Christmas was quiet, with family here for lunch and then friends for dinner. Our little grandson didn’t know which present to open first, and of course when he’d opened them all and played with them, like all little kids he asked if there were more? He obviously thought Christmas was a day of non-stop presents

WriteFest, the Bundaberg writers festival I organise, is looming closer and although the line-up includes an editor presenting a masterclass, an industry professional presenting a media workshop, and an author presenting two workshops, I’m still chasing another one, or maybe two, authors. But I’ve been extremely lucky to have had two lovely editors from Harper Collins Publishers Australia agree to come to WriteFest to conduct editor-writer interviews with aspiring writers. This is particularly fantastic as Harper Collins is no longer accepting unsolicited manuscripts so this is a wonderful opportunity for writers to get their work in front of an editor.

Between organising WriteFest and family stuff time is whizzing past. Have to keep my fingers glued to the keyboard so I can finish MM&M.

Gotta go …

How did it get to be two weeks before Christmas? Like most people I know, I’m asking where did 2009 go? I wish I could say I spent most of it writing, but unfortunately life kept interfering. I have, however, made progress with MM&M and am happy with the way the story is going.

Most writers will admit that there comes a point in the story where the characters take over, or try to. Usually I let them because they often know where the story is going better than I do. At the moment Ellie has surprised me because she’s created a scenario that allows readers to understand her a bit more, and relate to what she’s going through.

Our little grandson helped me erect and decorate our Christmas tree last weekend. Kids make Christmas so much more enjoyable, don’t they. If only we could feel that same innocent sense of excitement throughout our lives. Unfortunately, life rarely pans out like that, and perhaps that’s why the plot for MM&M keeps taking me on twisted paths and exciting discoveries – it’s emulating life.

What do you readers wish for for Christmas?

After two weeks with the flu and then a wisdom tooth extraction (hated to lose that one – I need all the wisdom I can get ) I finally feel well enough to continue writing Murder, Mayhem & Menopause.

It’s interesting how characters take on a life the author didn’t have planned for them. In MM&M one of the characters, Kandy, was only going to be a friend who occasionally joined the two main characters, Ellie and Cass, but somehow she’s morphed into a major character rather than a minor one. Kandy might think she’s fine with the way she lives her life, but there’s a shock in store for her.

Ellie’s life, on the other hand, isn’t fine. Her marriage break-up, having to find a job, and going to live with her youngest daughter hurtle her into a life very different to what she’s previously known. And then there’s the body she discovers … And the cop who makes her think there’s hope for a fifty-one-year-old woman trying to cope with menopause on top of everything else.

Funny, but whenever I type the book title, I get this craving for chocolate …

October is turning out to be a hectic month, with our writers club involved in the CRUSH Arts and Cultural Festival. Check out www.creativeregions.com.au if you want to find out more about the festival. Our little group gathered in the Central Business District pavillion and offered ourselves to the whims and fancies of the passing public. Well, we actually offered our creative talents, but as writing is hardly a spectator event, we had to at least appear interesting enough to catch the attention of passersby so we could offer them a limerick, a poem, or a short prose piece to suit a special occasion.

To our surprise, we were approached by several people who were “writers in secret” and pleased to see that more like them existed.

It’s a funny game, this writing. Unlike an artist or sculptor or photographer who can display their work for dozens if not hundreds of people to see (and critique) at one time, a writer needs to get his or her work published in order to get feedback on it from “the public”. And unlike a painting, a statue or a photograph, a manuscript can’t be wrapped in colourful paper as a present for granny at Christmas. Well, it could, but it might not be greeted with much enthusiasm. You can always donate an unwanted painting to the Sallies, but only the recycle bin will welcome a rejected manuscript.

Writers write for many reasons, but I know why I do it. Because I HAVE to. The characters won’t leave me alone. The story keeps tumbling around in my head, demanding to be written. The thrill when a story flows from my mind, through my fingers, to the computer screen is unparalleled. I feel more alive, and I enter my created world as though I’m part of it. But when the writing doesn’t flow, when each word feels like it’s been pulled from my brain with pliers, I wonder why I give in to this attraction writing has for me. But deep down I know – it is the urge to create … and I can’t deny it because it is a part of me. Such a big part.

When writing about murder, I always consider who it affects. Not just the family, friends and associates of the victim, but those people who find the victim, their families, the police who have to try to catch the killer – all those touched by the ripples created by that terrible act.

So in Murder, Mayhem & Menopause (MM&M), the women’s fiction I am currently writing, it’s interesting to see how Ellie, Cass and Kandy react when they are drawn into the aftermath of a murder. They don’t know the victim, but her death brings changes to their lives in a way they would never have imagined.

Everything from murder, romance and sex to cooking, politics and the environment was covered at the recent Brisbane Writers Festival. I drove there with some writer friends, met more writer friends, caught up with my agent, talked WriteFest with Kate Eltham, CEO of the Queensland Writers Centre, and attended some fantastic sessions with Australian and overseas authors. If you’re a reader or a writer and live within travelling distance to Brisbane, mark September on your calendar and go every year for four fantastic days of literary feasting.

The coral has spawned! I can’t see it from my office window because the ocean is just a blue strip at the end of the paddock, but when I walked down to the beach there it was – metres-wide ribbons of brown cutting lazy curves into the deep blue water for many kilometres. It’s amazing to see, but the smell is putrid, and it leaves a soft, murky sludge on the sand. Stops a lot of swimmers from going in the water, but I think that’s a minor inconvenience when you consider that the fabulous coral of the Great Barrier Reef is regenerating. I’m very lucky – I can walk down to the rock pools not far from here and see some beautiful corals, and I don’t even have to get wet!

Summer is calling, enticing me with its siren song of sea and sand, but I’m resisting, keeping my fingers on the keyboard and gluing my rear to the office chair. Ah, the sacrifices one makes to get a story written …

I had a great time at the RWA national conference in Brisbane attending interesting and informative tutorials, meeting up with old friends and making new ones, and being inspired by the cameraderie and enthusiasm of the writers there.

Because I had spare time when I arrived on the Thursday, I caught a City Cat ferry to New Farm Park and did a bit of research there for MM&M. New Farm is one of the oldest parts of Brisbane and home to the Powerhouse, which was Brisbane’s original source of electric power. It’s been transformed into an arts and cultural hub, with theatres, conference venues and restaurants. Films, live theatre, music performances – you name, you’ll find it there. The park itself is a wonderful place for families, with rolling lawns, huge trees, and a fantastic children’s playground.

More ideas for the book flooded in as I walked around the park. Place can be very important in a story, and visiting locations allows you to write about them with authenticity and feeling. My books are set in locations as diverse as the modern metropolis of Sydney and Carnarvon Gorge in Queensland, an ancient place that vibrates with the spirits of the people who first trod its rugged wilderness many many centuries ago.

I’d love to know if readers think location is important in the books they read.

Tomorrow I fly to Brisbane for the Romance Writers of Australia National Conference. For anyone interested in learning more about writing, the RWA offers a wealth of knowledge in their monthly magazine and in the workshops and tutorials at the conference. Romance writers are a generous, supportive lot, and only too willing to share their experience to help other writers.

“Romance” covers a wide range of writing, from the category romance of Harlequin Mills & Boon and Silhouette to mainstream single title books, as well as a  multitude of sub-genres – suspense, historical, fantasy, paranormal, etc.

Readers often define romance in different ways. Category romance focuses on the evolving love between the two main characters. Mainstream romance can vary from a full-on love story to a suspense story with the focus on the crime and the love between the two main characters interwoven with this. My books sit in the latter group.

On a little aside, have you noticed that booksellers and reviewers never describe romance books written by men as “romance” but call them “love stories” or just “mainstream fiction”? Think about Nicholas Sparks’ books – if they’d been written by a woman, they would have been labelled “romance”, wouldn’t they?

I’m really looking forward to catching up with friends and making new ones at the conference. My readers probably won’t be surprised to learn that the tutorials I will be attending are “Peddling Poisons and Dealing Drugs”, “Crime Control from Counter Terrorism to Search and Rescue” and “Exploring the F-Words – Fight, Flight, Freeze”. I’m hoping to learn some technical info for book eight. This book will be a deviation from my last three, (starting with Dangerous Deception) in that I will no longer be writing about the men involved with The Agency. In book seven, Grievous Harm, the traitor is finally revealed, but that person’s actions have terrible consequences for John Corey and Kate Maclaren.

Number eight in my romantic suspense books (or should that be “suspense books with a love story” <says she with a wry grin>) is stewing in my subconscious at the moment. Every time I read an article I think Ican use or see something in real life or on television that could be slotted into the story, I store it in my brain or that more reliable receptacle, my Work In Progress folder.

In the meantime, I’m continuing with my women’s fiction book. It has an odd title so I won’t share it yet, but just give it WIP title of MM&M. It’s a delight but also a frustration to write as the characters are taking off on their own flight paths and I’m constantly surprised by where they want to go. And there’s a dishy cop …

Mental slap! Get focussed woman! Daydreaming about dishy cops won’t get the book written. And the suitcase packed.

When my mother discovered that the motto on my father’s family crest was I have fought and conquered she was surprised. With the family’s tendency to have no idea of time, she thought it should be Late but in earnest.

As kids, we didn’t live far from school, but we were always the ones rushing in as the bell rang. When we worked in the city, we were the ones racing down the railway station stairs as the train pulled in, hoping the guard would delay signalling the driver to start again long enough for us to pile into the train so we wouldn’t be late for work.

So it comes as no surprise to me to discover how quickly time has been flying by, and with it all my good intentions about up-dating my website. But now it’s done, and I hope readers like the new look.

In July, book six, Fatal Flaw, was published by my German publisher, Bastei Luebbe, as Der Sturm der Ruche, and I’m thrilled to see it has already achieved a four out of five star rating on Amazon.de. I have my fingers crossed that Luebbe will contract my seventh manuscript, Grievous Harm. For those readers who have already read Der Sturm der Ruche I hope you have enjoyed it, and if you noticed a minor character named John Corey, you’ll be able to find him as the main character in Grievous Harm when it’s (hopefully) published.

Book eight is bubbling away in my subconscious at the moment, but taking precedence in my writing day is a women’s fiction book that has three women in their late forties/early fifties getting involved in murder and proving that courage, tenacity and living life to the full has nothing to do with age. I’m sure a lot of women, young and old, will relate to what these characters have to deal with.

A lot of people Downunder celebrate Christmas in July because that’s when we have our winter and we can happily indulge in all those warm goodies people in the northern hemisphere take for granted at Yuletide. So, if I continue that analogy, we’ll now be celebrating New Year, and so I will make a resolution to keep this blog humming.

Cross fingers for me, friends.