Ain’t Love Grand – Romance Australia 2016 conference highlights

For the last four days, I was lucky enough to attend the Romance Australia 2016 conference, Ain’t Love Grand. It was my third conference and probably the most fun!

Below is a Storify wrap-up of my Twitter feed from the weekend, filled with notable quotes, and as someone else told me, lots of impressive cleavage! My writing group pals in the Melbourne Romance Writers Guild (MRWG) were all brilliant as usual, and also looking particularly fabulous…

View the story “Rocking the Romance Writers of Australia 2016 conference #RWAus16” on Storify

Super-dooper highlights

On Friday, the Michael Hague Story Mastery workshop was gold, right from the start. Michael is a Hollywood screenwriting consultant, having worked with the likes of Will Smith on finessing a script. His focus on romantic comedies was right up my alley, and I think I’ll gain a lot of inspiration from that session into the future.

Friday night was the cabaret-themed cocktail party. It was a hoot, and of course it was special to me, as I received my First Sale ribbon, acknowledging that 2016 was the year my first novel was published. My debut novel, Girl on a Plane, was only released about a month ago by Avon Maze/HarperCollins UK, so it’s still exciting and new to be an official author. I found time to chat with other authors and fangirl like a boss!

The morning after the night before was all a bit hard…but once I found real coffee and got going, I enjoyed some fab workshops and also brainstormed some new story ideas with some friends.

Then Saturday night was the big gala awards dinner in the Stamford Grand ballroom. I still can’t quite express how excited I was for my writing group friends who were up for big awards. Samara Parish and Jess Devine were Highly Commended in the Valerie Parv Award, and Chris Weston from the MRWG won! Also Stefanie London was Skyping from Canada, watching the announcement of the short, sexy romance category in which she was a finalist. Well done to all!

The biggest news from the awards was the WIN by MRWG’s own Michelle Somers, in the RuBY Award (Romantic Book of the Year) for her romantic suspense novel, Lethal In Love. Our table erupted into hooting and hollering, even from the ladies phoning it in via Skype. Super-dooper mega congratulations Michelle!

Later we danced the night away, busting out some 80s moves and even a shimmy-shake like my own flight attendant heroine, Sinead. This was on special request from Vanessa Carnevale, otherwise I wouldn’t have done it, because I’m such a shrinking violet on the dance floor… 😉

Sunday was more relaxed, but I have to mention the fantasticly funny and inspirational keynote speech from Fiona McIntosh. She challenged us all to work hard, write like it’s a job (it is), bum in seat and come and get her on the bestseller lists. It’s on!

Now the Ain’t Love Grand conference is over, I feel inspired to finish my manuscript (dubbed the Neverending Story) and get onto something new and fresh. Happy writing everyone!

Blog tour excitement as Girl on a Plane takes flight

A blog tour…what is that, you may ask? Well, it’s like a whistle-stop tour of other people’s blogs, popping in to say ‘hi’ and telling them about yourself and your book. I’ve already been doing a bit of blog-hopping and you can find some of my recent guest posts on my links page.

Blog tour August 2016

Now I’m super excited to share the news that my fabulous publisher, Avon Maze/HarperCollins UK had organised a blog tour for my debut novel, Girl on a Plane.

Some high-profile UK book bloggers are having me as a guest on their sites this week, chatting about writing, creativity, story setting, the inspiration behind my book and more.

The tour schedule so far is:

10 August – This Chick Reads

Excerpt – New day, new blog tour! Today I have the pleasure to kick off Cassandra O’Leary’s blog tour for her debut, GIRL ON A PLANE. It was published last month and is described as a sassy and sexy read perfect for fans of rom com. Of course, this includes me and I will be reviewing it soon, so stay tuned for that. In the mean time, I’d like to welcome lovely Cassandra to This Chick Reads and thank her for the amazing blog post…

11 August – Book-Central Book Shelf

Excerpt – Interview with Cassandra O’Leary, author of Girl on a Plane. So, what have you written?
So far, I’ve written two complete novels and several partials (in the ‘ideas file’) and a few short stories…

12 August – Is This Real Life?

Excerpt – What it’s like to be an author. I know a lot of you who read my blog love books as much as I do and one of the things I love to read is the sort of ‘behind the scences’ of some of my favourite books…

13 August – On My Bookshelf

Excerpt – Hi guys, and happy Saturday! And welcome to the “short and sweet” blog tour for Cassandra O’Leary’s new novel – is it a bird? Is it a plane? – it’s “Girl on a Plane”! Just sit back and join me on board… and check all the other plane… I mean, blog tour, stops!

More news

I also hope to pop-in to see a couple more bloggers later in August…details to be confirmed.

You can also follow me on Twitter and on my Facebook author page to keep up to date with my latest news and guest posts or just say hello and I’m sure to have a chat. I really enjoy procrastinating…I mean, socialising on social media.

And don’t forget to join my newsletter mailing list to keep up to date with my writing and other happenings. Just fill-in the sign-up form on this website!

Hint: I’m planning a special giveaway coming up soon, so don’t forget to subscribe.

More news soon!

Romance reading binge: it’s not fattening

I can feel myself falling into the abyss again. No, no need for alarm, it’s not an emergency (although I do have a penchant for emergency services type uniforms on tall, dark and handsome young men). I have just fallen into a romance reading binge once again. As per the title, it’s not fattening, so why not?

I started the year by reading Easy by Tammara Webber. This was a touching, young adult read about a college student and the dating scene that can sometimes be fraught with danger. The college student world that the author depicted was quite realistic, down to the detail of kegger parties and consuming copious amounts of coffee to stay awake for early lectures. But without revealing a spoiler, the heroine learns a few tough lessons about trusting so-called friends and falling into relationships based on what is easy, rather than right. Highly recommended reading.

I’ve also been reading a couple of Australian women authors, in preparation for the 2014 Australian Women Writers challenge. I’ll work on writing a couple of reviews in the next few weeks.

Then on a visit to Big W today I decided to buy myself a little present. The romance shelf was calling me with her siren song…buy me, buy me. I can’t wait to get started soon. Harlequin Mills & Boon, what fun. Ally Blake is a great Aussie author too.

Yes, I’m Tempted to Write

Today is deadline day. For the last two weeks I’ve been writing like some sort of romance-ninja hepped up on caffeine as part of the #TemptedToWrite short story competition run by Mills & Boon (Harlequin Books). This competition presented a challenge and I’d already decided to try to challenge myself with my writing this year. So I jumped in and got started. 10 questions, 10 days, 10,000 words. The competition ran from January to early February, in the lead up to Valentine’s Day. I could do that, sure I could. Hmmm.

It had been many years since I’d written a short story and once I got started, of course I found the experience quite different than writing my two unpublished novels. I’m very much a novice at the plotting and scheming side of fiction writing. I’ve discovered that I’m a ‘pantser’ i.e. I like to write by the seat of my pants. Usually, a bright and shiny new idea will come to me while I’m doing something mundane like brushing my teeth and then I try to work out if the story has legs.

Anyway, I soon discovered that the short story form presents some challenges, especially in the romance genre. Could my two characters really fall in love in only 10,000 words? I hoped I could convey some meaningful interaction between them and of course some heat (otherwise known as sexy times) in the course of a short story. I hope I’ve succeeded. In any case, it was a really great exercise for me as a writer, to answer so many questions about the characters, their motivations and what they would do in various situations, before I actually started to write the first scene. I don’t know that I will ever be a hardcore ‘plotter’ but this competition has helped me to find a happy medium and to think about key scenes and story length.

I also loved the social media aspect of this competition, forming an online community of like-minded (aspiring) romance authors. Much of the competition was run via Facebook and Twitter.

The #TemptedToWrite competition run by Mills & Boon.

It’s been a real pleasure to virtually chat to the other participants, have a laugh and share each other’s pain in editing. I hope everyone else in the competition enjoyed it as much as I did.

I’m thinking of posting a snippet of my story on this blog soon. In the meantime though, I just wanted to rant a little and also say thanks to Mills & Boon for running such a great competition for aspiring authors. Bravo!

Finalist in First Kiss writing contest

I had some exciting news on Easter Sunday night. I received a phone call from a contest organiser from the Romance Writers of Australia association, letting me know that I am a top 6 finalist in the First Kiss writing competition. Hooray! I was so excited I was fit to burst (I still am actually).

What is this contest, I hear you ask?

Well, it is an opportunity for unpublished writers like me, writing novels in the romance genre (or writing romantic elements stories) to submit a 1500 word scene for review by a panel of expert judges, including bestselling authors. The scene needed to include the first kiss between the main characters.

What is this novel of which I speak? Glad you asked that too.

Some of you might remember my earlier babbling here and on social media about the NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) competition. I started writing a novel in November 2013 and although I didn’t finish it, I managed to write 35,000 in a month. I was off to a good start. I wrote a little more over the next couple of months, but the manuscript is still incomplete.

It’s a chick-lit or romantic comedy style novel, set in Melbourne with a bunch of wacky characters and possibly some superheroes. I can’t tell you too much…you’ll just have to read it someday if it’s ever published.

I decided to edit and polish my 1500 word scene for the contest and submit, just for the opportunity for the judges’ feedback and score sheets. I never expected to be listed as a finalist, but I did it! I was so very excited to see my name on ‘up in lights’ on the finalist list.

The final round will be judged over the next 4-6 weeks by a literary agent in New York. Wish me luck!

Banging out the words and writing like a pro

So it’s been a while since my last post. Because reasons. Life. Kids. Work. Winter. I mean, blergh, I’ve succumbed to quite a few germs lately. But in between all of that, I’ve been working on a couple of projects that I’m quietly excited about. Yay! Maybe not so quiet.

Romance books – love writing them like a crazy person

First, I’ve written a short story of about 9000 words that should be published in a couple of months’ time in an anthology. More news on this development very soon. And a cover reveal coming. Squee!

The other project is a full-length novel that I’ve almost completed drafting. It’s a contemporary romance with humour. I recently entered the first three chapters of this manuscript in the Valerie Parv Award, a well regarded contest for unpublished writers of romance fiction run by Romance Writers of Australia. The competition was fierce, but I was thrilled to receive not one, but two perfect scores from the judges and another score in the 90 per cents… Not bad, and eighth place was better than a kick in the pants.

I’ve been busily writing away, adding words, completing scenes, bringing the plot together in some sane order (I hope) and it’s been such fun. I’m enjoying this project so much. Hopefully, I might find a publisher who enjoys it too.

More news coming very soon. I promise. Really.

Finalist in the Lone Star contest! Yee-ha!

I’ve been sitting on this news for a week, so I’m super-pleased to announce that I’m a 2015 finalist in the Lone Star writing contest, run by the Northwest Houston Romance Writers of America. That’s my name in the Contemporary Series category.

Yee-ha! Since it’s a Texas contest, let’s throw our cowboy hats in the air to celebrate.

Yee-ha! Cowboy hat in the air.

Now I can finally breathe out. At least until the winner is due to be announced in a few weeks at the Lone Star conference. Then I’ll probably be hyperventilating on this side of the world via Facebook. No, just kidding. I’ll be away for the weekend at a holiday house by the beach with barely any internet connection. BITING MY NAILS.

You know that feeling when you’re buzzing with energy but your brain is so scatty you can’t concentrate on anything? That’s what I’ve been dealing with lately. I’ve actually been trying to edit two separate pieces of writing so it’s been a bit difficult.

But it’s been a fantastic experience to enter a US contest and find that the story I’ve been working on is well-received by reader-judges in America. Their comments have been insightful and helpful, especially as I’m still editing.

My almost complete manuscript, Dating Little Miss Perfect, was the piece I entered in this contest. It’s a fun story about Eden, a research scientist and Brandon, a marketing manager at a big pharmaceutical company in San Diego, California. They are competitors by day, and anonymous online dating partners by night. But what happens when Brandon finds out it’s Eden he’s been chatting to? You’ll just have to wait until it’s published to find out!

In the meantime, here’s my Dating Little Miss Perfect inspiration board on Pinterest if you want to see some pretty images (especially the images of my current hero muse, actor Jensen Ackles from Supernatural) and general story ideas.

By the way, I still have some other exciting writing news that’s burning a hole in my brain, but that news will have to wait until another day. Don’t you just love a cliffhanger?