WritingUpdates
Okay, so who is the Tropical Dragon really?
I was born in the UK, youngest of four, and grew up in a village which, when I left for Australia in 1973 was 30 miles north of London. I have been reliably informed since then by one of my sisters who still lives in the same village, that it is now only 26 miles north of London.
Two of my sisters remain in the UK and make semi-regular visits out here. The other, the one I came out here to join, lives in Sydney and she gets to see me on occasion; in fact she's seen me twice in 2006 - quite a surprise! She also saw me in April 2005 when I flew from Cairns to Sydney to see my favourite band. Okay, I did have a wedding to attend as well, but my friends took pity on me and timed their nuptials for a convenient date so I’d only have to make one trip. Thanks Eneit and Gelf!
I am married to a wonderful man who puts up with my eccentricities (see Music and Writing) and eats the food I cook without a murmur. Seriously, he reckons my shepherd’s pie is the absolute best, plus he is still alive so my cooking can’t be THAT bad!
This is my second marriage – during my first I lived in Sydney then moved to Kangaroo Valley in southern NSW to live on a farm on top of a mountain. I learned how to milk a cow and not panic when a very large carpet snake came to investigate. I raised two orphaned wombats to adulthood – I still have fond memories of sitting in the kitchen at 3am with the older wombat gently sucking on my big toe while I bottle-fed the little one who fitted in the palm of my hand. Those two little ones were a godsend as it was during my first marriage I found I was unable to have children without considerable surgical intervention. As I had already been hacked into many times in my younger life and do not recover easily from anaesthesia, I made the decision to remain childless.
I also discovered the beauty of the Australian bush – and saw the Black Panther that allegedly roams the Valley.
Then first hubby and I parted company and I moved down the mountain into Nowra where I met my present darling. He shares my appreciation of all things Star Trek, even to the point of having a Klingon phrase engraved inside his wedding ring. From there we moved to Canberra and in 2002 made the sea-change decision to move to Cairns.
I spend my Sunday afternoons watching the V8 Supercars – I’d love to do a few laps of Mount Panorama with Mark Skaife or Craig Lowndes at the wheel. Hubby likes doing fast things up in the air – I prefer to be at ground level, he can have his fighter jet flights, give me a V8 any day! I also do cross-stitch embroidery and needlepoint, but not while watching the V8s or I could end up with some very interesting pieces!
Other than my husband there are two important parts of my life. One is the title of this page, minus the (my). Any serious Moody Blues fan should have picked that up in an instant. If you didn’t you should be forced to listen to … ummm… let me think… Who could possibly be a suitable punishment for not recognising a very good song (and a very luscious video clip too)? Britney Spears maybe? The Wiggles?
The other important part? Eneit and Gelf, two of my fellow purple-zoners. The “purple-zone” as it is affectionately known is really Voyageronline.com.au (www.voyageronline.com.au). Voyager is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers and puts out a large proportion of the fantasy novels you can find in any good bookstore. Or any bookstore for that matter. Authors such as Jennifer Fallon, Trudi Canavan, Karen Miller, Glenda Larke and Russell Kirkpatrick – all five haunt the purple zone and produce some darned fine reading material. And of course there’s: Traci Harding, Tony Shillitoe, Anne Bishop, Simon Brown, Simon Haynes (go Hal SpaceJock!), Fiona McIntosh, Robin Hobb… I could go on for a long time and these are just some of the Voyager authors I’ve read, met, and chat with regularly.
Why? Because when I’m not chasing feral punctuation for other people I’m writing my own stuff. Fantasy, dragons (naturally), swords and sorcery, good guys and bad guys, and because I’m an incurable romantic – lots of romance. I haven’t had anything big published yet - check out the updates page for news of my first published piece - but I’m working very hard on it. In fact, I’ve included a couple of extracts here, illustrated with some paintings done by a talented lady from the USA called Candace Bell.
When I first thought of the name for my business I googled the name Tropical Dragon. The first hit was this painting, called Tropical Dragon Night:
Candace’s website is www.candacebell.com – go check it out. She has some beautiful work displayed and also does sculpture. She very kindly gave me permission to use this and two other paintings to illustrate the extracts from The Mandragon Chronicles (now retitled The Dragon's Tail). Thank you, Candace.
So that’s me. The music-lover who writes books for a passion and adores wombats and dragons.
