Well, how was the solar storm over the weekend? I was lucky enough to have friends with clear view in Hobart who sent glorious aurora photos. It remains on my bucket list as something I want to experience first-hand.
It’s been a week of banging out a lot of words. A lot of ugly and awkward first draft words — but at least one chapter stands out from the rest. I really do write trauma with beauty and lyricism (and a strange kind of ease?).
I hope I’m able to thread that through the rest of the novel when I return later this year for the second draft.
I am now in the final six(ish) chapters. There is a (probably unrealistic goal) of finishing the novel this weekend. Not that I am in a hurry to be done with Jack and Lucy, but more so that the second novel — the characters are already jumping up and down for my attention.
I was laughing today at the commonalities between this novel and the last. They both have a makeover moments. Both novels have a wedding toward there end. Both novels things go south very quickly after that wedding (my main characters are attendees, not the focus of the nuptials). No one dies in this novel though … well not during the run time of the novel.
It will be good to be back writing about other things once the novel is done. And to sit with clients again.
Today’s first page share from my legacy collection This Once Precious Life is Kissed by the Sun. Back in the day, it was the longest story I had written. It appeared in the Ticonderoga anthology Dead Red Heart and it was my first Australian publication. It was a big deal, because it had the biggest names in Australian horror at the time.
It was inspired by the 90’s amphetamine chicks in Fortitude Valley, questions of how would vampires emmigrate to Australia and why would they come to one of the sunniest places on the planet (especially my home state of Queensland), the movie Daybreakers and the sheer chaos which is Schoolies on the gold coast (and what happened to a friend years ago when he found himself, a guy in his late 30’s accidentally on holidays during Schoolies).
If you’d like to read ahead (or read all the way to the end) you can hit the button below to access online options, including my favourite, Kobo, and Apple’s darling, iBooks.
Thanks for reading (and hopefully listening/watching).
May the big astro that’s still left to play out this week be al lin your favour.
PS: this is what one looks like after three hours sleep and writing 6500 words in the last day and a bit!