writers overwrite – and especially most newbie writers overwrite. I fully admit I’m one of those – I never have to worry about meeting a word quota, more that I’ll run way over it!
Now I adore big books as much as the next person does, but when it comes to writing I have to be super disciplined with myself. I’ve had stories rejected before because they were way too long. As I’ve previously mentioned, good, strong, concise writing always packs a punch, more so than flowery, descriptive passages. And when you manuscript starts running well over 10,000 words, that’s when you know it’s time to get the pruning shears out.
So how do we kill our darlings? Let us count the ways. READ MORE
I’ll be honest, I’ve been slacking off on blog prep for the last couple of weeks, mainly because I’ve been so consumed with the current WIP I’ve been working on. After a short dry spell where I just didn’t know where the story was going and I just wasn’t feeling it, I’ve suddenly (finally!) caught on fire and I’ve just been eager to write, write, write.
On the one hand, it’s good. It’s really good. Oh so very, very, very good to have my writing mojo on – there is nothing like the feeling in the world.
On the other hand, now that I’ve caught on fire, I don’t want to waste this elusive spark and so all I want to do is write. Which isn’t good for all my other life activities.
I just finished the first draft on the weekend and now I’m deep in the first editing round. So I thought it would be timely to share a blog post on the how-tos of editing a novel. READ MORE
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