I have finished editing The Interloper this week, and was surprised to find it wasn't as bad as I expected. Some areas, I suppose, were arguably worse than I expected, but the overall product wasn't too bad. I managed to write most of it in a term too. I now have four completely new works sitting on my computer from the last fourteen months - and they will likely chill there a while, because the publishing business takes a long time. But they're there just in case. Because after all, who knows what I will try to get published after The Fledgling Account is finished?

In the meantime, it's just about the end of term. That in itself is rather exciting. I'm looking forward to the break. We're also heading over to Australia, which will be - I am quite certain - amazing. Australia has always been connected in my mind with some idyllic passage of childhood. I absolutely adored it over there. It does help that the temperature is whole lot more livable there as well. I'm not a fan of living this close to Antarctica. 

It could be worse, I suppose. Stewart Island must be pretty freezing.

I'm tossing up in my mind what to work on next - whether I should edit an old project or write something completely new again. Writing something completely new that isn't part of a series is actually quite enjoyable. A series is incredibly hard work. I look back and can't remember how I had the patience to write seven books in the same series. But then, I only feel that way because I entirely depleted my patience doing it. 

​Anyway, in the next week I shall decide what to do. 

My other exciting bit of news on the book front is that I've nearly finished reading Dombey and Son. It's a nine hundred page tome, and I'm at about page 790. It's getting very interesting now, which is good - because in all honesty, it did take about one hundred and fifty pages to become interesting at the start. It's all about a rich business man who has his heart set on gaining a son to take over his wealth when he is gone. His only son dies young, and he treats his daughter like the scum of the earth. In fact, it takes nine hundred pages, I believe, for him to learn to love his daughter for who she is. 

Some say Dickens is melodramatic. But I think he actually has a pretty good understanding of human nature. It can take us the equivalent of nine hundred pages to see past the ends of our own noses as well.

Until next time!

Just finished bathing the dog, which was (as always) an interesting and rather wet experience. She is now running about the lounge like a maniac, shaking repeatedly and trying to get the process of evaporation to move at a faster rate. I've left her to it and decided to write about the package I got this week. Sadly, it did not contain the other two books I was waiting for - apparently they have been delayed for last minute corrections. Oh well. I suppose they will be great when they arrive then.

But I did get The Sianian Wolf in the post. The courier man was so scared of our scary dog sign that he threw the package over the fence instead of coming in and putting it somewhere logical. I like how our scary dog sign keeps the sales people out. But it is kind of annoying how The Sianian Wolf got thrown over a fence because our Beware of the Dog sign, which really is only advising protection against a three kilo hairball (otherwise known as a Yorkshire Terrier). 

Anyhow, I have taken pictures, and I'm pretty excited about it. The new cover seems more striking than the old one - although I liked the old one very much (it was my favourite out of the first edition books). And the matte finish is actually very sophisticated - more so than gloss, which has the potential to look somewhat hackneyed. It also feels like a rather solid book - a bit fatter than the other one, because it was printed in munken creme paper, which seems to have a higher GSM. Anyway, I'm using all these random printing terms, so I'll just write a rather unofficial set of definitions.

Glossary

Matte - the covers that aren't shiny
Gloss - the covers that are shiny
Munken creme - an off-white type of paper that feels nice and looks good
GSM - the thickness or weight of paper

Sadly, the paperback isn't available for purchase yet (unless you want to buy a first edition copy for an outrageous price), but it should be in the process of clearing. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the above photos and the below humorous contrast. 

This week has been a mainly editing week. I've been filled with feverish anticipation every time I come home from work, but there has been no box on the doorstep with my printed copies of The Sianian Wolf, Servant of the King, and The Fourth Runi yet. This week, perhaps.

In the meantime, I've been editing The Interloper. My own creative writing students have been working on short stories this term. One of them wrote an absolutely fearsome story about a slime man that will probably give me nightmares for the next month. At the moment, they're all working on short stories of their own choice. Watching their work on google docs and checking my own has reminded me that how a sentence works is not necessarily common knowledge.

I had the rare privilege of learning sentence structure during the time I was home schooled. Truth to be told, however, I probably would have read about it somewhere else if I hadn't in my grammar books, as I simply loved to read books about writing books as a child. I probably read more books about writing than actual story books between the ages of eleven and fourteen. I would get out quite a number of them from the library in Pukekohe. And so it came to be that I possessed this treasured knowledge:

A sentence equals

a subject + a verb + a complement

The subject is what the sentence is about. The verb shows them doing something or being something. The complement brings the sentence to the logical conclusion. There can be variations on this. You might get a sentence that is:

subject + subject +verb + complement

Or:

subject + subject + verb +verb + complement

Or:

subject + verb + verb + complement.

This doesn't even begin to cover how complex complements themselves can be. All this is to say that when one of my students writes "As twins John and Lisa."  this does not qualify as a sentence. As twins John and Lisa... what? Also, phrases like "somewhere out there in space", "falling, falling through the sky", and "just like leaves die" do not qualify as sentences on multiple accounts and should not be fitted with a full stop until they have been adjusted. Unless you're already a pro, and you're using fragments for stylistic effect... Just like I did back there.

My main problem with sentences these days is how to make them flow better - and how to insert parallel structure into them. For instance, I tend to write:

Maud considered the options, which included being burnt alive, a military group attacking her, and death in a prison cell.

In this case, the military group should go. Or it should become:

Maud considered the options, which included being burnt alive, being attacked by the military, or dying in a prison cell.

In this case, the options all follow an "ending in ing" format, which is more pleasing to the eye and ear.

Anyway, in summary - sentence structure is complicated.

Besides pontificating about sentence structure, I've also been pontificating about double glazing. My husband and I have made the decision to double glaze the glass of our house. I do wish I were in Australia again. Christchurch is very cold already at this time of year. But the double glazing should help with warmth (it shan't help our wallets much!), although it shall render the place a lot more noisy for teaching and writing from home.

Well, that's all for now. Until next time!

This week while I was working at West Melton School, I had the privilege of meeting James Norcliffe, a fellow New Zealand writer - although he's a lot further along in his career than me, having published at least fifteen books, probably more. He was giving a writer's talk to the year fives and sixes that day, so once I had finished teaching creative writing, I and my students slipped into the back of the talk to hear him finish speaking.

Afterward, I had to leave the room directly after him because I had to teach a student singing. At this point, I said:

"Good morning. Great talk! You edited a book I was published in."

"Oh yes. Which was that?"

"Fishing for Birds."

"Oh right."

"I now write fantasy. I have four books published. Thank you for all you did with Fishing for Birds back when I was sixteen."

"Oh, yes. Ah, what's your name?"

I told him, and then we parted ways, I to teach singing and he probably to go home and write. He is in his seventies now, I believe, and is largely retired from the daily grind of full-time work and more freed up to write than most of us will be for a while.

While the conversation above may look mundane, it was actually perhaps one of the nicest meetings I've had with a fellow author. Normally authors are a bit like lone wolves. And they can get extremely passive aggressive if your path happens to cross theirs. I have had meetings with authors before in which authors thirty years my senior have made it very clear they don't like me. I wouldn't blame them. I wouldn't like a twenty-four year old author much either, if I were them.

But the fact of the matter is, we all write. We all struggle to earn something from it. We have all fought to get our ideas and voices heard. This should make us comrades rather than enemies. 

I guess the truth of the matter is, authors are nicest to each other over the internet. In real life, we're not always that interested in interacting. After all, we're authors - not socialites. 

It was great to have a brief interaction with James Norcliffe. I hope I'll still be writing in my seventies. It's easy to get disillusioned if you start young. Most people think it's brilliant to start young and get published at twenty-two. And to some extent, it is. But there's also the reality that you begin with the high hopes of the young and discover the grim reality of writing and publishing a bit sooner than you might have otherwise. Additionally, those who start older are probably more cynical already. They don't expect to get much recognition for it. For them, it is about being able to speak and express themselves. After forty or fifty years on this earth, they see the wisdom of that and understand that it is an achievement in itself.

Sometimes I diminish that achievement. At my age, everyone will tell you it's about getting money and making a life for yourself. Writing doesn't do that. But it does enable you to create, reflecting the image of our Creator. It enables you to express eternal realities, truths that will stand the test of time, whether others hear about them from you or someone else. It enables you to speak. And that is powerful in itself.

I have heard this week that the paperbacks of my books are very nearly there - the delay on Amazon's end is just about over. The holds on The Sianian Wolf are in the process of being lifted (which means they have now decided some illegal is not taking place, which of course we've been telling them all along) and once they are, my copies of the next three paperbacks in the series will be shipped to me. Trust me, when this happens, I will blog about it in ecstasy. 

I've just now finished another book. I wrote 14,000 words this week, because I was right at the end anyway, and it was exciting to write the climax. That's always the easiest and yet most agonising part of the book to write. The book has clocked in at 82,000 words, which isn't too long or too short. I shall put in chapter headings and edit it in the next little while. It will be interesting to see if it's actually worth reading.

I'll put it this way - if you like conspiracy theories and moments where you question if your life is a lie, you will like this book. If you don't, you'll absolutely hate it. It posits that large portions of the official 9/11 story are untrue. But I can get away with this, because the novel is in the paranormal/urban fantasy genre. A supernatural being who is able to appear as a human (but isn't actually) is charged by her people to spy on the humans. Her particular post is in Lower Manhattan. However, she is cut to the heart by the lies she sees with regards to large scale events and seeks to expose the truth. The book is called The Interloper, because the end result is that she doesn't really fit anywhere... and she is, of course, intruding where she isn't wanted. Much like a bright light shining itself into a room where darkness is preferred... or a policeman entering the building of several drug-dealers. The idea behind the story is that without help from outside of ourselves, humans can never rise above their own corruption. 
I have no idea if the story is any good or not. I'll have to read back through it. I may discover it is utter trash and hide myself in embarrassment. In talking about 9/11, it does deal in parts with a very sensitive topic. And I may not have done that all that well.

It was interesting researching Lower Manhattan - looking at all the google earth street views. Google earth is, of course, brilliant - and slightly creepy. For a good summary of how the average person views google earth, I recommend the following Michael McIntyre YouTube clip.

Naturally, it isn't the same as being there. But I quite honestly wouldn't like to go there. I'm quite happy where I am. I spent some time making coffee before I finished writing the book, and it reminded me how comfortable things can be in your own home, with your own coffee liqueur and your own coffee machine. (There was a sad moment where I discovered in the fridge old milk in the coffee machine jug that had solidified into a mustard-coloured jelly mass, but apart from that, the experience of making fancy coffee was pleasant.)

I include these pictures to show you that it is impossible to write without adequate sustenance (e.g, coffee with a pinch of alcohol). 

It's another week of the term down, and another 10,000 words later - and a great many antibiotics later. I'm now into the weekend and feeling slightly more human than I was last week. I had put off going to the doctor for about a month, but when I saw my grandparents and realised that I probably looked somewhat insane to them not going, I decided it might be worth a trip. Let's hope the recovery is permanent and not temporary.

I'm pleased to report that paperbacks for books two, three, and four of the series are underway - despite all appearances - however, Amazon does not appear to like second editions released by a second publisher, no matter how legitimate the paperwork that we've shown them is. Hence, Amazon's review process is what is causing length delays in this department. It does not appear that I'll have the seven books out before my twenty-fifth birthday as I at first wished. However, when I think about it, that seems inconsequential, as I originally thought I would not even have written all seven books by that time. And I have. So I've already met the largest part of the goal.

Once my husband asked me if I ever got depressed over how hard I worked and how slow things move in the publishing world - how it seems that much of your work will go unseen till your dying day and so on. It was a depressing question (though kindly meant) and it got me thinking.

The other week, we met some missionaries from Spain. They have been working for five years and have only had one convert in that time. You can imagine how discouraging that is. Especially if you happen to have the most extraordinary revelation in all the universe in your hands (the Bible), and no one wants a bar of it. That's quite often the case in this life. The strangest things (the things you are least likely to believe or want to believe are true) are in fact reality, and the things that you have accepted for decades and never questioned are swathed in unreality and corrupt agendas. However, unreality is more popular than truth, and corrupt agendas taste sweeter than wisdom. It has been that way since the serpent told Eve that the forbidden fruit would make her wiser than God. 

Anyhow, upon hearing about these missionaries, I was reminded somewhat of the author's life - the futility one can experience. And I was also reminded that sometimes when you set out on a mission, the very first person to change is you. However ridiculous it sounds, writing has done me a great deal of good. It has helped me to understand the world a little better. It has enabled me to empathize with people in situations that I may never find myself in. It has been a survival tool, a fashioner for character development in my own life. It has taught me perseverance and patience. It has beaten me into a humbler person. 

So I trust the process. I understand that I may be dead for two hundred years before anyone truly enjoys my books and I gain a huge readership. I understand that even that may never happen. But I have written stories that had to be told. And I know that they have done my heart good. My pupils, my friends, my relatives have all experienced the me that came out on the other end of a seven book series. And it is a chastened me, a me that is a little older and wiser. In me, they have met my story. So in a sense, anyone who has spoken to me is a reader.

And writing isn't really that futile after all. 

So don't expect a calling to be glamorous, and don't expect to have one hundred percent success in each mission you undertake. But do expect change. And it will be, someway, somehow, for the better.

It's pleasant to see my fourth book come out in ebook form again this week, and I'm looking forward to when I can announce the paperbacks. In the meantime, I've been writing a paranormal novel, but I normally don't talk too much about it, because you don't want to talk out your ideas before you've allowed your passion to carry you to the end of the book. I should to be so clandestine about my writing that I labelled every book document Odds and Ends, simply because I never knew if I would reach the end of the book or not.

I could write a few odd and ends about my own life at the moment - some interesting day to day escapades, if you take my meaning. For instance, on Waitangi Day here in New Zealand, our neighbours had an outdoor meal with their pizza oven. And the next day, the ashes caught fire and burned through our other neighbour's fence. Does it sound nasty that I'm grateful it didn't come through ours? We have a grass compost heap directly where it would have made its path, and we are the only wooden house in the direct vicinity. It might not have ended so well for us. Our less fortunate neighbour borrowed a hose and squatted there in his bed wear, spraying the happy flames with water until the firetruck came.

Quite close to this incident, I locked myself out of the house. And as I really am stupid enough not to have a spare key, I put the dog (which I had been walking) in the run and then walked around the house alternately phoning my husband, panicking, and trying to break in via a means that would not unnecessarily destroy part of our house. In the end, I figured out a way to get in. It was surprisingly easy, and now I'm concerned anyone could burgle our house. I am employing extra stringent measures which will mean the next time I lock myself out of the house, I will be stuck for good until my husband comes home, and any private singing teaching will have to commence outside in the backyard. Great look.

Teaching music and creative writing has been good so far this year, although I've been sick for a month now, ever since swimming in South Island waters, which I think I will never do again (the only exceptions will be the hot pools at Hamner Springs). I've moved from a hacking cough to a full-blown sinus infection that deprived me of sleep most of last night. 

Nevertheless, there are many good things in life at the moment, including eager students. One even sent me an interesting computer generated image of a Naztwai from one of my books. (Naztwai are killer beasts bred by the sorcerer the Lashki Mirah). It's not bad!

I've also managed to write 10,000 words this week, but I shan't do more today. It's Saturday and I'm sick, which means I will be in bed... not the worst fate for a Saturday, I suppose.

Until next time! 

Over the weekend, I had the pleasure of seeing my fourth book's second edition become available in the ebook format. It's my pleasure also to do a cover reveal, with much thanks to my wonderful illustrators Ruth Germon and Tristan Fisher. 

With this cover, we went with a focus on the mountains, because throughout the fourth book - as my husband has told me before - they simply seem to spend a lifetime in the mountains. But don't worry - the main characters get attacked a few times, discover a palace in the side of the mountain, develop some new abilities, become slightly more mature people, and kind of raise somebody from the dead. And then there are sections on either side of the book where they are not in the mountains. But because they are in the mountains for a decent period of time, we've put them on this cover - with some lightning, as you may notice, because many supernatural things happen amid these peaks.

Lastly, the colour blue was a nice touch, as the Lashki's kesmal - his own special brand of sorcery - is blue too. 

Anyway, now for a better teaser of the book. I hope that you enjoy reading it. And I guarantee that you will hate mountains by the time you have finished. And you will probably be against premature marriages as well. Available at Amazon today!

Rafen clasped the hem of his shirt, thinking desperately. He could get out of this if he got rid of the phoenix feather. If he lost it, burnt it, gave it away…

At last, Rafen learns what his phoenix feather means. Facing impossible tasks – and the growing power of Nazt – he gives into his desires for Etana. Meanwhile, the Lashki plans to feed him to Nazt. Will Rafen wake soon enough?

It feels strange that we are already in February 2018, because I feel like I'm still "waking up" for the year, if you get what I mean. You know when you get up in the morning, and it takes you till midday to feel mildly human, even after a sleep in? It's that kind of feeling. The holidays are the sleep in, and I get a rather long set of them because I work in schools. That said, I have been busy, and I have written 20,000 words on a new paranormal project over the past two weeks. Still, it feels strange to be checking that everything is still starting up when you feel like you're only just starting up.

Nevertheless, that's what I've been doing - I've been making sure students are ready to start up and I've been checking in with my publisher to see what is going on. I recall that on this blog I mentioned that book four would be coming out before Christmas. This was the original plan, but what with one thing and another, it has been delayed. I suppose this is natural with a "soft release" (a book release that doesn't have an official release date, but rather a general target), as opposed to a "hard release" (a book release that has a release date set in stone). Still, I have heard this past week that book four will be releasing on the 15th of February, American time. This will mean that it is available here on the 16th of February, God willing. That's kind of exciting, as the 16th of the second month (Ki Zion in Siana) is Rafen's birthday. So with all things going well, book four the second edition should appear on Amazon on Rafen's birthday. The paperback will appear probably a week or two after the ebook, as is fairly standard.

And second edition paperbacks are due to appear on Amazon at the end of the month, with all things going well. Hence, I should have some copies of The Sianian Wolf, Servant of the King, and The Fourth Runi in their second editions soon. When I do, I will post pictures and rave and be all excited.

In the meantime, I have an interesting announcement about Rafen, book one, up my sleeve, that will help make it more accessible to readers. I'll save that one for another day, but stay tuned.

It is a hard life being an author. I was reminded of that when I received nine sample copies of Rafen from Paul Greenburg's partner this week in the post. I paid to print these sample copies in NZ so that Paul could pass them around bookstore owners, who would hopefully agree to stock them in stores after that, when a bigger print run would occur. However, with Paul's death the end of that journey is summarised by nine beautiful Rafen copies sitting in my lounge, probably never to be used. A great shame, but at least I got further this time than I did with my previous publisher - this time, I was allowed to print some of my own books in my own country. Maybe in another five years, I'll be able to get them in stores in my own country. However, by that time the ebook market here may finally be big enough to render that far less lucrative, meaning I might be putting all my effort into items selling through online stores instead! 

One thing I've learned through this process is that no one ever knows what the book market is going to do. Well, what can I say? "Luck, be a lady tonight!"

So I've been away on holiday, which is always a pleasant state of affairs. My husband and I went up north and spent some time in Hamilton and the Bay of Islands. For those of you who aren't familiar with New Zealand, the Bay of Islands is highly recommended as a holiday spot. My husband's family own a house on one of the islands there, and we are able to actually live on an island for a few days. I greatly enjoyed kayaking about the coastline. It was rather peaceful. 

Then we went a long way south with my husband's uncle, all the way to Waimate (a less well-known holiday spot, but the wallabies and the junk shops there are rather striking). And I took my first dip in the freezing cold waters of the South Island of New Zealand at Kakanui. 

After all that holidaying around, I thought I would get back to work. I'm afraid that my book distributor here in New Zealand has been very unwell. I was working with the intrepid Paul Greenburg, who was going to help me get my books in the bookstores of my home country. Owner of Greene Phoenix Marketing, Paul became ill after we signed our agreement together. He notified me in July that he had terminal cancer. By November, he was very sick yet insisted that he would carry on doing our work. I dropped off contact with him deliberately after this time, aware he had gone into hospice. When I phoned his partner in January, I found out that he passed away in early December. She is in the heartbreaking process of tying up all the loose ends relating to his work now. I'm sure every book in the house must remind her of the literary adventure she shared with him. I'm sure it must hurt terribly. And he will be missed by many authors - I'm sure of that too.

Greene Phoenix Marketing was probably the only book distributor in New Zealand that would take on a fantasy fiction project like mine. New Zealand is a very small book market - so small its two biggest publishers (Penguin and Random House) had to combine so that they did not collapse entirely. The last I heard, they release between eight to ten books a year. My previous publisher used to release that many in two months or under. That should give you an idea of how few books are selling over here.

Fantasy is not a big seller in New Zealand. Cook books, the odd thriller, adult colouring books, and Diary of a Wimpy Kid books are probably the biggest sellers in our biggest stores. Hence, while my publishing journey continues, my journey getting my physical books into stores in my home country seems to have come to a close - I hope temporarily, but cannot tell. 

Though this saddens me, my loss is not as great as the loss Paul's partner is suffering. I will always keep writing and keep working on my books. But it does seem that I must now embrace the online world a little more where my books are available from several platforms.

And who knows what a new year will bring?